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

Evidence never "points" per se. It's the model You choose that lets
the evidence point somewhere. One and the same evidence points to
plain voiced if You want a majority criterion, to breathy voiced /
murmured aspirates if You want a markedness criterion. There's no
objectivity, only methodological choice

2012/3/4, Tavi <oalexandre@...>:

> --- 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.
>
>
>