Re: Fun with prenasalized stops.txt

I like this idea of prenasalization. The m/w thing seems a nice
touch, and your theory has some interesting parts ot it, but I do
have a few questions about it.
1) How would the /b/ turn into a /w/ around an /m/? Where would the
lip-rounding come from?
2) Wouldn't this have similar effects on other voiced stops?
3) Do we know of any other languages in the general region of the
Urheimat (that is, from Turkey to the Caspian to the Volga, possibly
to the Danube near the Black Sea) that might have used
prenasalization? From what I've read, that kind of thing tends to
occur in Central Africa, and it's unlikely the PIEans came from there.

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" <richard@>
wrote:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> >
> > > Or rather, the PIE root was really *NgWou, *NgWu- and the
> > > tradtional PIE phonemes b, d, g^, g, gW are not glottalized as
G/I
> > > want, but prenasalized: Mb, Nd, Ng^, N,g, N,gW.
> >
> > Glottalised is rather a vague term. In the preglottalised series
> > it's the back consonant which is most likely to be omitted, as
> > opposed to the ejective series, where it's the labial that is
most
> > likely to be missing. In a prenasalised series, it's the labial
> > that's most likely to be missing.
>
> Some say the missing PIE b should be sought in the abundance of PIE
> w's. If voiced stops were prenasalized, that consonant which is Nb
in
> the system would be in reality a Nw or mW, which is nice, since we
> already need a consonant which could morph into m and w at the right
> places, ie 1pl, -ment-/-went- etc.
>
> BTW:
> Let's pretend voiced stops were prenasalized (*Nb, *Nd, *Ng^, *Ng,
> *NgW), and that they became nasal + stop if initial in the stressed
> syllable (ie *-NDV´- -> *-N-DV´-; the second hyphen is purely
formal,
> caused by the fact that nasal vowels are written *VN and nasals
*N).
>
> Imagine a PIE root *eNb-.
> 3sg *eNb-ti -> *e:pti
> 3pl *Nb-énti -> *mW-énti
> ppp *Nb-tó- -> *m.p-tó-
>
> from that one might construct
> Latin
> pres. em-
>
> Hittite
> 3sg e:pzi
> 3pl appanzi
> Latin aptus (with analogous vowel)
>
> Latin
> e:mptus
>
> etc
>
> And the semantics is nice too: acquire, ergreifen etc.
>
> One entry less in LIV!
>
>
> Torsten
>