Re: [tied] Re: Who believes what in IE linguistics?

----- Original Message -----

From: Rob

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Friday, February 11, 2005 10:25 AM

Subject: [tied] Re: Who believes what in IE linguistics?

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Christopher Culver
<christopher_culver@......> wrote:

> I'm especially curious as to beliefs on the precise nature of the
> larygeals, who believes h1 was definitely a glottal stop, for    
> example.

I can only point to what I've read so far, which probably isn't much.

Lehmann (1958) (or is it 1952?) puts forth that *h1 was /?/ (a
glottal stop), *h2 was /h/, and *h3 was /¿/ (voiced pharyngeal
fricative).  Gamkrelidze & Ivanov (1995) put forth that *h1 was /h'/
(i.e. a palatalized /h/), *h2 was /h/, and *h3 was /hW/ (i.e. a
labialized /h/).  Glen Gordon suggests that *h1 was /h/, *h2 was /x/
(voiceless velar fricative), and *h3 was /xW/ (labialized /x/).

Those who have speculated on the articulatory properties of the
laryngeals have tried to take into account their effects.  What the
record seems to show is the following: before *accented vowels*, *h2
and *h3 color and adjacent vowel to /a/ and /o/, respectively; and
all of the laryngeals lengthen any preceding vowel.  It's also
important, however, to take into account the nature of PIE vowels,
which can also be discerned by their effects on some adjacent
consonants.  Of course, there are limitations to this, as we mostly
have only written language to rely on.  So, /e/ was a front(ed)
vowel, regardless of its height (between low and mid, it seems),
because it causes further palatalization of the plain velars in
satem dialects (e.g. Skt. -ca 'and' < *-kWe); /o/ was a back(ed)
vowel (regardless of whether it was rounded or not) -- evidence for
this seems to come mainly from (Attic) Greek, where sequences of
*KWo (KW = any labialized velar) became *Po (P = any bilabial), e.g.
pou, poio 'where' < *kWosyo; and /a/ was a central vowel because it
causes no palatalization nor the change of preceding labiovelars to
bilabials in (Attic) Greek (rather, they become plain velars). 
Therefore, it seems likely that the "coloring" laryngeals were such
that could cause a stressed vowel to change (or retain earlier)
frontness/backness.  That is, *h2 likely had a centralizing effect
and *h3 a backing (with or without rounding) effect.  To me, that
suggests that *h2 had a point of articulation more or less central
in the mouth -- a velar fricative /x/, and *h3 had a point of
articulation in the back of the mouth -- a uvular or pharyngeal
fricative.  *h1, on the other hand, did not have any coloring
effect, so it seems likely that it was articulatorily neutral.  /h/
and /?/ seem to be good choices for the articulation of *h1, based
on this evidence.  It may have even been both -- that is, what we
consider to be one phoneme (*h1) may have actually been two, */h/
and */?/, whose later effects were identical.

I hope this helps. :)

- Rob

It really is a circular argument.

 

If an accented vowel precedes *H3, it becomes */o/. How do we know it is *H3? Because the preceding vowel is */o/.

 

Descartes must be rolling over in his grave.

 

 

Patrick



------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
In low income neighborhoods, 84% do not own computers.
At Network for Good, help bridge the Digital Divide!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/EA3HyD/3MnJAA/79vVAA/GP4qlB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->

 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    cybalist-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/