*gwh in Gmc.

[Mate Kapović]

-----Original Message-----
From: David L. White <dlwhite at texas.net>
Date: 2001. veljača 15 08:32

>        /pw/ does not seem likely.  Labialized labials are disfavored for
>fairly obvious phonetic reasons.  Even pharyngealized labials are
>disfavored, merely because the acoustic effect of pharyngealization is
>somewhat similar to lablialization.  In nearly two hundred years of IE
>linguistics no need has been perceived to posit labialized labials.  It
>could be objected that /pw/ is not a labialized labial but a sequence, but
>more or less the same phonetic considerations apply.  Note that in modern
>English we permit dentals and velars before /w/, for example "twelve",
>"dwarf", "thwart", and "queen", but not labials, save in very recent
>non-native acquisitions like Swahili "bwana".

Although I'm against the idea of PIE *pw and I agre that <<labialized
labials are disfavored for
fairly obvious phonetic reasons<<
I must say that in fact there are some lg.s which have labialized labials.
I'm not aware of any pw-s but one of Austronesic lgs - Gilbertese is
supposed to have bw and mw. So, I guess anything's possible.