Re: [Re: [Re: Roll Your Own IE language]]

At 11:08 am -0700 8/4/99, Danny Wier wrote:
......
>
>Yep, it's the gamma, the sound of Irish & Scots Gaelic <dh>/<gh>.
>But I think -- and bear in mind I'm pro-Nostratic -- these might have
>been pharyngeal, not velar.  That would leave the same
>four 'laryngeals' as Semitic.
Yep - (and I'm definitiely 'Nostratic skeptic' ;)  - I agree the
'laryngeals' are more likely to have been pharyngeal, or glottal, and not
velar.

I have come across theory (theories?) linking them with Semitic pharyngeals
before.  It's certainly an interesting idea.

[.....]
>
>A 'no-vowel' theory?  Interesting... and actually possible, if the H-
>phonemes could be mapped to vowels.  This is my theory number two,
>but I'm a bit more liberal and account four laryngeals, primarily
>because of the schwa.  Of course 'syllabic' /j/ and /w/ would be /i/
>and /u/, and the other consonants become syllabic nasals/liquids.
>
>But these two theories clash, so I'd have to look more in depth.
>Maybe glottal/pharyngeal consonants could mutate to individual vowels
>via a number of intermediaries.
I guess those who write the laryngeals as @1, @2 and @3 actually do believe
they operate sometimes as consonants and othertimes as vowels.

But I'm interested to note you speak of four 'laryngreals'.  Certainly the
"classical' form of the theory seems to posit 3 laryngeals but I seem to
recall (and remember it was some 15 to 20 years ago I was looking at this)
that this was not universally accepted and other numbers were given.

[....]
>
>Yep... but we might have to go beyond Indo-European to find
>this 'missing link'...
Maybe  ;)
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And at 3:40 pm -0400 8/4/99, Brian Betty wrote:
[.....]
>
>There are languages in the world that have no underlying vowels, but PIE
>seems to have underlying e and o, and possibly a (that is in great dispute
>- there is actually a book entitled "The Indo-European /a/"). Said
>vowel-less languages are mostly in New Guinea.
>
Yep - the pre-laryngeal theory reconstruction had, of course, the ablaut
series /@/, /e/ and /o/.  But I understood that some, at least, of the
'laryngists" explained ablaut in terms of the laryngeals.  I have across a
'no underlying vowel' theory of PIE tho, alas, I don't recall the details
now.

Personally, I don't think the case is proven one way or another.  But I
find the speculation interesting and certainly furnishes ideas for
conlanging  :)

Ray.