Question about Indo-European */t d/

[Bedelato]

Yeah, two new topics in a row. I have lots of stuff to talk about.

My question is, how exactly did /t d/ in English become apical alveolar stops when in PIE they were clearly dental (as evidenced by the fact that PIE */t/ became Germanic */θ/ rather than, say, */s/)?

Does anyone know details about the articulation of /t d/ in other Germanic languages, or in other IE langs in general?

[dhok]

I suspect it happened to differentiate /t d/ from /T D/.

[Morrígan]

If they were originally apical (quite common), a shift to dental would not be a stretch - this would also, of course, be more salient in its contrast with the presumably laminal *s.

[Octavià]

My question is, how exactly did /t d/ in English become apical alveolar stops when in PIE they were clearly dental (as evidenced by the fact that PIE */t/ became Germanic */θ/ rather than, say, */s/)?

In Pre-Proto-Germanic, the reflexes of PIE voiceless stops *p,*t,*k were probably aspirated *p^h,*t^h,*k^h which later became fricatives *f,*θ,*x. Probably this had something to do with the pre-IE substrate upon which Proto-Germanic was built.

Does anyone know details about the articulation of /t d/ in other Germanic languages, or in other IE langs in general?

In Spanish and other Romance languages, /t, d/ are dental instead of alveolar. Also Spanish /s/ is apical in std varieties, but not in Southern and American ones.