*gwh in Gmc.

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

On Thu, 15 Feb 2001 09:13:26 +0100, "Hans-Werner Hatting"
<hwhatting at hotmail.com> wrote:

>A parallel to the current discussion is the case of the k/g reflexes for PIE
>*k4/g4/g4h in Satem languages. In this case, as far as I know, nobody has
>posited an extra series of (e.g.) half-palatalised k/g/gh; the usual
>positions in this case seem to be to assume borrowing or a wave-light spread
>of the palatalisation phenomenon, which left out some words in the languages
>(Baltic and Slavic) farther away from the center of the wave.
>So maybe we have a similar case here, and the variations between labiovelars
>and labials quoted are just witnesses of an uneven spread of the
>labialisation of labiovelars, while the words with /p/ for */kw/ in Satem
>languages are just later borrowings (at a time when the change /kw/ > /k/
>had already occurred, and /p/ was substituted for /kw/ in the borrowed
>word).

The comparison with satem-centum is interesting.  I assume you mean
that nobody has posited an extra series for the *k^'s etc. that appear
in *some* satem languages as the expected sibilants, but in others as
velars.  It *has* been assumed that *k etc. differs from *k^ etc. (and
from *kw etc.), although some would deny that is the case.  I believe
that *k and *k^ were different phonemes in PIE (although the relative
rarity of *k etc. as opposed to *k^ forces us, on typological grounds,
to reconstruct *k^ as unmarked /k/, while *k would have to be an
extra-back velar (uvular?) /q/).  The fact that some *k's appear as
sibilants (or some *k^'s appear as velars) in the satem languages can
be ascribed to borrowings, dialect mixtures and positional sound laws,
although the details are rather messy.  I would plead the same for my
*kw and *pw: different proto-phonemes that became confused due to
borrowings, dialect mixtures and positional sound laws, the details
remaining rather messy.  Although it has to be said that the case for
*k, *g, *gh as distinct from *k^, *g^, *g^h is definitely stronger
(even if not strong enough for the taste of many a specialist) than
the case for *pw, *bhw [no *bw, of course] as distinct from *kw, *ghw.

>>My proposal makes the most sense within a wider context where _all_
>>(pre-)PIE consonants had labialized (and palatalized) variants.  This
>>would be comparable to the developments that can be seen later in Old
>>Irish (3-way split between "slender", "broad" and "u-coloured"
>>consonants) or in Tocharian.  The Tocharian case (where *i, *u and *e
>>merged as *@ (*a"), or rather: *e > *@, *i > *(y)@, *u > *(w)@) is
>>especially interesting, given the lack of *i and *u in PIE
>>[full-grade] root structure (so maybe **CiC > *C(y)eC, **CuC >
>>*C(w)eC).  As was the case in Old Irish and pre-Tocharian, such a
>>system with a 3-way opposition was inherently unstable, and was
>>eventually resolved leaving a number of irregularities.  The
>>alternations between *p and *kw (with Germanic mostly, but not always,
>>on the *p-side, the other lgs. mostly, but not always, on the
>>*kw-side) can be interpreted that way, as can other PIE irregularities
>>(e.g. *t ~ *s < *tw (cf. the Greek soundlaw *tw > s) in the words for
>>"month", "dawn", the pf. act. ptc. in *-wot-/*-us-, etc.; *n ~ *i <
>>*n^ in roots like *nem-/*yem-/*em- and the Vedic *-i/*-n-stems; *l ~
>>*i < *l^ in the "liver" word, maybe also in "yoke"; *m ~ *w < *mw in
>>the 1 sg., du. and pl. of the verb, etc.).

>Anyway, this is an interesting concept. Did you elaborate on this anywhere?

I did, within the even larger context of (pre-)PIE morphonology, but
it's "in print".

One thing I find interesting is that if (pre-)PIE indeed had
palatalized and labialized variants of all, or most, of its
consonants, and we combine that with the sound law that Jens Elmegaard
Rasmussen and I talked about here on this list (in the Auslaut, **-n >
*-r), we obtain an interesting pattern:

*n  > -n-, -r
*n^ > -n-, -i
*nw > -n-/-m-(?), -u

This looks suspiciously like the Caland pattern.

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