Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:
> Grzegorz Jagodzinski wrote:
>
>> I still see no reason for such an assumption. And, which is more,
>> *k, *g and *gh seem to have been as marginal phonemes as *b in PIE.
>> It is possible that they were present only in loanwords.
>
> Do you mean items like *legH-, *(s)ker-, *kap-, steg-, *kreuh2-, etc.,
> look like borrowings?
No, I just wonder if they were really *k, *g, *gh. As I said, the process of
assibilation in satem languages, esp. outside IIr, was not unexceptional.
There existed some limitations (ex. often *K^ > *K if the root
contained -s-, *K^w > *Kw before a back vowel like in Slavic kve^tU, gve^zda
< *k^woi-, *g^woi-, etc.). Especially, etymologies of *K, based exclusively
on non-IIr satem languages, should be taken with caution (like *legh- which
is attested only in Balto-Slavic and Albanian and not in Indo-Iranian).
>> Just take into consideration front [a] (like in German or French),
>> central [a] (like in Polish) and back [a] (different character in
>> IPA, like in Dutch) which are all low but which have different
>> places of articulation. If you state that low vowels have no place
>> of articulation, tell my what the difference between them is in.
>
> Most of the difference depends on shape of the tongue, and in
> particular the position of the highest part of the dorsum. But that's
> different
> from the place of articulation, which is _not_ a tongue feature.
??? "Place of articulation is the relationship between the active and
passive articulators as they shape or impede the airstream"
(
http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsPlaceOfArticulation.htm)
Guess what is the "active articulator" when we talk about dorsal sounds.
> If
> the dorsum approximates the roof of the mouth, as it certainly does
> for high vowels, it makes more sense to talk of "the place of
> articulation".
It is a very special definition, not consistant with that one from the
literature I know, and a little scholastic, in the worst sense of this word.
I do not think it would be acceptable what you have written. But when we
regard dorsal sounds, the place of articulation is always determined by both
"shape of the tongue, and in particular the position of the highest part of
the dorsum" and the place on the roof of the mouth towards to which the
highest part of the tongue is bent. It means that the difference between [a]
and [A] (IPA front and back low vowel) is also in the position of the
highest part of the dorsum.
> But for fully low vowels, even the front/back contrast
> rarely matters in phonemic terms. Some British English accents have
> front [æ] in <cat>, others have central [a], but in both cases the
> vowel in question is simply the only unrounded short low vowel in the
> system.
Have you noticed that [k] in [kæt] <cat> is different than [k] in [k^t]
<cut> (in British [^] is a central vowel)? Namely it is more fronted - just
like the vowel that follows. We can say that central [a], [^], [i-] are
vowels which "stabilize" [k] in its neutral position. I imagine a similar
process could have occurred in PIE and if it really was a tendency to
preserve *ka from ablaut processes (as I said, it is doubtful, but "if"), it
can be explained without all this uvular / pharyngeal / glottal stuff.
Notice also that back vowels can change the velar [k] into the uvular [q] -
see Turkic. Inversing this, *ka shouldn't be [qa] (unless [a] was back), and
also no pharyngealization is needed to explain its pronunciation.
> The difference between old and new *a is as follows:
>
> Old *a occurs in contexts where colouring by *h2 (or *k etc.) can be
> ruled out, mostly (though not exclusively) in nouns and adjectives
> (this is because the verb system was dominated by e/o/zero ablaut).
> Examples: *k^aso- 'grey, hare', *g^Hans- 'goose', *h1albHo- 'white',
Of course we must reconstruct *H2a. Lack of laryngeal in Hittite must be
explained with other factors. If the word is not a borrowing, I would see
the reconstruction *¿albh- more probable (¿ = voiced pharyngeal). It may
have left no traces in Anatolian and the a-colouring effect at the same
time.
Grzegorz J.
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