Re: IE *p and *b

One of characteristic changes in Celtic was *gW > b (*gWow- > bou-
"cow) and falling with of aspirated and plain consonants after
which consonant system becase balanced where every voiced consonant
had a voiceless correlate. Development of *p has thrown the system
in confusion again as *b was left without a pair. It is rather
unusual that a balanced system would be taken out of balance without
any good reason. I do strongly believe that *p behaviour means a bit
more than many people usually suppose. Furthermore, later when
lenition process started all medial -j- and -w- have been lost,
meaning *p disappearance was very likely to happen due to similar
mechanism.

Regarding *sp-: there are no native words with *sp- in Irish, all of
them are either Latin or English borrowings.

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

>
> Glad to meet you, Roman,
>
> Your question is not clear.
> Lost Celtic *p is not enigmatic
> *p > *F > *h > *0
> What do you mean ?
>
> Arnaud
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: meska_jd
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Saturday, December 08, 2007 9:28 PM
> Subject: [Courrier indésirable] [tied] IE *p and *b
>
>
> 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?
>
> Best regards,
> Róman
>