Re[2]: [tied] Origins of Indo-European, and naturalness of laryngea

At 9:41:14 PM on Monday, October 23, 2006, Patrick Ryan
wrote:

> From: P&G<mailto:G.and.P@...>

>>> The "Laryngeal Theory" is based on several false
>>> premises, the most notable of which is that "laryngeals"
>>> can "color" vowels. In languages like Arabic, ...

>> Your argument from Arabic fails. It is suggested that in
>> PIE, laryngeals colour vowels when they are lost - but
>> you argue from a situation where laryngeals are not lost,
>> but survive. [...]

> I am simply at a complete loss to understand the "logic"
> of this argument - if it may even be termed that.

Presumably the argument is that allophonic variation is
phonemicized when the conditioning segments are lost.

[...]

Brian