One could also look at it this way:
1) The opposition between */kW/ and */k^/ is a common one in PIE and
not controversial. The latter phoneme (whether it originally was
palatovelar or plain velar) is thus well established in PIE. It
regularly corresponds to sibilants in satem-languages.
2) The phoneme */w/ is equally well established
- Anybody who claims that these two phonemes could not occur in a
sequence has the burden of proof, especially since the data (message
49948) suggest that the sequence was possible.
The existence of an acoustically not-too-unlike phoneme */kW/ should
not blur us from methodological rigour here. In the end, we do not
even know how reconstructed phonemes sounded like phonetically. Hence
bringing phonetic similarity into the argument exposes us to
potential confusion.
Jouppe
PS. Baltic should be added to the regularly satemisized examples for
this word.
--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" <richard@...>
wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@> wrote:
> >
> > At 3:44:52 PM on Saturday, April 12, 2008, Richard
> > Wordingham wrote:
> > > I don't even recall a serious
> > > discussion of the plausibility of *h1ek^wos, which is much
> > > more plausible than *k^wo:n 'dog'.
>
> > Arnaud made essentially the same observation back in
> > September (with the same evidence that he's just mentioned
> > in response to you) and was rather comprehensively refuted
> > by Piotr in
> > <http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/49948>.
>
> And it was over so quickly that it didn't register as serious. I
> though Arnaud knew how to access Pokorny - we certainly didn't ask
him
> to explain away *k^wek 'gape', *k^wen 'holy' and *k^wes 'sigh,
puff'.
>
> Richard.
>