Re: Germanic 'bear'

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

>
> > I'm afraid this is actually a huge misrepresentation, because

aspiration

> > is a feature of VOICELESS consonants, not voiced ones. However, they
> > could be treated as "breathy voiced" or "murmured", which in IPA

have

> > got a raised [*h\*] (the voiced counterpart of [*h*]).
>
> Breathy voice patterns phonologically with aspiration in

Indo-European,

> especially in Indo-Aryan (Grassmann's Law). They are both phonetic
> manifestations of the distinctive feature [+ spread glottis], so

there's

> no need to be pedantic about the distinction.
>

I strongly disagree. Grassmann's Law only applies to those IE languages
which have true aspirated stops in series III, so IMHO there's no
justification for reconstructing a "voiced aspirated" (or whatever other
name you choose) series in PIE.