Re[6]: [tied] PIE *a -- a preliminary checklist

At 12:41:54 AM on Thursday, February 14, 2008, Rick
McCallister wrote:

> --- "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...> wrote:

>> At 12:16:55 AM on Thursday, February 14, 2008, Rick
>> McCallister wrote:

>>> --- "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...> wrote:

[...]

>>>> 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.

>>> I'd like to see both sides of this argument Why do you
>>> say unlikely and impossible to demonstrate?

>> Because the German glottal stop is predictable.

> Can you elaborate? Give examples. Explain what
> regularity has to do with it? Remember I'm not a
> linguist

Word stems with initial vowel are automatically preceded by
a glottal stop: <aus> [?aUs] 'out', <beirren> [b@'?iR@...]
'disconcert', <enteisen> [Ent'?aIz@...] 'de-ice, defrost'
(where <be-> and <ent-> are prefixes). It's fully
predictable synchronically; some analyses don't even count
it as a phoneme in standard German, for just that reason.
New creations follow the same rule. Even if the rule were
the result of generalization from a bunch of glottal stops
derived from laryngeals, how could you tell, given that its
operation now is automatic?

Brian