Jens:
>It is accepted as operative before front vowels. Thus, the Luvian
>branch of Anatolian distinguishes palatals and plain velars before
>front vowels. A case in point would be zart- 'heart' vs. kis- 'to
>comb' from *k^erd- and *kes- respectively.
Wait a minute now. Of course it would. That is not in opposition
to the uvular theory at all. Naturally, *k would be easier to palatalize
than *q. However, you'd think that palatal *k's wouldn't undergo
double palatalization so it doesn't make sense why a palatalized
palatal *k should become /z/ while a plain palatal *k doesn't.
How do you pronounce *k^^?? It's not possible.
But all this talk gave me another idea that may or may not blow
people's socks off. Let's say that IE (at say 4500 BCE) had suddenly
spread out a bit, leaving a small easterly group with *[k^ k kW]
(satem), a westerly group with simplified *[k kW]. The group
was still intact enough to evolve together for another 500 years
or so. If the above is true about Luwian, then it would seem that
at least a part of the Anatolian branch had to have been of
the eastern group where *k^ and *k hadn't merged yet. So
Luwian would remedy the situation with partial sibilantizing,
while Hittite, being part of the "centum" side of Anatolian, didn't
need to deal with the phonological implications of *k^.
In this scenario, btw, the idea of *[k q kW] being a _prestage_
of Common IE would apply, and *q would no longer be
imposed on IE itself. Still, everything would suggest that the
fronting of the velar series happened at the last minute in IE's
development.
= gLeN
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