--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "C. Darwin Goranson"
<cdog_squirrel@...> wrote:
> There was a comparison to the
> Esquimo-Aleut "edh" sound (voiced thorn) to the IE "y", in an
article
> regarding pronouns. I'd like to know: what basis exists for this
> assumption?
>
Thank you for your kind words. On the point of y and edh: The Eskimo-
Aleut plural marker is underlyingly /-{dh}/ (voiced apical spirant,
edh). The facts of IE, where we find *-s and *-y, in what looks like
an old complementary distribution, are highly reminiscent of this.
Therefore, I suggested that the IE allomorphs are developments of a
common earlier stage with spirant *-{dh}. A change from {dh} to j is
not uncommon, nor is {dh} > z (> s).
Jens