Re: The trouble with *h3

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, enlil@... wrote:

> Well, in English, we have the case of "what", sometimes pronounced
> with voiceless initial "w" and sometimes with plain ol' "w" as in
> my own dialect. Voicing has affected all instances of "wh" in my
> speech so they are merged with normal voiced "w" but has not

affected

> the velar-stop-equivalent like "kw". I still say "queen"

not "gueen".

>
> Likewise, I could see *hW, with weak rounding, being prone, as in

Eng.,

> to being voiced. However, without merging to full blown *w (which

would

> require more rounding effort, btw), the only thing *hW could do is
> impart its dying rounding quality to the neighbouring vowel. Since
> *w on the other hand is strongly rounded, the distinction between it
> and a neighbouring vowel would be more distinct and easier to

seperate.

That makes sense.

> So just as "what" [hW^t] becomes [w^t], *hWer- becomes *or- without
> there being similar voicing or rounding with *kW or other like
> phonemes.

However, I don't see any analogy with English if the labialisation is
original. /w/ also rounds in Standard English cf. 'swan', 'wasp',
and I'm not aware of /hw/ or /W/ voicing anything but itself.
Another parallel to PIE *h3 might be the development of back yogh in
Middle English, though that seems to have produced /w/ or diphthongs
(as well as /f/, which is not relevant to the immediate issue).
However, I can't think of any examples of that causing anything else
to be voiced.

> Basically, once the "h"-element in *hW disappears, what
> does the weak rounding have to anchor itself to but the neighbouring
> vowel?

And this does make sense.

Richard.