Motivating the Root Restrictions of PIE
Stanley Friesen
sarima at friesen.net
Tue Nov 14 02:17:16 UTC 2000
At 11:39 AM 11/11/00 -0600, David L. White wrote:
>According to Lehmann, PIE shows three kinds of root restrictions. Accepting
>for now the traditional interpretation and using "D" to represent any voiced
>plosive, "T" to represent any voiceless plosive, and "DH" to represent any
>voiced aspirate plosve, these are:
> 1) no /DeD/
> 2) no /TeDH/
> 3) no /DHeT/
>correct, these restrictions (not to mention the /b/-gap) do not make sense.
>So here is one way (the only way I can see) that they could make sense.
> 1) The voiced plosives were orginally not voiced but pharyngealized.
> 2) The voiceless plosives were orginally laryngealized (which is not
> the same as glottalized).
> 3) The voiced aspirates were as traditionally posited, technically
> murmured.
I suspect that a slightly different set of alternatives can cover most of
the same problems.
1. The traditional voiced plosives were actually voiceless unaspirated
plosives.
2. The traditional voiceless plosives were actually voiceless *aspirated*
plosives.
3. The traditional voiced aspirates were either simple voiced plosive or
voiced fricatives.
At the very least this avoids the typological issues.
--------------
May the peace of God be with you. sarima at ix.netcom.com
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