Re: ka and k^a [was: [tied] *kW- "?"]

glen gordon wrote:

> So for example, nominative *neh2s "nose" but
> genitive *nasós "of the nose". Afterall, IE
> phonotactics tell us that there would be an initial
> syllable nasal in the genitive if it were *nh2sos
> and it would be expressed as **n.h2sos instead!
>
> So... *a is needed.

The word must have had an _initial_ laryngeal (index unknown), given the
testimony of Vedic compounds. There's nothing, apart from the colour of
the vowel, to suggest an internal *h2. *h(?)na:s- is, in my opinion, the
optimal reconstruction.

Piotr