--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, glen gordon <glengordon01@...>
wrote:
>
> Methinks consonantal *r in IE was most commonly a
> tapped "r". As a syllabic resonant, I'm voting for a
> retroflex approximant for kicks, otherwise I just
> don't know how you can get a "resonant" out of it.
> Anybody else?
Didn't the ancient Indian grammarians describe the
syllabic 'r' of Sanskrit as a regular 'r' flanked
by two half-short schwas?
> So, perhaps *r was retroflex, trilled
> AND a tap all at the same time. Doesn't that idea
> just blow your mind :)
It doesn't blow my mind to think that *r could have
had both trilled and flapped or tapped variations,
but it does seem less likely to me that it used any
or all of these three, somewhat related, sounds as
its consonantal form, while using the rather different
retroflex resonant as its syllabic form. Therefore
I think it more likely that all of the allophones of
*r involved a trill or flap, which the description
of the ancient grammarians would allow even for the
syllabic form.
David