The palatal sham :) (Re: [tied] Re: Albanian (1))

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

> Ah! I see what your argument is!
> -Someone said: /k/ is weird - it must be only on loan words.
> -Someone else said: it can't be, it has a phonetic effect in Latin.
> -You say: that phonetic effect is itself only on loan words.
>
> No wonder I got lost - it's not that I'm stupid. Or not just that

I'm

> stupid.
>
> You then take my three examples (there may be lots more, but let's

use those

> three) and suggest that they were all originally loaned before they

spread

> through the IE languages. Here I get lost again. Because the loan

must

> have been early enough for the IE languages still to be in contact,

we are

> talking of a very early stage in the history of PIE. Any loan

words

> adopted at that start are part of later PIE. So I don't think you

can say

> plain /k/ was not part of PIE.
>

I only have to assume the loans were later than the partial
palatalisation of the 'palatal' velars *k' (which were therefore not
palatal but 'old plains') *kä-/*ka- > *c^e-/*ko- and partial
delabialisation of the labiovelars *kWä-/*kWa- > *ke-/*kWo-, which
meant that velars alternated in paradigms (cf the present Slavic
languages). The new loan didn't, obviously, they stayed *ka-
throughout the paradigm.

Many of the loans I've checked occur in Western IE only. And for
those that don't, at least in the case of loans from Semitic, loans
can have taken place simultaneously both north of the Black Sea and
in Western Europe, if Vennemann is right about his
AfroAsiatic 'Atlantiker'.

Torsten


Torsten