Re: Introducing myself to the list

>From: Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
>Danny Wier wrote:
> > where
> > the Neogrammarians (the traditional reconstructionists) had p/b/bh,
>t/d/dh
> > etc. (the 'Sanskrit model'), Gamqrelidze and Ivanov have promoted an
> > alternative theory where the stop system is p/p'/b, t/t'/d, where C' is
>an
> > ejective
>
>One variant proposed that the ejectives had implosive allophones,
>explaining why they became b/d/g in many IE langs.
REALLY?!  I was hoping so, and I thought that besides.  The non-ejectives
have aspirated-unaspirated allophonism, so if the voiceless ejectives become
voiced implosives, that results in the same six-way stop/affricate system of
Igbo!  (Incidentally, Sanskrit voiced stops became voiced implosives in
Sindhi, then borrowed Arabo-Persian words and kept the voiced stops as plain
voiced.  That's a five-way system, where you have p/ph/b/bh/b'.

And you probably guessed it; Tech does the same thing.  But unlike Igbo,
Tech has three phonemic distinctions which can be mutated (like Irish and
Welsh) thusly:

Fortis: p' ph bh
Lenis: b' p b (glottalic is voiced; others lose aspiration)
Spirant: f' f v (first an ejective fricative)
Nasal: m' mh m (first an implosive nasal; second a voiceless/aspirated
nasal)

And that's in addition to palatal-labial-pharyngealism, which is six-way:

C C` C~ Cw C`w C~w

That's plain, palatized, labialized, labio-palatized, pharyngealized and
labio-pharyngealized.  Syncope of short vowels and 'umlauted' short vowels
result in this.  (There are two types of 'umlaut': 'front umlaut' which
causes fronting/palatizaation of vowels, and 'back umlaut' which causes
backing/pharyngealization of vowels.)

Danny Wier  ¶¦¬þ
Lufkin, Texas USA
http://communities.msn.com/DaWier
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