From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 55759
Date: 2008-03-23
----- Original Message -----
From: "fournet.arnaud" <fournet.arnaud@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2008 3:38 AM
Subject: Re: Re: [tied] hoopoe
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: tgpedersen
>
<snip>
> Semitic t. may be caused by
> the fact the vowel is u.
***
That, IMHO, is the key to understanding PAA phonology.
In Egyptian, for example, your beloved D is the (probably palatal)
counterpart to <'> which derives from *t?s/ts + u.
Whether a consonant was followed back vowel or not (indifferent to whether
the other member of the set was *a or *i). seems to have been very
important.
For Egyptian, I will first list the *-a/*-i for, then the *-u form:
3--------r
p--------f
d--------t
k--------T
D--------'
H--------x
S--------X
q--------g
z--------s
j--------h
A few make no discernible distinction: b, w, m, n
Patrick