Re: Uniqueness of /#DHR-/ (was: Ir. cas(s) and IE models)

Very interesting and please forgive my ignorance. I side with the
opposite reconstruction fo IE ([bH] as primitive) and therefore it's
still more interesting

2012/5/14, Richard Wordingham <richard.wordingham@...>:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Bhrihskwobhloukstroy
> <bhrihstlobhrouzghdhroy@...> wrote:
>
>> Yes, of course. Breathy voiced / aspirated murmured, like clicks,
>> can go back to the earliest stages of modern human language. Note that
>> only IE languages can have /#DHR-/ word-initially: an innovation
>> according to typological Minimalism, but an archaism according to
>> Minimalism in diachronic phonological change
>
> Assuming you mean initial murmured plus liquid, no. If the Cao Bang dialect
> mentioned earlier is at all typical of earlier stages of SW Tai languages,
> one will have had initial [bHr] and [gHr] in SW Tai languages and probably
> also Khmer. Indeed, Khmer shows a rich set of old voiced plus resonant
> clusters, as in Phnom Penh - the initial <phn> transliterates back to Indic
> <bHn>, though the present day aspiration is not phonemic in standard Khmer.
>
> Even in the case of IE, if the development was [b] > [bH], as seems quite
> plausible, it would fairly naturally entail [br] > bHr].
>
> Richard.
>
>