On Tue, 15 Oct 2002 19:20:16 +0200 (CEST), José Andrés Alonso
<ocitartson@...> wrote:

>Well, I have read all new messages and I have many
>problems in order to understand them. For example, I
>have read the whole Miguel Carrasquer Vidal's personal
>page and I think that I have a very important
>question: where is "Pre-Proto-Indo-European
>Phonology"?. This section is necessary to be able to
>understand the rest of morphological changes and
>evolution (how can you make the morphological section
>without a clear phonological system??).

This is all work in progress, and new insights into the morphology can trigger
new insights into the phonology, and viceversa.

>In adittion to this, many of the changes that he
>proposes are typologicaly incorrect or very, very
>strange (tw- > sw-, -tw > -sw, -tw- > -t(w)-??, swVsw
>> usw, how it is possible?).

The change tW > s(W) is not that rare. It happened at least in Greek and in
Armenian (in the latter language, tW > sW > kW). The description of the
soundlaw given above is only very schematic. For a full account we have to
consider the phonological system of pre-PIE at various stages of its
development, and in particular the fate of pre-PIE **u. In final position, all
unstressed final vowels were lost, but **-u caused labialization of the
preceding consonant. The 2sg. verbal ending (which was originally enclitic
**-tu "you") became **-tW (and eventually *-s). The 2pl. verbal marker, on the
other hand, which was **-tu + pl. marker **-ána became **-tuána > **-twén (and
eventually *-tér). In the interior of a word, assibilation only took place
_after_ a stressed **ú, as we can see from the paradigm of the word for "moon",
"month":
nom. **mát-nût-s > **mé?n(w)o:ts > *méh1no:ts
acc. **mát-nût-m > **mé?n(w)o:tm > *méh1notm.
gen. **mat-nút-âs > **m?n(w)ésWo:s > *m(e)h1nésos

The order of events was apparently that *ú labialized a following *t (or *n)
_before_ *ú itself became *wé and eventually merged with *e.

In the Anlaut, the only cases of assibilation I have found represent old initial
sequences *tu- + vowel (e.g. dem.pronoun **tu + **-a: > **twá: > **sWó > *só).
An initial sequence *tu- + consonant develops as **tuC- > **tweC > *teC-, again
with the development *u > *we only _after_ the working of the assibilation law.

The development **sWesW > **susW > **usW is simply a sporadic dissimilatory /
haplological change. It happened in the numeral "6" and in the 2pl. pronoun
only (probably the only two places the combination ever emerged).

>I can not also understand why all people think that
>the laryngeals were originally consonants (*k???). It
>is very important to read Reynolds et alii
>"Proto-Indo-European Laryngeals were vocalic",
>Diachronica XVII(2), 2000. It is not a definitive in
>the topic, but it must be read. Besides it, is more
>plausible that *H = *x.

Yes, *h2 = /x/ (or /X/), a consonant. I believe there is a link with **k in
pre-PIE (as a result of a soundlaw /k/ > /x/ in the Auslaut, and possibly
immediately before another consonant, e.g. /kt/ > /h2t/ [so cases of *k^t in PIE
represent post-Nullstufe *kVt]), but of course *h2 in all other cases (e.g. word
initial) represents original **x-, not **-k.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...