--- Miguel Carrasquer <
mcv@...> wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 06:52:31 -0700 (PDT), Sean
> Whalen
> <stlatos@...> wrote:
> >--- Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
> >
> >> On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 02:20:29 -0700 (PDT), Sean
> >> Whalen
> >> <stlatos@...> wrote:
> >
> >> >C-sonorant-continuant > -aspirate / _ C-aspirate
> 2
> >>
> >> What is the use of this one?
> >
> > It doesn't change anything for this set of rules
> >considered all at once but it's likely a long time
> >passed between this and the next relevant rule.
>
> That doesn't make it less unnecessary.
>
> > At the stage it takes place there would be a
> >distinction between voiceless, voiced, and voiced
> >aspirated. The aspirates would devoice before
> >voiceless
>
> Creating a fourth category?
No, in my theory these rules operate immediately
one after the other.
>
> >and then deaspirate (bhranghtas>bhrankhtas>
> >bhranktas) so the distinctions would become erased
> >before the unmarked series.
>
> In a system without voiceless aspirates (without
> distinction
> between voiceless aspirates and non-aspirates), /gh/
> would
> have been devoiced to /k/ by a single rule.
After reading this I don't understand what you were
originally criticizing. Do you mean I should have
used one rule like:
C > -voice-aspirate / _ C-voice (-aspirate unmarked)
I think that in describing a reconstruction the
rules should be separated as much as possible for ease
of understanding, to show the intermediate stages
which might be needed in a synchronic analysis, and in
case more evidence causes the need for a change in
one. They can always be combined if necessary to
provide evidence for a theory, etc.
There's also the possibility that the voiceless
aspirates that were allophones of voiceless stops in
PIE survived into this stage of the proto-language.
In usual reconstructions a rule like:
C-voice > -aspirate
would be included since they have the same outcome in
Germanic as the plain voiceless. However, in my
theory voiceless stops become aspirated later so it's
possible the original voiceless stops were retained up
to this point. I have no way of discovering this
through analysis of the Germanic outcomes so I made
rules that work either way.
I also don't know what time period these changes
are from. If the earlier rules occurred in dialects
that would become Proto-Germanic and -Italic, for
example, both rules _would_ be necessary since Italic
didn't aspirate the plain voicelss.
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