Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE

[David L. White]

> The analysis of the obstruents as occurring in three series, to wit, plain,
> palatalized, and labialized, is unremarkable.

        What is another example?

> Presumably, your confusion stems
> from my comments on Kuipers' re-analysis of "plain":

        Practically speaking, "plain" would have to be "[a]-colored", to
stay out of the way of consonants that were [i]-colored or [u]-colored.
Otherwise, with normal coarticulation, "plain" velars (to take the most
obvious case) would develop de facto [i]-coloring near /i/.   Of course,
this would not apply to a language without /i/, but Old Irish does have /i/.
If part of the claim is that [a]-coloring does not exist, I agree, but
assert that it would have to for the sound-system commonly posited for Old
Irish to be viable.

Dr. David L. White