Re: Laryngeal h4

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Arnaud Fournet" <fournet.arnaud@...>
wrote:

>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "etherman23" <etherman23@...>
>
>
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Arnaud Fournet" <fournet.arnaud@>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> This is "proof by absentia"
> >> Maybe we just lack a clear example of H + CW.
> >
> > That's possible, but IMO not probable. It's not just that H+CW is
> > rare, but the otherwise rare velars are suddenly much more common
> > after laryngeals. Not only are they rare, but they're restricted in
> > their language distribution. They always occur in Greek, yet never
> > occur in Hittite, Tocharian, Italic, or Celtic.
> =========
>
> What is "they" ?
> Could you be a little bit more explicit ?
> I cannot see what you say and what you want to prove.

I see that I worded this badly (Brian was confused as well). "They"
refers to the counterexamples to the rule that labiovelars do not
occur after laryngeals.

> =========
>
> > I think the simplest
> > explanation is that they are borrowing into the language after
> > Hittite, Tocharian, and Italo-Celtic separated from the rest of IE
> ========
>
> Simplest !?
>
> Isn't this the shortest way from an obscure premice to a wrong

conclusion ?

It seems pretty simple to me.

1) Plain velars are rare and almost all of them can be explained as
neutralizations of *K' and *KW under certain phonetic environments.
2) Labiovelars are not rare.
3) Plain velars not uncommonly appear after laryngeals.
4) Labiovelars are rare after laryngeals and where they do appear they
are poorly represented and appear in only a few languages.

> what about *skw- ? *skwalos and all English words like squ- ?

You're right. It was a claim made by Beekes which I should have
investigated first.

> Personally, I'm not surprised that a complex row of _Three_

consonants such

> as H + K +w is rare, root-finally.

What makes you think that the labiovelars derive from a velar plus w?

> This requires the basic naked root to be suffixed at least two

times, maybe

> three if H is not part of that basic root.
> I cannot see what kind of conclusion we can make out of some obvious

feature

> conditioned by probabilities.
> It's the expected result that the more suffixed, the less frequent,

so what

> ?

This would explain the small number of roots, but not their very poor
attestation and being limited to eastern dialects.