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

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob Haden" <magwich78@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2003 3:12 AM
Subject: Re: Evidence for Nostratic? (was Re: Proto-Uralic?)


> On Tue, 8 Jul 2003 22:08:47 +0100, Joe <joe@...> wrote:
>
> >Why is it impossible?  Odd, perhaps, but just because it does not conform
> to
> >some expectations makes it by no means impossible.
>
> I didn't say 'impossible.'  And I was talking about PIE in general being a
> chimera.
>
> >No, there is plenty of evidence for laryngeals.  They pop up a lot in
> >Hittite.  Some may be odd, but I'm sure they're there for a reason.
>
> Plenty of evidence?  Where is it?  Where do they show up abundantly in
> Hittite?  I'm not being sarcastic or mocking here, honestly; I just want
to
> be able to make sense of something that seems, at least to some degree,
non-
> sensical.
As far as I know, the laryngeals are transcribed |h)| in Hittite.  So, take
Latin 'ante'.  This, in Hittite, was 'h)ante', and is reconstructed as
*H2enti.  Laryngeals were introduced as a way to compensate for the
differences between vowels in Greek and all the Rest...sometimes latin 'a' =
Greek 'a','e', or 'o'.  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.  They also exist to compensate for
inconsistencies in ablaut, I believe, eg. when something should be *e, but
turns out *o, or something similar.

> More about 'laryngeals' -- they are too abstract, too much like
> mathematical symbols than things that actually look like they could be
> pronounced.  Perhaps what I really oppose is simply the notation involved.
> I dunno.
That's because it's desputed how they're pronounced.

> - Rob
>

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