Re[2]: [tied] Re: Bader's article on *-os(y)o

At 7:58:18 PM on Tuesday, May 18, 2004,
enlil@... wrote:

> This article is very significant for this debate on IE:

> http://home.uchicago.edu/~aclyu/papers/Language80.pdf

> The thing that blew my laderhosen right off my body was
> Figure (3). It lists possible conditions in which final
> voicing can arise.

Figure 3 gives sample waveforms of the second [d] in [dad]
'taste' and [da'duni] 'taste.ERG'; which figure or table did
you have in mind? The displayed material on page 74?

> One of the notable possibilities that are predicted by the
> universal "LBC" rule is the option (3c) which theorizes a
> language with "Voice licensed after V and before
> sonorants."

> !!!

> Oh my god! That's IE in a nutshell! Then it says "In
> Lezgian, a Nakh Daghestanian language, final and
> preconsonantal ejectives and voiceless unaspirated
> obstruents are voiced in certain monosyllabic nouns, as
> demonstrated here with acoustic evidence, thus violating
> this major prediction of the LBC approach."

Indeed, a major point of the paper is that it 'undermine[s]
any direct phonetic licensing approach to phonology, such as
LICENSING BY CUE' (i.e., LBC).

> The point is that Lezgian is like IE in that respect and
> option (3c) describes IE well. [...]

> So does IE show voicing of *s before obstruents? Yes! It's
> that pesky *nisdos example again which would be pronounced
> ['nizdoz]! Just like in Lezghian too.

> It therefore doesn't violate anything. The pattern in IE
> is instead _predicted_ by the same rules that you claim
> dismiss it. That's kind of exciting.

But if, as the author of the paper holds, LBC isn't tenable,
why get excited about matching an LBC option?

Brian