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

Okay, I see what you're saying BUT wasn't the same
also true of IE? That no words began with vowels but
rather HV?
And Gmc. glottal stops had to come from somewhere. If
not inherited from a coalescence of IE laryngeals,
where do they come from?


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

> 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
>
>
>

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