On 2008-11-30 22:33, Andrew Jarrette wrote:
> (If anyone can tell me the occurrences of velars vs. palatals in LIV
> for comparison, I would greatly appreciate it.)
In LIV(2) there are:
46 roots with initial *k^
45 roots with initial *k
16 roots with initial *kW
29 roots with *k(^), *k(W) or *K, i.e. an indeterminate initial
voiceless dorsal
12 roots with initial *g^
11 roots with initial *g
15 roots with initial *gW
14 roots with *g(^), *g(W) or *G
20 roots with initial *g^H
13 roots with initial *gH
5 roots with initial *gWH
13 roots with *g(^)H, *g(W)H or *G(H)
4 roots with initial *sk^
2 roots with initial *sk^H
32 roots with initial *sk
4 roots with an uncertain dorsal after *s
no examples of initial *skW
(mobile and non-mobile *s conflated)
1 root with initial *(s)gW
1 root with initial (s)gWH
As LIV has an index a tergo, it's also easy to count the dorsals in the
root-final position:
41 *k^
60 *k
16 *kW
12 uncertain
25 *g^
44 *g
16 *gW
18 uncertain (almost exclusively *g(^))
26 *g^H
24 *gH
10 *gWH
9 uncertain (7 of them with *g(^)H)
[I can't guarantee that all the numbers are strictly correct; I was
counting the entries quickly.]
Counting dictionary entries may, however, be misleading for a variety of
reasons. For example, many of the reconstructions are regarded as
doubtful even by the LIV editors (not to mention Yours Truly), and quite
a few are restricted to one (!) or two branches. Then, even if a root is
correctly reconstructed, it does not mean that it was frequently used by
the IE-speakers. Although we have no texts in which we could count PIE
tokens rather than types, the predominance of *k^ (and even *kW) over *k
is visible in typical high-frequency items such pronouns and other
grammatical words, the IE numerals, the most securely attested
verb-roots, etc.
Piotr