--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "etherman23" <etherman23@...> wrote:
> ejective. On the flip side, /b/ is the least marked bilabial stop and
> PIE *bH is extremely common. Much more common than either *p, *p_>, or
> *p_h. I haven't heard anything about *b > *w though. What kind of
> evidence for it is there?
Other linguists have theorized about b>w before. I'm not very
familiar with them, but I'll present my own slightly different
evidence with the understanding that some of it must have been seen
before my reconstructions were made.
There are words with wr-, wl-, but not *yr-.
Assuming n-infixes are the result of metathesis, there are -nw- but
no -ny-. Thus the met. happened when it was still b.
Many roots contain w and u; many of these appear the same but have
different meanings (so perhaps *wer+ 'turn' < *bar+, 'cover' < *war+,
etc.).
The environments containing b seem like the domain of a sound change
or an exception to one (b and bY preserved after u and um; bY after i
and imY; between r_m(Y)); so b(Y) > v(Y) elsewhere.
The intermediate v(Y) usually > w in IE languages, but Armenian
changes PIE w > gW > g in most environments, the examples where
unchanged were actually PIE v.
Changes of nv > m (never n()w) in dif. env. in Greek and Sanskrit.
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "meska_jd" <romanas.bulatovas@> wrote:
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > I am new one to this group. My background - Lithuanian and Slavic
> > languages, at the moment I study Irish.
> >
> > I have a questio re original *p and *b in IE. Somewhere around this
> > list people mentioned *b was rare (or non-existant) because it has
> > fallen with *w. This made me thinking - is it possible that *p was a
> > voiceless pair thereof, .i. [f] or bilabial [F] (phita sign of Greek
> > alphabet)? This would explain why *p was lost in Celtic - rather
> > enigmatic phenomenon. The problem remain how to interpret *bh - any
> > ideas on that?
What about sp-? It isn't likely that was sf-. It seems likely the
PIE sound reconstructed as *p really was p.
There are many changes regarding p in Celtic. I've written about
some before, but the general changes were:
p(Y) > b(Y) / V_r/l
p(Y) > f(Y) / *s_
f > v / V_V
f > v / V_N
v > m / V_m
f > xW
v > w
w > 0 / front_n
Later (in most attested forms):
u > 0 / #_w
xW > x
x > h / _V