From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 41750
Date: 2005-11-05
----- Original Message -----
From: "etherman23" <etherman23@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, November 04, 2005 8:35 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: PIE voiceless aspirates
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dariusz_piwowarczyk"
> <dariusz_piwowarczyk@...> wrote:
> >
> > Is there a necessity to reconstruct voiceless aspirates (i.e. ph th
> > kh) for the Indo-European proto-language?
> >
> > Many books I've come across does not postulate them for PIE. On the
> > contrary, my own teacher of IE Comparative Linguistics (W. Smoczynski)
> > argues that their presence is necessary in order for the system to be
> > phonologically complete (i.e. to have the opposition between the
> > voiced and voiceless aspirates). Can someone tell me what's the
> > general opinion on that subject?
> >
> > I'd be grateful for any help.
>
> The overwhelming majority opinion is that they're unnecessary.
***
Patrick:
And that majority opinion is absolutely wrong.
PIE *p/*t/*k and *ph/*th/*kh have different correspondents in related
languages; and the correspondents for *ph/*th/*kh for the greater part,
correspond to the _preserved_ voiceless aspirates in Old Indian.
***