Re: Greek Prothetic Vowel as Reflex of PIE Laryngeal (was: swallow v

Personally,
I trust Greek laryngeal coloring of schwa,
only when the schwa cannot be suspected of assimilation to the main
vowel.
In the case of H1°d-ont-, becoming odont,
if edont- did not exist, I would just conclude H_d-
Laryngeal status unknown.
And in front of the word like ono-ma,
I will never conclude that it starts with H3.
Any H is acceptable thru assimilation to the main vowel.

enoma or anoma would prove something
(H1 and H2 constrast with o)
onoma proves nothing about laryngeal #H_n- (H and o concord)

Greek is not "irregular"
it's just sometimes undecidable.

Arnaud

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Mate Kapoviæ <mkapovic@...> wrote:
>
> On Sub, prosinac 22, 2007 6:53 pm, Richard Wordingham wrote:
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@>
wrote:
> >
> >> The Greek prothetic vowel is not a regular reflex of a PIE
laryngeal,
> >> cf. *h1ed- > odont- "tooth". Besides, loanwords do strange
things.
> >
> > The colouring of the prothetic vowel by an adjacent vowel rather
than
> > the by *h1 is one of these 'irregular rules' that bedevil
comparative
> > linguistics. For this word, cf. Aeolian Greek
_édontes_ 'teeth'. I
> > don't know what to make of the accent placement in Aeolian
Greek, though.
>
> It depends which Aeolian dialect that is. In Lesbian, this would
be regular.
>
> Mate
>