Quoth Ray:
>Tho it looks as tho Lehman by using IPA symbols /?/, /h/ or /x/ and
the
>lower case Greek gamma (I assume that 'V with a curly on the bottom'
is
>that - i.e. voiced equivalent of /x/) is doing precisely that, i.e.
>actually identifying values for the hypothetical 'laryngeals'.
Weiss'
>"noncolored", "a-colored" and "o-colored" are rather vaguer and less
>precise IMO.
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.
But that's theory number one, now on to my other possibility...
>It seems that things have not progressed much. IIRC the theory is
also
>associated - at least by some - with the 'no PIE vowel' theory.
According
>to this the language possessed onlt 'sonants' which could have a
vocalic or
>consonatal value according to environment. IIRC (and I probably
don't :)
>they were: l, m, n, r, j, w, H1, H2, H3.
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.
>Tom, alas, is, I believe, not correct in saying "No one really
claims to
>know what the actual phonetic character of the laryngeals is/was"
since I'm
>fairly certain there are some odd characters who do make just that
claim.
>But I certainly agree that no one can _rightly_ make the claim and
that all
>we can do is make (hopefully informed) guesses.
Yep... but we might have to go beyond Indo-European to find
this 'missing link'...
Danny
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