> >Do we have statistics about this ?
>
> I haven't seen any. If I count the roots with initial
> laryngeal in LIV, I get the following statistic:
>
> H- 14 (unknown laryngeal)
> h1- 42
> h2- 83
> h3- 21
>
> That would seem to be significant enough to establish a
> ranking: (1) *h2, (2) *h1, (3) *h3.
... which agrees quite well with the frequency of their occurrence in
derivational suffixes and inflections. *h2 occurs e.g. in fem. *-ih2,
fem. or coll *-h2, 1sg. pf. *-h2a, 2sg. pf. *-th2a, factitive *-(e)h2-;
*h1 in stative *-(e)h1-, desiderative *-h1se/o-, optative *-j(e)h1-,
instr.sg. *-(e)h1, nom.du. neuter *-ih1. *h3 is rare; it occurs
(probably) in nom.du. anim. *-oh3, in the "Hoffmann suffix" *-h3(o)n-
and hardly anywhere else otuside of root morphemes.
Piotr
==========
It also agrees well with my idea that
there are 2 H1 and 8 H2,
A rough proportional calculation
suggest that each H accounts for about 10
So H1 seems a bit too frequent for 2 phonemes
(unless some inadequate comparison with Hittite
led to the conclusion H2 *? was H1
in that case each H accounts for more than 10
and the proportion is better)
and H3 is disappointingly rare
whatever H1 and H2 are.
Hardly more than one H
m? plus a couple of Hw.
Arnaud
===========