--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...> wrote:
>
> Interesting. This makes me wonder if a contrast
> between voiced, unvoiced and aspirate stops could be
> due to the combination of stop + laryngeal.
The aspiration of stops before H1 and H2 occurs only in Indo-Iranian.
I've been looking into links between PIE and Proto-Uralic and I think
that there was previously just plain voiceless and ejective voiceless.
In PPPIE the plain voiceless stops developed aspiration in the
vicinity of back vowels, and these later developed into voiced
aspirates. Since there was front~back vowel harmony you never see any
PIE roots that mix plain voiceless stops with voiced aspirates (except
in cases with s+voiceless stop and voiced aspirate). I hope to post
something more detailed on the Nostratic group (my recent posts on
Indo-Uralic can be ignored since I've redone the theory in light of
more data).