Re: Evidence for Nostratic? (was Re: Proto-Uralic?)

Quoting Muke Tever <muke@...>:

> > I think they were orignally assumed to be
> > vowels(someone put me right here).  But when Hittite showed up, they were
> > changed to be consonants, I think.
>
> Well, the laryngeals act like the *y *w *m *n *l *r in that they can act as
> syllabic consonants, as in *p2ter- "father" with syllabic *2=.  All the
> known
> reflexes of _that_ were vowels, reconstructed as schwa.  But from the
> beginning,
> even to Saussure who proposed the "coefficients sonantiques" they were the
> same
> kind of consonant as the *y *w *m *n *l *r.
From the Appendix I of the American Heritage Dictionary:

"The laryngeals ... could function both as consonants and as vowels: their
consonantal value was that of h-like sounds, while as vowels they were
varieties of schwa, much like the final syllable of English sofa"

I'm, of course, in no position to tell how reliable, up-to-date, or commonly
agreed upon this is.

                                                     Andreas

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