Re: [tied] Re: IE Roots

On Fri, 22 Aug 2003 20:44:41 +0000, etherman23 <etherman23@...>
wrote:

>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
>> On Tue, 19 Aug 2003 23:00:46 +0000, etherman23 <etherman23@...>
>> wrote:
>>
>> In the vast majority of cases, three laryngeals (*h1, *h2, *h3)
>> suffice, and there is little disagreement about which roots contain
>> which laryngeal.
>
>Probably because these laryngeals are mechanically inserted into the
>reconstructed forms.

They're not.

>> There are also some unresolved issues relating to the voicing and
>> aspirating effects of laryngeals on neighbouring consonants, and the
>> reflexes of *h3- in Hittite (sometimes h-, sometimes 0-), which I
>> think do point to more than three laryngeals at some stage prior to
>> PIE.
>
>I'd be more likely to accept the laryngeal theory if a solid link
>with PAA could be found

That's unnecessary. There's enough evidence for laryngeals in IE itself.

>Incidentally, are there any known languages which have syllabic
>variants of the laryngeals?

Yes. Carrier, Yi, Tashlhiyt Berber, Bella Coola (the last two even have
syllabic stops).

>> The labialized laryngeals **/hW/, **/?W/, **/xW/ and **/XW/ all
>> give *h3 (o-colouring), but in Hittite we can perhaps distinguish
>> between those that are reflected as h- (**xW, **XW(?)) and as 0-
>> (**hW, **?W, **XW(?)).
>> "Voicing *h3" would reflect earlier **/?W/ (but, alas, there seem
>> to be no cases of "aspirating *h3" as we would expect in the case
>> of **/hW/, **/xW/ or **/XW/).
>
>It seems I've lost count somewhere. How many laryngeals (including
>allophones) would you reconstruct?

As I said, for PIE three. Before that, it's speculative. Proto-Nostratic
probably had both velar and uvular stops (PIE *k^, *g^, *g^h / *k, *g, *gh)
and three contrasting laryngeal settings (aspirated, glottalized and
voiced). So it stands to reason to reconstruct three laryngeal phonemes
reflecting the three laryngeal settings (*h, *? and *¿) and two back
fricatives: one velar and one uvular (*x, *X), for a grand total of 5. In
PIE the first three merged as *h1 (but, since *h1 does not colour the
neighbouring vowel, and has nowhere survived, it's also possible that *h
and *? never merged, except as zero, and that our *h1 should be interpreted
as "/h/ or /?/, we cannot tell which"), the other two as *h2. *h3 came
about as the labialized variant of *h1 and *h2 (all consonants developed
labialized variants, but only *kW, *gW, *ghW and *h3 retained (or gained)
phonemic status by the time of PIE (this is normal: labialization is
stronger on back consonants). *h2 (like the other fricative, *s) may have
had a voiced allophone under specific circumstances.


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...