David:
>Are uvular sounds universally considered harsher than velars?
Maybe no more than /z/ sounds just as "zingy" to everyone. The
point I make is that perhaps the uvulars were used especially in
IE for words denoting something "vile". This has no bearing on
language universals but rather on the language in question.
In English, we have many expressive words starting with /z-/ even
though it is otherwise a rare initial sound, as Piotr already mentioned
in another thread. Perhaps the same idea then could explain the
incongruence between *(s)kor- & *qer-d- in regards to the initial
stop. It wouldn't be the first time that a word is modified for
expressive purposes.
Another solution is word taboo. We see this in English too. I can
think of a number of word-variant series that show this in action:
shit, shite, shat
ass, arse
hell, heck, aitch-ee-double-hockey-sticks
The latter is where I'm going :)
= gLeN
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