Re: [tied] PIE Stop System

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "P&G" <petegray@...> wrote:

> There have been several attempts to reinterpret the traditional
> three way stop to make it more typologically acceptable. The
> precise system you suggest was put forward by Toby Giffen in 1988.

Thanks, I'll have to check up on that.

A short time ago I had another idea, which also attempted to better
explain the root structure. The idea was that there were 3 series,
each with an allophone. You'd have something like, p~b, ph~bh, b~bh.
With just a couple rules for determining which allophone is used you
could explain all the root structures of the for TVT (where T is a
stop). Unfortunately I couldn't explain the TV and VT roots, which
contain all 4 series. That's still a problem for me, and really any
system with only 3 series.

> Both of them reject the idea that the *dh series could have been
> voiceless. Bomhard rejects the idea of fricatives of any kind.
> Both point out that Pedersen had suggested a system where
> traditional */t d dh/ came from an earlier */d t th/.

For me the problem with the fricatives would be that you'd have
voiced with no unvoiced counterpart which is hardly more acceptable
typologically.

> The trouble is that any three-way system contains an irrelevance.
> If the third series in the traditional */t d dh/ is marked by
> aspiration, voicing is irrelevant - yet voicing has to be
> reconstructed almost everywhere. If the first series in your *th t
> d/ is marked by aspiration, lack of voicing is likewise irrelevant,
> yet we have to reconstruct unvoiced consonant almost everywhere.

I suppose we could have a /t d/ system with nonphonemic aspiration,
and then try to explain how phonemic aspiration arose is Indo-Aryan,
Greek, and Latin. Any takers?