[IE conlangs]

Brian Betty <bbetty@...> wrote:
> I'm reading Melchert's book, and he is the most cantankerous writer I h=
ave
> ever laid eyes on. Everything he doesn't approve of, he "vehemently
> rejects," "forcefully opposes," "absolutely must be deleted," and the l=
ike.
> It's a blast to read - it really spices up the work to have him so work=
ed
> up about phonological issues in Hieroglyphic Luwian, for example, and h=
e
> seems to be otherwise pretty fair (I agree with most of his points, and=
 he
> is kind and very supportive of correct points by the same authors he
> lambasts elsewhere).
> =
> I agree that Lehmann can be hard to read, but check the intro for what =
the
> Hs mean. I personally applaud his attempt to figure out what the Hs are=
, as
> I cannot keep mental track of which H is which when they are all sub-1,=
2,3.
> My mind just isn't built to remember that, and I can't figure out how t=
hey
> were really pronounced ...\
Really?  For me they're mnemonically associated with the vowels e, a, and=
 o,
because those are their reflexes as prothetic vowels in Greek, and they a=
re in
a heirarchy of "strength" -- h1 (the "e" laryngeal) colors nothing, h2 (t=
he
"a" laryngeal) colors e but not o, and h3 (the "o" laryngeal) colors e or=
 o
(though I guess it doesn't need to color "o" cause it's already that colo=
r!).

The IPA reflexes are nice to know and all that... But Lehmann's discussio=
n of
them in his section on phonology is a trifle confusing, and is made all t=
he
more confusing because I'm quite certain there is a typo in that section =
-- at
one point he speaks of the laryngeals attested in Hittite "h" as being,
probably, lower-case gamma and lower-case chi (the IPA symbol for a uvula=
r
voiceless fricative)!  Lower-case chi is never mentioned again anywhere i=
n the
text, and the surrounding text leads me to believe this is a typo for a
lower-case x (velar voiceless fricative) -- but it really confused me for=
 a
bit.

I'll have to dig up my notes for Weiss's class (they're several hundred m=
iles
away at this point) and check them out.

Ed

---------------------------------------------------------
Edward Heil .......................... edwardheil@usa.net
---------------------------------------------------------

____________________________________________________________________
Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=3D=
1