Re[2]: [tied] PIE *a -- a preliminary checklist

At 6:41:07 PM on Wednesday, February 13, 2008, Richard
Wordingham wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister
> <gabaroo6958@...> wrote:

>> If so, was there a stage when Gmc had laryngeals?

> Will a single one do? German has merged initial laryngeals
> to a glottal stop,

What is the evidence that the German glottal stop before
word-initial vowels has anything at all to do with IE
laryngeals? It seems on the face of it both unlikely and
virtually impossible to demonstrate even if true.

> as had Old English.

Brian