PIE plosives

[Larry Trask]

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:

> It's a generally recognized fact that a PIE stop system *t, *d,
> *dh is typologically unacceptable.

Perhaps not so generally.  A number of languages have turned up which
have voiced aspirates but no voiceless aspirates.  For example, the
Indonesian language Madurese has a /p/ series, a /b/ series and a /bh/
series, but no /ph/ series, exactly like the standard reconstruction of
PIE.  Several other Indonesian languages have more or less the same
system, and I think I've read that a couple of African languages do as
well.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk