pre-IE k > H

[CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU]

[ Moderator's note:
  The following material is quoted from a message posted on 16 March 2000 by
  Eric Plourde (plourer at MAGELLAN.UMontreal.CA).  I apologize for not having
  added the citation to Carol Justus' response from which it is taken here.
  --rma ]

>>On Wed, 15 Mar 2000, Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

>>> Dear Indo-Europeanists:

>>> In Greenberg's new book, _Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives_, the
>>> proposal is made on pp. 59-60 that pre=IE or early IE k became a
>>> "laryngeal".

>[ moderator snip ]

>>Actually, this phonological change is quite common in other language groups,
>>for example in PF-U *k- becomes h- in Hungarian (but stays k- in Finnish)
>>when it is followed by vowels such as a or o. It parallels IE examples
>>(including the one you have mentioned) and Sino-Tibetan examples

Carol Justus wrote:

>I wonder if it is not important to distinguish between a *k > h (such as
>happened in Germanic (e.g., cornu, 'horn') and *k- > largyngeal written in
>Hittite with a sound transcribed as 'h' with a diacritic under it?

Absolutely!  Moreover, it is essential to separate a regular phonetic change
(k- > h- in Hungarian and Germanic) from a sporadic change, such as the
proposed k- > H-.

Leo

Leo A. Connolly                         Foreign Languages & Literatures
connolly at memphis.edu                    University of Memphis