--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
<richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
>
> > Andrew:
> > Also, isn't it
> > often claimed that languages that remain nearest to a homeland tend to
> > preserve more archaic features (e.g. Italian among Romance
> > languages)-- Sanskrit and its descendants were the only ones to
> > preserve voiced aspirates, AFAIK.
>
Richard:
> How is Italian more archaic than Romanian?
>
> The glottalic theory, of course, makes voiced aspirates an
> Indo-Iranian innovation.
>
>
Is it correct that the glottalic theory posits the series
*p-*t-*k/*p'-*t'-*k'/*b-*d-*g (ignoring for the sake of argument the
palatals and the labiovelars), with *b-*d-*g representing the
*bh-*dh-*gh of traditional reconstruction? If this is so, then the
glottalic theory says that voiceless aspirates in Greek and
proto-Italic come from *b-*d-*g while *p-*t-*k remain unaspirated.
This seems incredibly implausible to me, that voiced stops should
become voiceless aspirates while voiceless stops remain unchanged. For
this reason I think the glottalic theory should be relegated to the
wastebin. The traditional reconstruction aptly explains the observed
phonological phenomena and is directly supported by the voiced
aspirate series in Indic.
Andrew