[tied] Re: PIE voiceless aspirates

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "etherman23" <etherman23@...>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dariusz_piwowarczyk"

> > > Is there a necessity to reconstruct voiceless aspirates (i.e. ph th
> > > kh) for the Indo-European proto-language?

> > 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.

The issue is whether we have a unit phonemes such as *pH or clusters
*p + *h (*h2, I think, but I'm open to correction). A system with
/t/, /d/ and /dH/ but not /tH/ may seem unusual, but it is not
unprecedented among living languages. A partial analogy to the
English is English _hew_ - is it /hju:/ or /çu:/?

Richard.