PIE Plosive System

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

philps at univ-tlse2.fr (Dennis Philps) wrote:

>Part of original message :

>>        There are three facts that any posited system must explain:

>>        1)  The absence of roots of the form /DeD/.
>>        2)  The absence of roots of the forms /TeDH/ and /DHeT/.
>>        3)  The absence of/b/.

>Based on Benveniste (Origines...1935:170), surely posited systems must be able
>to explain the absence of *any* /CeC/ root where C is identical?

That too, although I don't think the answer lies necessarily in
phonological constraints.  It would have been less confusing to
state the above as:

        1)  The absence of roots of the form /DeG/.
        2)  The absence of roots of the forms /TeGH/ and /DHeK/.
        3)  The absence of /b/.

>Benveniste goes on to
>say that the only combination not found in PIE is /voiceless + (e) + voiced
>aspirated/

Even less confusing:

        1)  The near absence of roots of the form /DeG/.
        2)  The near absence of roots of the forms /TeGH/ and /DHeK/.
        3)  The near absence of /b/.

The vast majority of roots are of the form DHeGH or TeK.  DeG,
TeGH, DHeK are extremely rare to non-existent.  DeK, TeG and DheG
are medium fequency (probably because of the relatively low
frequency of *d and *g and (near) absence of *b).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam