Re: [tied] Re: Baltic RUKI etc.

05-01-04 03:12, Miguel Carrasquer wrote:

> That's not the universe I inhabit...

It isn't mine either. Andersen confuses different levels of description:
the language of phonetics with the metalangue of phonological theory.
Markedness isn't, and can't be, a distintive feature, and therefore it
can't cause assimilation or dissimilation. Of course if a feature is
considered "marked", then assimilation with respect to it might appear
to consist in the spread of markedness, but that's just an epiphenomenal
effect mistaken for the real thing.

> I would propose an interpretation of
> the RUKI-rule in articulatory terms: *i/*y and *k^ were palatal, *u/*w and
> *k/*kW velar, *r alveolar. If a sibilant follows a velar, palatal or
> alveolar tongue-setting, it's more convenient to make the sibilant an
> apical rather than a laminal one. This seems to imply that PIE *n was
> dental, not alveolar, and that perhaps *h2/*h3 were post-velar rather than
> velar (by the time of the RUKI-law).

That's very similar to my own understanding of RUKI conditioning.

Piotr