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

Quoting Joe <joe@...>:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Andreas Johansson" <andjo@...>
> To: <CONLANG@...>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2003 9:36 PM
> Subject: 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.
>
> Nothing regarding PIE is reliable.  I wouldn't say it was out of date, but
> it's not(AFAIK) commonly agreed on.  I was under the impression that they
> were consonants everywhere.  I wouldn't say it was impossible that it's
> true, though.
While nothing about a reconstructed language may be "reliable" an absolute
sense, but there certainly can be different degrees of reliablity between
differentparts of a reconstruction. The interpretation of *bh surely is alot
more reliable than any of the interpretations of *h3.

                                                    Andreas

Reply