tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386055846297828307.post6203488137167303440..comments2024-03-28T07:34:49.133+01:00Comments on The Genealogical World of Phylogenetic Networks: Typology of sound change (Open problems in computational diversity linguistics 9)Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386055846297828307.post-39721155175020286422019-11-09T02:32:38.618+01:002019-11-09T02:32:38.618+01:00Part of the persistence of the subscript notation ...Part of the persistence of the subscript notation is probably due to the laryngeals being treated as a bundle. Even if we think *h₁ *h₂ can be probably rewritten as *h *χ, but don't have as clear of an opinion on *h₃, it's not like anyone is going to leave it as the sole number-subscripted phoneme in the transcription.<br /><br />*a is a much debated PIE segment too; another, more stable consonant like *m or *n would make a better example probably.J Pystynenhttp://protouralic.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386055846297828307.post-1761512069171492062019-10-29T10:38:26.183+01:002019-10-29T10:38:26.183+01:00Note the wording "cannot be reconstructed wit...Note the wording "cannot be reconstructed with high reliability". Would you not agree that the sound value is less reliable for h₂ than for, say, a? It's a matter of degree, not of absolutive terms, and you find this tradition of using abstract letters in many reconstruction systems (Austronesian, Old Chinese, etc.). And as long as linguists do not start to agree (and they don't agree) and re-write all laryngeals with real sound symbols, I do not see what should be wrong about this claim. If all was so simple as you say, people would have abandoned abstract notation long time ago. Johann-Mattis Listhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12185355133399020406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8386055846297828307.post-50644438344288279872019-10-28T11:40:01.363+01:002019-10-28T11:40:01.363+01:00The most famous example are the Indo-European &quo...<i>The most famous example are the Indo-European "laryngeals", whose existence is beyond doubt for most historical linguistics, but whose sound values cannot be reconstructed with high reliability. As a result, linguists tend to spell them with subscript numbers as *h₁, *h₂, and *h₃.</i><br /><br />This claim took on a life of its own decades ago. It continues to be repeated at almost every occasion as the textbook example of phonemes whose pronunciation can't be reconstructed, even though it's really quite clear that *h₂ must have been [χ] (with hints of an earlier [q]) and that *h₁ must have been [h] or possibly [ʔ] (or both at different times).<br /><br />The only difficult one is the rare *h₃. There's evidence it was voiced (*pi-ph₃- > *pib-, *h₂ap-h₃on- > *abon-), but that would make it the only voiced fricative ([ʁ]?) in the whole system (by all appearances, [z] existed, but only as an allophone of *s before word-internal voiced plosives); and the question of how it changed adjacent *e to *o remains unresolved because the original pronunciation of *o is actually a much more difficult problem than that of *h₂.David Marjanovićnoreply@blogger.com