Re: [tied] Greek labiovelars

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From:  Mate Kapovi� <mkapovic@...>
Reply-To:  cybalist@yahoogroups.com
To:  cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Subject:  Re: [tied] Greek labiovelars
Date:  Wed, 15 Mar 2006 17:31:11 +0100 (CET)
>On Uto, o�ujak 14, 2006 11:56 pm, andrew jarrette re�e:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > From: Jens Elmeg�rd Rasmussen
> > Reply-To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> > To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: Re: [tied] Greek labiovelars
> > Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 14:08:44 -0000
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Joao S. Lopes"  wrote:
> >>
> >> Does it mean that in Celtic the shift *gWH >gH>g occurred before the
> > labialization of the labio-velars?
> >>
> >> Time 1: k g gH kW gW gWH
> >> Time 2 : k g gH kW gW
> >> Time 3: k g kW gW
> >> Time 4: k g kW b
> >
> >
> > No, it can only mean:
> >
> > 1: k g gH kW gW gWH
> > 2 : k g gH kW b gWH
> > 3: k g kW b gW
> >
> > -------------------------------
> > But why is *gW so special?  That's what I don't understand.  Is it because
> > it was a glottalic stop, as some theorize?  I see no reason why *kW and
> > *gWH should remain as /kW/ and /gW/ but *gW must become /b/.  Why not also
> > *kW > /p/ and *gWH > /b/? Or conversely *gW remain /gW/ like the other
> > two?  And in Greek (Attic, Ionic) *gW is special also since although like
> > *kW > /t/ before /e/, *gW > /d/ before /e/, nevertheless unlike *kW > /t/
> > before /i/, *gW > /b/ before /i/.  I can see absolutely no phonological
> > basis for this, except dialect mixing, as Sean Whalen suggested.  But
> > these developments in Irish, Greek, and the tentative ones in Albanian
> > suggest that the labiovelars were very special in a number of
> > Indo-European languages, undergoing  phonological changes that seem to
> > defy natural expectations (or normal phonological tendencies). It seems
> > much more natural to me for *kis or *k'is to become /tis/ than it does for
> > *kWis to become /tis/, yet a sequence *kis or *k'is would remain /kis/ in
> > Greek, while *kWis becomes /tis/.  I find this truly remarkable and would
> > never believe it were it not documented fact.
> > Andrew Jarrette
>
>The problem is that you put far to much into "common sense", "logic",
>"natural (?) expectations" and those often have nothing whatsoever to with
>the process of linguistic change. That is exactly the reason why one
>should first look at the empirical data before making general conclusions
>such as: if *kW > p, then *gW > b. That indeed *does* happen often but
>it's not the only possibility. Unparalleled changes have been known to
>happen. It can hardly be called unusual.
>
>Mate
>
>
>-------------------------------------------

Yes, I am aware that there is really no such thing as "normal" and that in linguistics as well as much of nature many phenomena defy "common sense" or immediate expectations (what I meant by "natural").  But I have a very strong wish to understand what seems unusual, that there has to be some more familiar underlying motive for these unparalleled phenomena.  Otherwise then I would expect that "anything goes" in nature and one day pigs will fly (to exaggerate my point extremely).  That's why Jens Rasmussen's suggestion about the difference in sonority of /gW/ was appealing to me and worthy of further investigation (in phonetics), in my opinion.

Andrew Jarrette