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

----- Original Message -----
From: "Christophe Grandsire" <christophe.grandsire@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2003 4:38 PM
Subject: Re: Evidence for Nostratic? (was Re: Proto-Uralic?)


En réponse à Doug Dee :


>>Can someone tell me what the current theories are on the pronunciation of
>>PIE laryngeals?
>>
>>A rather old book I have suggests the 3 laryngeals might have been [ ? ] ,
>>[ h ], and [ G ], or perhaps palatalized, plain and labialized version of
>>[ x ], but maybe there are new theories.
>
>Since people don't even agree on the *number* of laryngeals (which could
>also be pharyngeals, both names are used!), I don't know if it's the right
>time to discuss their actual phonetic contents ;)))) . The 3-laryngeal
>theory is only the most common one. Some reconstructions include 4 or even
>5 laryngeals (with usually a labialised and a palatalised one, that I've
>seen respectively noted Aw and Ey - with w and y as superscripts -).
I haven't seen the 5-laryngeal version.  The one I've seen is H1, H2, H3,
and H4, H4 coloring things to *a, but having been lost in Hittite, to
compensate for the lack of a laryngeal and the presence of |a| at the same
time.  I think Hittite has a descendant of H2 and H3, but not H1(or H4?).
The most sensible ones to me seem [h], [x], [x_w] (and [x_j]?)  This would
seem to account for all of the main classes of PIE velars (which is a guess,
but a not unreasonable one), with [h] taking the place of the aspirated
stop. It would also make sense because the laryngeals which I have said are
versions of [x], tend to colour things to back vowels, perhaps synchronising
with the back-of-the-mouth pronounciation, and H3 is rounded.

I wonder...

If this is true, perhaps PIE *a was simply a backed version of [e]...making
it [7], and *o was a rounded version of the same vowel, making it [o].  This
probably makes very little sense, but still.  Interesting speculation, eh?

>Christophe Grandsire.