[tied] Re: PIE voiceless aspirates

From: david_russell_watson
Message: 41891
Date: 2005-11-08

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
wrote:
>
> Then you have just admitted that there is no proof possible
> that it was ever divided differently.

There's no direct evidence for the weight of each
syllable of _any_ reconstructed form, I surely admit
that, but I do not admit that there's no evidence
of it being _divided_ into a different number of
phonemes, evidence for which there most surely is.

> 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?

Well just to start off, how do you explain the failure
of your supposed *kH to produce a palatalized counter-
part after the second palatalization?

If it was as most nowadays believe, then a laryngeal
stood between *k and the following front vowel and
so naturally blocked the latter's palatalizing effect.
If on the other hand it was a you say, and *kH was
a unit phoneme, then we should expected it to have
produced a palatalized counterpart to k at the time
of the second palatalization.

Now do not try to claim Sanskrit ch as the palatalized
counterpart of Sanskrit kh, because ch is a geminate
(cch), whether always written as such or not, and came
from PIE *sk.

For this reason Sanskrit kh cannot have been a unit
phoneme before the time of the second palatalization.

> 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?

No, I'm merely saying that the digression on syllable
weight and the nature of affricates was not intended
as proof, as I thought that I already stated.

> > 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.
>
> 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."

Quite easily: the fact that (1) VOICELESS ASPIRATES
AROSE OUT OF COMBINATIONS IN PIE OF STOP + LARYNGEAL,
leads logically to the conclusion, based upon what
is known of PIE metrics, that (2) A VOWEL PRECEDING
SUCH A CLUSTER WAS ORIGINALLY LONG BY POSITION, as a
vowel preceding _any_ two consonants is supposed to
have been.

You have misunderstood me as offering (2) as proof
of (1), while I have never been doing anything but
offering (1) as proof of (2), and so there's nothing
at all to reconcile.

I will now say still again: for evidence of (1), READ
THE BOOK.

> It seems you want to _have_ your cake and _eat_ it, too.

No, you're simply failing to grasp the relationship
between various components of the discussion and
to keep them in proper order. The digression on
affricates was moreover prompted by your own mention
of affricates, not mine, and so hardly anything for
which _I_ should have to apologize.

David