Re: [tied] Re: PIE laringeals

On Mon, 05 Mar 2007 20:29:51 +0100, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
<miguelc@...> wrote:

>On Mon, 05 Mar 2007 03:14:15 -0000, "Richard Wordingham"
><richard@...> wrote:
>
>>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <miguelc@...>
>>wrote:
>>
>>> Well, the use as a glottal stop symbol is late, and the sign
>>> had been in use for /ax/ (or /Vx/ in general) since Sumerian
>>> times. Sumerian has only one back fricative (so probably an
>>> unvoiced velar or uvular [x] ~ [X]). Akkadian uses Sumerian
>>> <x>-signs to write Semitic /x/ (while Semitic /?/, /h/, /H/,
>>> /¿/ and /G/ were not written until the "glottal stop"-signs
>>> were introduced).
>>
>>How were they not represented? Syllable initially, were they
>>represented by vowel initials?
>
>Yes.

I forgot to mention: the vowel is often unexpectedly /e/.
This may be phonologically based (/?/, /¿/, /H/, /G/, /h/
coloured the vowel to /e/), or a graphical device (Akkadian
didn't have /e/, and the Sumerian e-signs were used to mark
an otherwise unrepresentable laryngeal/pharyngeal).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
miguelc@...