Re: [tied] Renfrew's theory renamed as Vasco-Caucasian

"letter-game" not phonology.

Just because you don't happen to like it? :-)

============
Do you have a real language on this planet

where phonologically relevant /kw/ and /k/

behave in a different way

from the sequence /k/ + /w/ ?

I happen to like hard facts.

To be frank, I love hard facts,

and this is why I do not trust Indo-European Comparatists

that much.

I hate letter-games and semantic cathedrals,

something Indo-European Comparatists are addicted to.

Please one real language.

----- Original Message -----

From: Piotr Gasiorowski

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2007 10:19 PM

Subject: [Courrier indésirable] Re: [tied] Renfrew's theory renamed as Vasco-Caucasian

--- In cybalist@... s.com, "fournet.arnaud" <fournet.arnaud@ ...>
wrote:

> Greek should be ek-uos or ek-Fos
> if that two-segment story was exact.

Can you establish the outcome of a sound change by decree and tell a
language whwt it _should_ do? *kW and *k^w partly fell together in
Greek. Compare *g^Hw-, which just like *gWH-, gives Gk. tH-
word-initially. But other branches keep them apart, cf. Slavic *zve^rI
'beast, animal' (= Gk. tHe:r) < *g^Hwe:r (two segments in the onset)
vs. *z^enoN < *gWHen- 'strike' (one segment). The difference between
*k^w and *kW in Greek is preserved only between vowels, but
assimilation has turned *k^w into a geminate: *-k.w- > *-kW.kW- >
-kk-/-pp-.

> I consider that two-segment story to be a graphic gimmick
> that makes no linguistic sense.

Is that any stranger than the fact that some languages distinguish
affricates from stop-plus-fricative clusters (even word-initially! ) or
palatalised consonants from /Cj/ sequences?

> "letter-game" not phonology.

Just because you don't happen to like it? :-)