Re: [tied] Re: Short and long vowels

----- Original Message -----
From: "etherman23" <etherman23@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2005 11:45 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Short and long vowels


> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...> wrote:
> > At 8:00:54 PM on Monday, July 25, 2005, Patrick Ryan wrote:
>
> > The current dogma among IEists is that palatal and velar
> > articulations were occasioned by the presence of e or o
> > after the consonant --- in spite of the fact that the
> > palatalization or velarization of the consonants persists
> > in other phonetic environments.
> >
> > Examples?
>
> Well I don't know if this is really "current dogma" but one obvious
> counterexample is *ok'to meaning eight.

***
Patrick:

Precisely my point.

However, that would once have been my inclination also; it does seem so
natural.

But what I found was, although dorsals are palatalized by a folowing
Nostratic *e - without exception that I can see - only coronal affricates
show *w (not *W) when they were preceded Nostratic *o, with the probable
exception that dorsal stops from original dorsal nasals seem to show it
also, but this time as *W rather than *w (example, *gWo(:)u-).

What surprised me greatly was that the velarized dorsals (*gW, *kW) showed
up in Sumerian as <s> (/ç/) and <h> (/x/), and in Egyptian as <s> (/ç/) and
<H> (bar-h), (/x/). This supposed Nostratic /ç/ and /x/. This seemed very
UNnatural to me; and I resisted accepting the PIE correspondence until I had
found dozens of examples that substantiated it.

With whatever language the PIE-speakers came into contact, it seems probable
that it did not have dorsal fricatives; and perhaps, this hastened the
demise of, at least, *H (for /h/) as well.

But do not most PIEists still think that Old Indian palatal stops are
brought about by *e-grade forms?