Re: [tied] *kW- "?"

And here are my short notices on the subject.

----- Original Message -----
From: "glen gordon" <glengordon01@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 3:51 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] *kW- "?"


>> Palatalized velars are attested (almost) directly
>> by it's fricative/africate reflexes,
>
> No. **Satem** languages only attest to _*c^_! Aside
> from violating markedness, palatal **k^ is not in any
> single IE language at all.

But palatal g^ is - Sanskrit "j" is nothing more but palatal g^.

> While *q may equally be
> unattested directly, it does not violate markedness.
> In fact, what few languages truly have a palatalized
> velar stop in the first place?
>
> Logic still favours *k-*q-*kW over *k^-*k-*kW.
>
>
> = gLeN

If we assumed that the a-colorizing effect is a piece of evidence for uvular
q (btw. q should be termed uvular of course, not postvelar, see the IPA
terminology), we would probably do wrong. Of course, I can be wrong, but
please, give me ONE example of such a colorizing effect.

Inversely, "clear" velars have the same place of articulation like "a" - and
the a-colorizing effect should be expected as caused by a velar, NOT a
uvular. Prevelars (or palatals) "tend" to "e", while uvulars to "o" rather
than "a".

Please analyse (spoken) Arabic facts as well. But "e" is in fact the neutral
colour of the "a" vowel. At the same time, both "k" and "g" are palatalized
(or: fronted) in Arabic in some degree (classical Arabic pronunciation has
the palatoalveolar affricate g^ in the plece of g but the Egyptian dialect
still preserves velar g even if slightly palatalized). Arabic does know
uvulars (the voiceless stop q, the voiceless spirant X = h with an arch
below, and the voiced spirant G = top-dotted g) and those three Arabic
uvulars do not cause a-colorizing! I see virtually no reason for assume that
the things were different in PIE.

Instead, Arabic has a bunch of phonemes which ARE a-colorizing but they are
not uvulars at all. They are pharyngeals instead: h. (bottom-dotted h) and $
(inversed apostrophe). Moreover, (bottom-dotted) t., s., d. and z. are
a-colorizing as well but they are "glottalized" sounds (in fact, velarized
and pharyngealized). Notice also the well-known God's name ?Allah (? =
glottal stop) spoken with a and with velarized and glottalized l. I repeat:
velarized or/and pharyngealized, NOT "uvularized". Btw. - velarization seems
to be enough for a-colorizing for the reason discussed above ("k" and "a"
has the same place of articulation).

And, one thing more. We should regard not only "*k, *q, *kW" (or *k^, *k,
*kW) but also *g^, *g, *gW and *g^h, *gh, *gWh. Let's take your proposal *g,
*G, *GW etc. Do you know a single language with stable voiced uvular stops
which would not change into spirants? And, as far as I know, we really do
not know a single example of the change *G > *G. (voiced uvular spirant,
inversed R in IPA, or top-dotted g in Arabic) within the IE family, and we
SHOULD expect it. And especially *Gh seems to be especially unstable for me.
Do you know a single process of the type *Gh > *G. in the IE family? So, the
lack of spirantization is a very strong argument against supposing that *k,
*g, *gh were uvulars in PIE.

I am pretty sure that even if uvulars existed in early PIE, they developed
into spirants (*H) or into the gottal stop (cf. q > ? in Egyptian Arabic,
like in ?elb < qalbun "heart", with no the a-colorizing effect of course).
Perhaps in few instances uvulars merged with velars but I do not think it
was a very common process and I do not think it led to the a-colorizing.
Which is more, such velars < uvulars could have been of all three rows, *K^,
*K and *KW. Examples:

1) Eng. quick (<cuic) - but Sanskr. ji:va and Latin vi:vus < PIE *GWiGWo-
(GW =
labialized uvular)

2) Old Saxon muggia, OHG mucke 'a fly' - but Greek myia, mya < PIE *muq-
(cf.
also Slavic muxa < *mouqa:)

3) Old Saxon naco - but Greek naus, Sanskrit nau- 'boat' < PIE *naGu-

4) Old English ta:cor, OHG zeihhur, Arm. taigr - but Greek da:e:r, Slavic
de^verI 'brother-in-law' < PIE *daiG-

5) Latin costa 'rip', Slavic kostI 'bone' - but Greek osteon 'bone', Latin
os 'bone', Slavic ostI 'fish-bone', Hittite haStai < PIE *qost-

6) (Old) Prussian suckis, Greek ikhthys - but Lith. z^uvis 'fish', Slavic
zUveno 'slice of fish' < *dhg^huq-

7) Latin facio - but Engl. do < *dhVq-

8) Slavic koza 'goat', Alb. keth, kedhi (> ON kith, Eng. kid, Germ. kitz(e),
borrowed, with the suspected hesitation of th ~ d ~ t (>tz)), Old English
hae:cen 'kid', Goth. hakuls 'coat' - but Slavic azIno "goat's skin", Greek
aix, gen. aigos, Sanskr. aja- 'he-goat', Lith. oz^ys < *qag^- (is Greek -i-
the trace of palatalization?)

[btw. Arab. $anzatun 'goat', Akad. enzu, ezzu, azzatu - but also Akad.
Xazzatu seem to be related with IE (borrowing?) and seem to have analogical
variation; cf. also Tatar. käjä, Chuv. kac^aga 'goat']


Resuming, I do not agree that IE "neutral" *k < *q, and, which is more, I
assume that there were uvulars in PIE for real but they were not developed
into *k and left traces in hesitation of the type null (laryngeal) ~ velar
(of any row). In other words, we should seek for PIE uvulars elsewhere but
not within "neutral" velars.

Grzegorz J.



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