From: fournet.arnaud
Message: 57606
Date: 2008-04-18
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>
>>> The phonetic values of *h1, *h2, and *h3 (and any further
>>> laryngeals that any may feel a need to postulate) are
>>> uncertain; that 'laryngeal' is the standard, accepted
>>> term for these phonemes is not.
>
>> How many times have people on this list suggested *H2 was
>> a velar fricative?
>
> Or possibly uvular. Quite often. For what it's worth, I
> don't find the idea at all implausible. This does not
> affect the truth of my previous statement.
> Altogether beside the point. 'Laryngeal' is the accepted
> technical term for these reconstructed phonemes, and
> everyone with the slightest knowledge of IE historical
> linguistics knows that in this context it isn't to be
> understood in its etymological sense. Vomplaining that it
> was an inappropriate choice is as pointless as complaining
> that the technical terms 'irrational number' and 'atom' are
> inappropriate; insisting that it must be used in its
> etymological sense is a version of the etymological fallacy.
>
==========
The problem with the word Laryngeal is that it's fairly committal to the
phonetic nature of the hypothesized consonants. Saussure's Coefficients were
non committal.
Now the word Laryngeal is established, nobody will accept that *s. is H2.
The next point is that the standard theory maintains that each H is *one*
phoneme,
and it's certain that this is wrong.
There are more than 3 phonemes to be called Laryngeals or coefficients or
whatever.
Arnaud
========
>> I have 15 essay on my website, and document *k^he:I-
>> (actually its PL parent) very fully. Like Arnaud, who
>> never reads anything but his own confetti, perhaps you
>> have never read any either?
>
> (For that matter, however peculiar I may find some of his
> interpretations, it's clear that Arnaud has read a great
> deal, if not on your site.)
>
=========
I might be interested in reading Ryan's site,
if it were written in a standard fashion.
And what I know of its content does not make me feel like wasting my time
trying to understand what all this graphic gibberish means.
Arnaud
=========