--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "aquila_grande" <aquila_grande@...>
wrote:
> I think more than 3 laeyngeals seem probable because this fits well
> into the phonological system of early IE. To make the system
> complete, there should be one unvoised and one voised spirant for
> each articulatory place.
>
> You have the following stops: p,ph,bh - t,th,dh - k,kh,gh -kW,kWh,k
>
> In a language with these stop series, the following spirants seem
> very probable f,v - s,z - x,Y - xw,Yw (y denoting velar voised sp.)
>
> In addition the h is a very probable phoneme for languages having
> aspirated stops, and the glottal stop ? complete the picture by
> being the clusile counterpart of h.
>
> f,v did not existe. z may have been there, but fallen together with
> s.
>
> Then we have left these 6 probable spirants and one stop that
should
> have been there: x,Y,xw,Yw,h,?
>
> That is: You have 6 probable sounds that could be the laryngeals
> treated in the theory.
>
I sympathize with that in principle, but do see two objections:
(1) General notions about how systems should be constituted have a
certain value, but do not constitute historical evidence. And reality
is much messier than is often believed. Dutch, for example, has two
rows of stops (p/b, t/d), but many systems have single fricatives (f,
s, x) or, if they do have two rows of fricatives (f/v, s/z etc.) have
limitations on the occurrence of voice with fricatives that have no
counterparts in the stops. It is a system that shouldn't exist, yet
it exist. PIE, too, may well have been at a somewhat unlikely stage
when it disintegrated. (In Slavic studies, Roman Jakobson introduced
the tradition of letting general considerations override specific
evidence. I have called it "the Jakobsonian Fallacy".)
(2) Increasing the number of laryngeals carries certain risks, the
principal one being that things become too easy. The total amount of
Anatolian evidence definitely relevant to the reconstruction of
laryngeals is fairly limited and it is not even very difficult to
posit a number of laryngeals and laryngeal sequences that approaches
the number of distinct forms to be explained. I find it difficult to
be enthusiastic about such a result.
W.