--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:
> (Kurylowicz's identification of Hittite <h(h)> as laryngeal
> reflexes resulted in a spectacular vindication of the laryngeal
> theory). Needless to say, such a personal credo doesn't count as
> an argument.
Unfortunately the Anatolian h(h) doesn't always appear where
predicted. So that's not really spectacular. Kurlyowitz (sp) felt
that there would have to be a fourth laryngeal to account for
Anatolian words where H2 didn't appear. This H4 would have the same
vowel coloring properties as H2 but wasn't preserved in Anatolian.
Likewise it seems to me that you'd have to postulate an H5 to account
for those H3's that don't appear in Anatolian (e.g. PIE *deH3 appears
as Anatolian da). So I can't say I'm impressed by the Anatolian
evidence. Even Lehmann said the Hittite evidence wasn't very strong.