Re: [tied] Greek labiovelars

At 11:31:19 PM on Monday, March 13, 2006, andrew jarrette
wrote:

[...]

> This reminds me of another phenomenon I've never
> understood: why *kw becomes /c/ in Irish,

Better, *kW > k.

> and *gwh becomes /g/, but /gw/ becomes /b/.  Why should
> *gw be treated so differently from *kw and *gwh? 

It appears that *gWH lost the labial element and fell
together with *gH at an early date, while *gW retained the
labial articulation.

[...]

Brian