Re: Barba and Bestia: bH>b (dissimilation)

> > > Bestia is borrowed from *beRsYtYab < *beRtYsYaB and be:lua <
> > > *betYsYLaw < *betYsYRaB (with R = voiced uvular fricative, B =
> > > bilabial r).
> >
> > What the heck is that stuff supposed to be? *R suggests something
> Afro-Asiatic,
>
> How so? It is found in many languages.

Few north of the Mediterranean however. (Indeed few uvulars of any sort, until the rise of the French/German/Portuguese/etc. uvular R.)

> > but "bilabial R"!? The bilabial trill is only found in about three languages of Amazonas and two of Congo.
>
> No, B also occurs in Fas (in New Guinea) and must be reconstructed for the common ancestor of Fas and (at least) most neighboring languages.

Why not. Point being however that I'm surprized to see such a rare phoneme posited, and I'm curious how would you conclude the existence of such a sound? (Can we even conclude anything about its likely fate??)

> The PIE sound d. > d.r. (and vice versa) and d.r. > r. optionally in all IE (*d.r.u-s.t.xo- > Alb d(r)ushk-; *d.us.- 'wrong' > Iranian *d.(r.)us.mYn.- > Bactrian lruhmin 'enemy', *d.akYrYu > *r.akYr.u dis> *akYr.u 'tear' in many (r.>R>X in Hittite)).

...Are those retroflexes in PIE?

> Also, B can be reconstructed in many languages (coming from r next to a (bi)labial or r/w next to a labiovelar), in most of which it optionally became either w or r, such as North Caucasian *!wïn?i 'belly':

I might prefer *rW here, tho maybe it doesn't matter all that much.

> > ("Y" would presumably be the newest breikthru in How to
> > Transcribe Palatalization in a Nonstandard Fashion. ;)
>
> I reconstruct and discuss many sounds. In order to keep each symbol to one use, and not use many arbitrarily, I use ^ for s^ (sh or S) and sY (pal.), etc., as well as s. (retro.) and s' (glot.). Of course, since in some environments sW > sw, etc., writing sY > sy is convenient as well as orderly.

Yes, these are reasonable (tho I prefer the more parsimonious <S Z> for shibilants). <Y> just looks funny since I'm used to <y> being the lax close front rounded vowel, and <j> the palatal semivowel.

John Vertical