Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

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Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

Post by Terra »

(Note: Your profile says that you haven't logged in since January, but I suspect that you still lurk without logging in.)

source: http://www.tundria.com/Linguistics/pie-phonology.shtml

A couple questions:
1) You don't reconstruct a palatal series of stops. (You don't even mention a palatal series at all!) I assume that you thinki that it's something that satem languages innovated? In what environments did the palatal series appear?
2) Your reconstruct the laryngeals h_1, h_2, and h_3 as /h/, /x/, and /G/. Okay, but you also give two more, /x^w/ and /G^w/, to mirror the series of labiovelar stops. They appear in words that are traditionally reconstructed with /h_2w/ and /h_3w/. This confuses me; Are you saying that there was no distinction between a velar + /w/ and a labiovelar of the same voicing?

Note: Leiden reconstructs the PIE word for horse as *h_1ek^j-w-, which gave the Early Latin paradigm nom-sing *ecos, acc-sing *ecom, gen-sing *equí. The stem equ- was later generalized to the other cases. They never explain where this stem came from though. Did Italic/Latin merge velar + /w/ and the appropriate labiovelar? The satem languages show reflexes that this was clearly a palatal though, so it could not have been in PIE.

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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

Post by hwhatting »

Terra wrote:Did Italic/Latin merge velar + /w/ and the appropriate labiovelar? The satem languages show reflexes that this was clearly a palatal though, so it could not have been in PIE.
AFAIK, merging palatal / velar + w and the homorganic labiovelar is something all centum languages did.
I haven't seen gsandi here for a long time, but perhaps he'll answer if you PM him?

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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

Post by Terra »

AFAIK, merging palatal / velar + w and the homorganic labiovelar is something all centum languages did.
Really? What other words show this?

Also, if PIE had only 4 series of stops, and satem languages innovated the palatal series, then it wouldn't matter whether the stop was velar or labiovelar, because if satem languages first merged those, and then innovated the palatal series, a past labiovelar could turn into palatal. Are there any words in satem languages that show such a thing though?

*h_1ek^j-w- "horse" does not count, because it does not have an original labiovelar. What about *k^we "what"? I can't say, because I know that Slavic had many waves of palatalization, and I don't know which one acted here.
I haven't seen gsandi here for a long time, but perhaps he'll answer if you PM him?
I'll do that too. But he has to log in for that to be effective. Maybe it'll send a message to his email though? But he has to log in to that for that to be effective too.

*****

Also, as a side note, on your (Gabor's) page about reconstruction in general, are you aware of the recent attempts to connect Ket/Yeniseian with Na-Dene?

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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

Post by Sleinad Flar »

Terra wrote:
AFAIK, merging palatal / velar + w and the homorganic labiovelar is something all centum languages did.
Really? What other words show this?
Not much to go by, as k^j-w etc. was quite rare. Die Paradebeispiele are of course h1ek^j-wos "horse" and k^j-wo:(n) "dog", which f.e. led to Gaulish Epona (Gau /p/ is the regular outcome of Proto-Celtic k^w), Latin equus (< proto-Italic ek^wos) and Old Irish cú (OIr /k/ is the regular outcome of proto-Celtic /k^w/). So at least in Celtic and Italic we see the development k^j-w -> k^w. I'm not sure what happened to g^j-w; after merging with g^w this should have given proto-Celtic /b/, but I can't think of any examples a.t.m.

On the subject of two versus three velar series: although I'm not a big fan of the dnghu-project, this link sums up the arguments pro and contra two velar series quite nicely.
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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

Post by gsandi »

Hello, everyone.

Oh, I haven't been lurking (much) - if I visit, I usually say something. I am not known for my reticence. :) It's just that life in retirement, in beautiful (if somewhat rainy) Vancouver BC, has turned out to be busier in some ways than work in Geneva. I do many things, and visiting the Board has been relegated to the background. Also, I have just come back from a 3.5 week tour of Europe, visiting 6 countries, and I had little time for online activities during that time. (It would have been 7 countries, but Hungarian Railways advised me not to take the train through Prague, because the Prague-Berlin line was flooded out. So I flew EasyJet instead, Budapest-Berlin. I had to drop a visit to Prague once before - it seems God does not want me to visit the Czech Republic).

But now I have a question on Indo-European, I can't resist answering. In fact, I have a long-term plan to revise and greatly expand my pages on PIE. Hopefully I can do this before I die (just kidding).

On the issues at hand, my views have not changed much since the time I put them up on my pages in the first place:

1. On the velar vs. palatal series: I think that there is just one series, originally velar. This goes along with my belief that PIE, as far back as we can go, had a phoneme *a, separate from ablauting *e/*o/zero, and independent of *H2e > Ha. Original velars would have developed into palatals in many, but not all, environments in the dialects that later developed into the satem languages. One environment where velars were retained was before *a.

This is not the place to analyze all the data, but let me just give a quick overview of the situation of *k before (original) *a. On a quick count in Pokorny, there are 50 PIE etyma beginning with *ka- and 11 beginning with *k'a (palatal). Only 5 of these 11 have no alternate explanations: *k'ad- 'to fall', *k'ad- 'to shine', *k'a(n)k- 'to hang', *k'as- 'gray' and *k'at- 'to fight'. Maybe I can come up with a reasonable explanation of these forms, given my theory, maybe not. But I note that there are exceptions to palatalization rules affecting velars in Old English, for example (look up the history of "back" - why is it not **batch?). Dialect mixture? Analogy? Who knows - wait for my presentation when it appears.

2. On the question of labiovelar laryngeals, what surprises me is that no-one seems to have suggested this before me (if someone has, please let me know). If you look at Hittite glossaries, initial ku+vowel parallels initial hu+ vowel, both occurring with similar frequency. We know that Hittite ku+vowel corresponds to PIE *k^w, it is an obvious parallel to make a similar correspondence between Hittite hu+vowel and PIE *x^w (or *H2^w, if you prefer).

Here is a list of PIE words with *x^w, from my work in progress: *dl.x^wghós ‘long’, *g^wíx^wos ‘life’, *g^wix^wós ‘alive’, *x^wḗntos ‘wind’, *x^wés- ‘to dwell, to stay’,*néx^ws ‘boat’, *póx^wṛ ‘fire’, *sóx^wēl ‘sun’, *x^wl.'xnex ‘wool’.

And yes, indeed there is at least one case of *xw, distinct from *x^w : *píxwōn ‘fat’ [cf Gk pîar ‘fatty substance’] (I forget my reasoning, bear with me).

There is less evidence for the corresponding voiced labiovelar laryngeal, because internal H3 was lost even in Anatolian. But it is reasonable to reconstruct it at least for *g^woG^ws 'cow, cattle'.

I am firmly opposed to the phonetic identification of *H3 as *H^w. This is often done to explain the o-colouring of an adjacent *e. In my view this is contradicted by the fact that labiovelars are widely retained in Anatolian, Italic, Germanic and Greek, at the very least. Why would these branches have the uniform change *H^we > *Ho, when *k^we is retained in the same branches (with Grimm's law *k^we > *x^we in Germanic)?

I hope this gives a quick resumé of my ideas on the subject.

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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

Post by Terra »

Thanks for replying, everybody.
On the subject of two versus three velar series: although I'm not a big fan of the dnghu-project, this link sums up the arguments pro and contra two velar series quite nicely.
Thanks for the link. Those are are actually very convincing reasons. I'm less convinced about these labiovelar sibilants though.
Dialect mixture? Analogy? Who knows - wait for my presentation when it appears.
I eagerly await it.
On the question of labiovelar laryngeals, what surprises me is that no-one seems to have suggested this before me (if someone has, please let me know). If you look at Hittite glossaries, initial ku+vowel parallels initial hu+ vowel, both occurring with similar frequency. We know that Hittite ku+vowel corresponds to PIE *k^w, it is an obvious parallel to make a similar correspondence between Hittite hu+vowel and PIE *x^w (or *H2^w, if you prefer).
Hmm, a reason for.
Why would these branches have the uniform change *H^we > *Ho, when *k^we is retained in the same branches (with Grimm's law *k^we > *x^we in Germanic)?
But isn't this a reason against having a labiovelar sibilant series at all?

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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

Post by hwhatting »

Terra wrote:
AFAIK, merging palatal / velar + w and the homorganic labiovelar is something all centum languages did.
Really? What other words show this?
Just checking Pokorny:
No case in Pok. for a root starting with *g'w- that has centum equivalents.
One case for *gh'w- with centum equivalents: *gh'wel- "bend" Pok II, 490-491: Lat. fallo, GK. phaliptei, phó:lios, phê:los, phe:lóo: / dor. pha:lóo:
With *k'w-: some derivatives of the root *k'ew- (1) "swell" Pok. II 592-594, e.g. *k'weH2-: Greek ´(Dor.) pá:sasthai, pépamai, pâ:ma (what makes these froms especially indicative is that here, the /w/ came into contact with the /k'/ only by PIE morphonological alteration, i.e. by ablaut.
*k'wey- Pok. II 628-629 "be bright, white": Gk. títanos "gypsum, chalk", Germanic hwi:t- "white"; but Balto-Slavic show both the reflex of a palatal and of a velar here (there are several cases where Baltic and or Slavic show the reflexes of a velar where other satem languages have a platal): Lith. šviečiu "shine", OCS svьtěti sę "shine", světъ "light" (palatal reflex); Latv. kvitêt "flicker, shimmer", OCS cvětъ, Pol. kwiat "flower" with the velar reflex.
*k'wes- "pant, sigh": Latin queror "lament, complain"
Not a big number - there are some doubtful cases which I left out, and you could find some more if you looked for root-final *k'w, for which a reverse index of Pokorny would be helpful. But there seem at least to be no cases where palatal plus /w/ are treated differently from labiovelars in Centum languages.
Also, if PIE had only 4 series of stops, and satem languages innovated the palatal series, then it wouldn't matter whether the stop was velar or labiovelar, because if satem languages first merged those, and then innovated the palatal series, a past labiovelar could turn into palatal. Are there any words in satem languages that show such a thing though?

*h_1ek^j-w- "horse" does not count, because it does not have an original labiovelar. What about *k^we "what"? I can't say, because I know that Slavic had many waves of palatalization, and I don't know which one acted here.
I don't think I get your reasoning here. Let's get back to first principles:
Centum: Merge velars and palatals, keep labiovelars distinct. Labiovelars often turn into labials. Palatals + /w/ merge with labiovelars, but can be distinguished by their different reflexes in Satem.
Satem: Merge velars and labiovelars into velars (loss of the labial element). Palatals develop into various sibilants and affricates.
So, PIE labiovelars are treated differently from PIE palatals, that's part of the definition of Satem. In secondary palatalizations, velars and labiovelars in Indo-Arian and Slavic, the outcomes are often different from the outcomes of the PIE palatals, allowing to distinguish them:
Indo-Aryan: PIE k' > "ś", secondary pal. of /k/ (from PIE; *k, kw) > "c" (for the voiced and voiced aspirate seres, the outcomes of the IE palatals and the secondary palatalizations are identical)
Slavic: PIE k' > /s/, PIE g(h)' > /z/; secondary palatalizations of /k/, /g/ (from PIE k, kw) and g(h), g(h)w):
1st palatalization: /k/ > "č" = /tʃ/, /g/ > "ž" = /ʒ/; "2nd" and "3rd" platalization: /k/ > "c" = /ts/, /g/ > /(d)z)
The interrogative pronoun shows "c" and "k" in Indoaryan, "č" and "k" in Slavic, and "k" in Baltic, i.e. a velar or the results of secondary platalizations, which shows, taken together with the Centum evidence, that PIE had a labiovelar here (and not, say a palalatal or a palatal plus "w").

OK, what was your question again? ;-)
Joking aside, the velar series is reconstructed for cases where both Satem and Centum show a simple velar. So there's no point with looking for labiovelars becoming palatals in Satem - I've never heard about such a case. Someone who doesn't accept 3 series needs to explain the cases of velars in both Censtum and Satem. Part of it may be explained by dialect mixture. One thing that has been noted is that these velars often appear near PIE /a/, so one can assume, like gsandi seems to do, that the distinction between the 3 series originally was allophonic - there was one velar series that split into labiovelars (near back vowels and maybe some labial consonants), palatals (near front vowels and perhaps /j/), and velars (in neutral environments as near /a/); this allophonic relationship was later severed by analogy and ablaut*1). Now, as you probably know, there are many IEanists who don't accept /a/ as an original IE phoneme, and there are some who argue the other way round - that the three series are original, and /a/ arose from other vowels near velars.

EDIT: I don't know many people who go as far as gsandi in positing only one velar series; more frequently I've seen attempts to explain the three series from an earlier two series (velar and labiovelar).

*1) NB, if you take ablaut as one of the reasons for the breakdown of the originally allophonic relationship, then the three series had already become phonemic in late PIE.

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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

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EDIT: I don't know many people who go as far as gsandi in positing only one velar series; more frequently I've seen attempts to explain the three series from an earlier two series (velar and labiovelar).
I thought that he was positing two velar series (plain velar and labiovelar), not one.
I don't think I get your reasoning here. Let's get back to first principles:
It's because I got the order wrong. Satem innovated the palatal series first (or inherited it), and then merged velars and labiovelars.

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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

Post by hwhatting »

Terra wrote:
EDIT: I don't know many people who go as far as gsandi in positing only one velar series; more frequently I've seen attempts to explain the three series from an earlier two series (velar and labiovelar).
I thought that he was positing two velar series (plain velar and labiovelar), not one.
Yes, I think you're right, I misunderstood where he said:
gsandi wrote:I think that there is just one series, originally velar.
I now see he was referring to the platal-velar contrast, not to all tectal series.
Terra wrote:
I don't think I get your reasoning here. Let's get back to first principles:
It's because I got the order wrong. Satem innovated the palatal series first (or inherited it), and then merged velars and labiovelars.
OK.

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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

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gsandi wrote:This is not the place to analyze all the data, but let me just give a quick overview of the situation of *k before (original) *a. On a quick count in Pokorny, there are 50 PIE etyma beginning with *ka- and 11 beginning with *k'a (palatal). Only 5 of these 11 have no alternate explanations: *k'ad- 'to fall', *k'ad- 'to shine', *k'a(n)k- 'to hang', *k'as- 'gray' and *k'at- 'to fight'. Maybe I can come up with a reasonable explanation of these forms, given my theory, maybe not. But I note that there are exceptions to palatalization rules affecting velars in Old English, for example (look up the history of "back" - why is it not **batch?). Dialect mixture? Analogy? Who knows - wait for my presentation when it appears.
But then you have *ko *ku*kʲo *kʲu and *ka left intact, isn't that somewhat illogical?
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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

Post by gsandi »

Why would these branches have the uniform change *H^we > *Ho, when *k^we is retained in the same branches (with Grimm's law *k^we > *x^we in Germanic)?
But isn't this a reason against having a labiovelar sibilant series at all?
I am referring to attempts at identifying the phonetic nature of laryngeals, a highly speculative business in any case. Some linguists reconstruct *H3 as originally having a labial component: *H^w (this would make *H3 into a labiovelar if *H was a velar, which is not at all certain). This is then used to explain the change e > o next to an *H3. I disagree with this because:

1. Other labialized consonants (*k^w, *g^w, *gh^w, *w) do not produce this effect. There are many IE roots beginning with *k^we-, *g^we-, *gh^we- and *we-.

2. As I already said, the labial component of H3 is presumed to be lost in daughter languages, at least initially (internally, proponents of this theory may explain the -w- in Latin octâvus and the -ui perfect this way, plus stray w's elsewhere that have no obvious source). But languages do not usually eliminate distinctive features in similar environments selectively: if the labial feature in *H3 (i.e. *H^w) is lost initially, I would expect it to be lost in *k^w-, *g^w- and *gh^w- as well.

These arguments do not apply to the labiovelar laryngeals I reconstruct. In Anatolian they are kept initially, and, in the case of *H^w, internally (internally, *G^w > *w, just as *G > nothing). Outside Anatolian, H is lost generally, and both *H^w and *G^w develop like normal *w. This change is early enough that the delabialization of labiovelars in the satem languages (*k^w > *k etc.) simply does not apply yet.

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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

Post by Sleinad Flar »

Pole wrote:
gsandi wrote:This is not the place to analyze all the data, but let me just give a quick overview of the situation of *k before (original) *a. On a quick count in Pokorny, there are 50 PIE etyma beginning with *ka- and 11 beginning with *k'a (palatal). Only 5 of these 11 have no alternate explanations: *k'ad- 'to fall', *k'ad- 'to shine', *k'a(n)k- 'to hang', *k'as- 'gray' and *k'at- 'to fight'. Maybe I can come up with a reasonable explanation of these forms, given my theory, maybe not. But I note that there are exceptions to palatalization rules affecting velars in Old English, for example (look up the history of "back" - why is it not **batch?). Dialect mixture? Analogy? Who knows - wait for my presentation when it appears.
But then you have *ko *ku*kʲo *kʲu and *ka left intact, isn't that somewhat illogical?
Not really, as *ko alternated with *ke and *ku alternated with *kew. After the supposed palatisation this would have given pairs like *ko/*k'e and *ku/*k'ew, and (late) PIE resolved this one way or the other (PIE was never a big fan of consonant alternation). Original *ka never showed this ablaut.
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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

Post by gsandi »

Pole wrote:
gsandi wrote:This is not the place to analyze all the data, but let me just give a quick overview of the situation of *k before (original) *a. On a quick count in Pokorny, there are 50 PIE etyma beginning with *ka- and 11 beginning with *k'a (palatal). Only 5 of these 11 have no alternate explanations: *k'ad- 'to fall', *k'ad- 'to shine', *k'a(n)k- 'to hang', *k'as- 'gray' and *k'at- 'to fight'. Maybe I can come up with a reasonable explanation of these forms, given my theory, maybe not. But I note that there are exceptions to palatalization rules affecting velars in Old English, for example (look up the history of "back" - why is it not **batch?). Dialect mixture? Analogy? Who knows - wait for my presentation when it appears.
But then you have *ko *ku*kʲo *kʲu and *ka left intact, isn't that somewhat illogical?
I do not have a completely satisfactory explanation of the satem changes. On the whole, I think that they represent a palatalization of velars in certain environments, similar to what happened in the Romance languages (except Sardinian) before front vowels, Slavic in three waves (sometimes even after front vowels), Latvian, Indo-Iranian and Old English - and , in Swedish, today.

Before PIE *e and *i, there is no problem, except that odd examples of the retention of velars must have some explanation.

Before *o, one possible explanation is that *o, in most cases, can be derived from earlier *e (a common explanation of ablaut). If this was true, satemization would have occurred in some dialects before the *e > *o change. Some examples of velar retention could then be explained if we posit an original *o, never subject to ablaut. This goes against the grain of the mainstream today (I think), because there is a tendency to reconstruct extremely simple vowel systems. As I said earlier, I don't mind reconstructing an original *a, and would be willing to consider an original *o as well, say in *bhosós 'naked'. If this is the case, *kór(y)os 'war' would have a good reason not to have a palatalized initial in satem languages.

Satemization before *u, *w and consonants is a harder nut to crack. In some cases, the velar is in front of an obvious zero-grade form, so that *kunós 'of the dog' is from earlier *kewnés (or *kwenés). But what about *oktôu (or *H2oktôu, or *H3ektôu) 'eight'? If it's a case of palatalization after an original (pre- or post-ablaut) *e, are there other examples?

The whole business is fraught with possible circular arguments, ad hoc reconstructions and the like. If I push satemization back to pre-ablaut times, I contradict my own two-series theory. At least in dialects leading to the satem languages, there would then have to have been three series for a certain period of time: velars, palatals and labiovelars.

It's work in progress, as I said.

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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

Post by Pole, the »

Also, what about the stress patterns?
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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

Post by Salmoneus »

I was wondering about those anomalous *o-s just now. They seem to be a lot more common after labials/labiovelars.


I'm not convinced by your argument against H3 being rounded, though. If we assume it was a fricative or approximant, it wouldn't be unusual at all to lose distinctions still retained in the stops, particularly if it's a sound a long way back in the mouth to begin with. And after all all the languages dropped it entirely soon after - that is, they failed to distinguish it from its absence, and from the presence/absence of the other laryngeals - it doesn't seem farfetched to imagine that they may have failed to distinguish some details of its realisation before they came to fail to distinguish it at all.

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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

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Welcome back, Gabor!
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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

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gsandi wrote:It seems God does not want me to visit the Czech Republic).
The Czech Republic famously dislikes God. This is clearly his revenge upon them.
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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

Post by gsandi »

Thank you guys. It's always nice to feel welcome.

I may not have made it to Prague, but I did manage to spend 5 days in London. Among the treasures I found in its bookshops (ex-Dillons, Foyles and that of the London Transport Museum) were the 2nd ed. of Beekes's Comparative IE grammar, the Little Prince in Cornish (!): An Pennsevik Byhan, and histories of the tram networks in Cardiff and Dublin. I also had my usual tram ride from Greenwich to Croydon - I think by now I know this route better than most Londoners.

One day I and my wife went to the Science Museum, which still has (in my view) the best overall presentation on the scientific revolution that made the world what it is today (for better or worse). And most of it took place in the UK.

And since it was a beautiful day, unlike most during my stay there, we walked all the way from the museum, through Hyde Park and in front of Buckingham Palace, through Piccadilly and theatreland, to our hotel, just across from ex-Dillons on Gower Street.

We also had a nice Rodizio (Brazilian barbecue) dinner on Shaftesbury Avenue, in what must be a fairly new restaurant. This in honour of my continuous fascination with everything Brazilian - and Brazil is my next planned destination, assuming its ex-Trotskiite President can dissuade her fellow citizens from continuous demonstrations.

Talking of London restaurants, we walked by the Gay Hussar, London's only remaining Hungarian restaurant, and it decidedly looked shut down, although its web page is up even now. Sal, can you find out if it's still functioning?

Gabor

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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

Post by Basilius »

(I forget how many times, and in how many places on the net, I've already written what I'm going to write, so nothing new will happen if you ignore this.)

(Also, "you" is used below to refer to any potential reader of this message, not any participant in the previous discussion in particular.)

So....

All the statements about plain velars being rare are based on counting the occurrences in (root-)initial position. If you look at the consonants occurring in root-final position or in suffixes, you'll see that the series in question is not rare at all. Surprise.

Also, the claims about restrictions on environments where plain velars occur, too, work for the (root-)initial position only.

Also, stop quoting the Lithuanian forms without satemization. Whatever it is, it's an internal Baltic problem.

Also, before adducing a Baltic or Slavic word without expected satemization effects, do check if it can be a Germanic loan. All those 'gardens' and 'geese' quoted without a question mark just look like cheating.

Also, if you call "PIE" what I call Indo-Hittite, then you don't have a "PIE reconstruction". Nothing to discuss.

Also, if you call "PIE" what I call "Narrow PIE", stop speaking of "pre-ablaut stage" (&like) as something immediately preceding what you call "PIE".

Also, stop marking the stress in PIE forms, no matter what you call PIE; you don't know what suprasegmentals PIE had. Nobody does.
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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

Post by Drydic »

The mad is strong with this bro.
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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

Post by Pabappa »

According to wikipedia the plain velars were never in any suffixes
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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

Post by Pole, the »

Basilius wrote:Also, stop marking the stress in PIE forms, no matter what you call PIE; you don't know what suprasegmentals PIE had. Nobody does.
This one is especially ridiculous. :D
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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

Post by WeepingElf »

Pole wrote:
Basilius wrote:Also, stop marking the stress in PIE forms, no matter what you call PIE; you don't know what suprasegmentals PIE had. Nobody does.
This one is especially ridiculous. :D
Indeed it is. While it is true that we don't know precisely what kind the accent in PIE was, we know at least that there was something which we can reasonably call "accent", and often know where it fell at least in Late PIE (i.e., after Anatolian went its own ways) because the accents of Ancient Greek words often fall on the same syllable as in their Vedic cognates, and where they don't, the difference can be accounted for with a fairly simple accent shift rule on the Greek side. Also, there is Verner's Law in Germanic, which depends on precisely the accent positions reconstructed on the basis of Vedic and Greek. AFAIK, the Balto-Slavic accent, though heavily altered by laryngeals and other factors, can also be traced back to this Late PIE accent (but I may be misinformed on this). If something that has left such clear traces in Indic, Greek and Germanic (and Balto-Slavic?) isn't reconstructible for Late PIE, I don't know what is.
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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

Post by Terra »

Satemization before *u, *w and consonants is a harder nut to crack. In some cases, the velar is in front of an obvious zero-grade form, so that *kunós 'of the dog' is from earlier *kewnés (or *kwenés). But what about *oktôu (or *H2oktôu, or *H3ektôu) 'eight'? If it's a case of palatalization after an original (pre- or post-ablaut) *e, are there other examples?
Writing "kunos", is just another way of writing "køwnos", right? Is there a distinction between "øw" and "wø"? (ø == the zero grade vowel)

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Re: Gabor's Reconstruction of PIE

Post by Drydic »

Basically yes, though saying 'zero-grade vowel' is (as I'm fairly sure you understand) not accurate, since it is the absence of any other vowel.
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