From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 41883
Date: 2005-11-08
----- Original Message -----
From: "david_russell_watson" <liberty@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 06, 2005 3:16 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: PIE voiceless aspirates
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
wrote:
>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "david_russell_watson"
<liberty@...> wrote:
>
> > The change of *t + *h2 to *th is at least as old, I assume,
> > as Proto-Indo-Aryan, and maybe even as old as Proto-Indo-
> > Iranian, and so came centuries before the analysis of Vedic
> > and Sanskrit by the ancient Indian grammarians. The actual
> > writing of those languages, of course, came even later still.
>
> Well, let me start with a few questions since what you are
> writing makes no sense to me.
>
> Let us say, as you do, that the change from /t-x/ to /tH/
> happened in Proto-Indo-Aryan.
Yes, before which time the antecedent of Sanskrit 'prthús' was
[prt.Xús], with 6 phonemes, but after which change it became
[pr.tHús], with 5 phonemes, and its first syllable thereafter
also light.
> The writing system came centuries later.
Yes.
> If /tH/ had been in force for centuries, then the letter for
> <th> could only have represented /tH/.
Yes.
> Written <prthus> could only have represented /pR-tHús/.
Yes.
> After the conversion, and after the invention of the letter,
> why would anyone have divided it any differently? Why would
> they even have been motivated to try to do so?
They didn't divide it differently. Forever after the change of
*t + *h2 to *tH, 'prthús' continued to be divided into syllables
as [pr.tHús].
Possibly your confusion comes from my reference to the evidence
for laryngeals in the Vedas, but which was not meant to refer
specifically to those in positions to create aspirates. Maybe
instead the confusion came from the digression on the nature of
affricates, about which see more below.
***
Patrick:
Yes, you are certainly right about the source of my confusion.
***
> If there is evidence that it was divided differently, then our
> understanding of Old Indian syllabic division needs revising
> since /t-x/ could not have figured into the equation.
Well as I say, it _wasn't_ divided differently in any recorded
Indo-Aryan, and of course there's no metrical evidence that it
was divided in P.I.E. either, since of course we have no samples
of Proto-Indo-European poetry to check.
***
Patrick:
Then you have just admitted that there is no proof possible that it was ever
divided differently.
***
You're reversing the evidence and the conclusions, for I'm not
claiming that they were each a sequence of two phonemes on the
basis of evidence that it was possible to divide each between
syllables, but rather that it was possible to divide each between
syllables, on the basis that we have evidence that they were in
P.I.E. each a sequence of two phonemes.
***
Patrick:
Well, in a few words of your own, what is this evidence? Regardless of what
Lehmann and Burrow have written, you have agreed so to what did you agree?
***
For the evidence of the latter, please see my excerpts of Burrow
and Lehmann. None of my elaboration on syllable division or the
nature of affricates was intended itself to strengthen the case
against P.I.E. having a series voiceless aspirates as independent
phonemes, but only for your information.
***
Patrick:
Are you saying, contrary to what I thought you were saying, that PIE had
voiceless aspirates that were not the result of voiceless stop + laryngeal?
***
<snip>
You insist that the antecedents of the voiceless
aspirates of Indo-Aryan were in P.I.E. each a unit phoneme, while
I and most others say that they were each a sequence of phonemes,
two.
***
Patrick:
How can you possibly reconcile that statement with what you wrote above?
"None of my elaboration on syllable division or the nature of
affricates was intended itself to strengthen the case against
P.I.E. having a series voiceless aspirates as independent phonemes."
It seems you want to _have_ your cake and _eat_ it, too.
***
<snip>
David
Yahoo! Groups Links