22-01-04 00:40, elmeras2000 wrote:
>> The Satem shift [produced] a new system:
>>
>> *k' *k *kW
>
> [...]
>
> Now, what about the "distributional evidence" here? Wouldn't that be
> the same as with the PIE system? And if that evidence is any good
> should it not be taken seriously here as well showing us that the
> palatals were not palatal? It seems to me you have just refuted
> reality.
Well, no. The system above was short-lived. Even Albanian has merged *k
with *kW everywhere except before front vowels, and all the other Satem
languages have a wholesale merger between the two. That immediately
increases the incidence of *k and makes it more frequent than *k', as
expected.
This kind of reasoning based on distributional evidence is nothing new.
It has been used before to claim that the mediae (with their labial gap)
must have had a "marked" manner of articulation once upon a time. Even
those who don't accept the glottalic hypothesis for PIE are often
willing to accept it for some remoter stage of pre-PIE.
Piotr