I've never understood why in Greek *kw becomes /t/ before *i and *e. Why did *kw become palatalized and not *k/k' ? It seems more natural for *k/k' to become palatalized, with *kw remaining as /k/, as happened in French and Spanish (although I never understood why Spanish preserved /kw/ before /a/ and not /e/ or /i/). Also in Greek *gw similarly becomes /d/ before *e, but before *i becomes /b/ -- why the inconsistent treatment of labiovelars? This reminds me of another phenomenon I've never understood: why *kw becomes /c/ in Irish, and *gwh becomes /g/, but /gw/ becomes /b/. Why should *gw be treated so differently from *kw and *gwh? They had identical points of articulation. Does anybody have any answer to my bewilderment at this phenomenon? By the way, doesn't Armenian only palatalize
labiovelars, and not plain velars (or is it Albanian?)? Again I don't understand why labiovelars should be more prone to palatalization than plain velars. Is there a good, understandable reason for these phenomena?
Andrew Jarrette