Re: Reconstruction of plosives [was: Germanic 'bear']

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Bhrihskwobhloukstroy
<bhrihstlobhrouzghdhroy@...> wrote:

>
> > Contrarily to the traditional model, I don't think there were

"voiced

> > aspirated" in PIE. From macro-comparative evidence, PIE series III
> > should be PLAIN VOICED. Similar considerations can be applied to

Grimm's

> > Law, and so on. IMHO the stop system of Germanic actually reflects

an

> > older stage than the one found in most IE languages, much in the

line of

> > the glottalic theory.
> >
> > Given the Altaic cognates, this root must be very ancient, as well

as

> > the reduction of the initial labiovelar, which must predate the

P-Altaic

> > form.
>
> Like Villar and Ballester, don't You?
>

Ballester belongs to the "hard" continuity theory, i.e. the one who
negates language replacement, while Villar is on the "soft" one, which
acknowledges the existence of different paleo-IE varieties, wioth
diatopical and diachronical variations.

> There are two antithetic methods in reconstructions:
> 1) majority
> 2) markedness
>
> You evidently backproject what is majoritarian; the Neogrammarians
> implicitly backprojected marked features.
> In order to be coherent, You have to give glottalization and
> reconstruct just three series: voiceless, voiced, and voiceless
> aspirate.
>

Glottalization might have existed at a very early phase, as it's absent
from IE and Altaic but found in Kartvelian.

> In order to be coherent, I reconstruct four series: voiceless
> aspirates (= traditional plain voiceless), preglottalized voiced (=
> traditional plain voiced), breathy voiced = murmured aspirates (=
> traditional voiced aspirates), glottalized voiceless (= traditionale
> voiceless aspirates). Plain voiced and voiceless were former stages of
> laryngeals
>

I agree on series I, but not on III, as macro-comparative evidence point
to it being plain voiced. I'd prefer to explain the "anomalies" of this
series in Italic, Greek and Indic as the result of substrate influence.

I also think series II not only could be pre-glottalized but also
pre-nasalized in some cases, except at word initial. I also recontruct a
fourth series of voiceless FRICATIVES, corresponding to some (but not
all) traditional "laryngeals".

All this agrees very well with the system reconstructed for P-Altaic,
except that series III and IV collapsed there.