--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "P&G" <petegray@...> wrote:
> >If the laryngeal theory ... I personally reject the theory,
>
> I would be interested to see the grounds on which you reject the
> theory. Even sceptics like Szemerenyi had to admit the existence of
> at least one!
Actually I admit to one (possibly two in pre-Anatolian PIE) because
the evidence points to one (e.g. Armenian h). However I reject the
notion that all vowels are derivable from /e/, that the laryngeal had
a syllabic variant, and that the laryngeal had numerous coloring
qualities. These are all part and parcel of the laryngeal theory.
There are numerous instances in Anatolian where a laryngeal should
exist according to theory but doesn't appear.
Any language can be reconstructed with one vowel and a sufficiently
large number of coefficients sonantiques that disappear while
coloring that vowel. That doesn't mean that all languages have only
one vowel! So we need to have some direct evidence for them. Armenian
and Anatolian provide such evidence for at least one, but no more
than two. And these two branches aren't even all that consistent with
each other, so we may be talking about parallel innovations.