The origin of the Indo-European uvular stop (traditionally the "plain, non-palatalized stop")

This is just a continuation of my jovial traipsing through modern reinterpretations of Indo-European phonology (see Reinterpreting the Proto-Indo-European velar series) where I explain that the traditional reconstruction of a palatal series violates the principle of markedness and that it's high time we modernize the theory for the 21st century. So the following will proceed by just assuming that the "non-palatal stop" series are uvulars which are aligned with *h₂, and that the "palatal" series (*ḱ, *ǵ, *ǵʰ) is the unmarked "plain stop" series (*k, *g and *gh). This makeover has a bucketload of implications that, in tandem with Glottalic Theory (or rather my version using unaspirated, semi-voiced stops rather than ejectives) and proposals by Jasanoff concerning a new PIE grammar, radically but necessarily departs from the old look and feel of Proto-Indo-European (PIE). Based on a modification of Glottalic Theory, for example, we can push our reinterpretation further so that the traditional stops *ḱ, *ǵ, *ǵʰ, *k, *g and *gʰ are rewritten as *k, *k:, *g, *q, *q: and *ɢ, respectively.

As I suggested before, in this new way of thinking, the presence of uvularity itself is the cause of "vowel colouring". So both uvular stops (the original "non-palatal series" of *k, *g and *gʰ) and *h₂ (a uvular fricative^[1]) colour *e to *a in the same fashion. Now, people who are versed in PIE linguistics may think that I'm sniffing glue by seemingly not accounting for words like *ker- "to cut". However, Jasanoff reinterprets thematic verbs like *bʰer- as originally athematic roots (thus *bʰēr-) which originated from subjunctive forms in *-e-. This accounts, for example, for the post-IE aorist in *bʰēr-s-, of which the Anatolian branch shows little trace. Likewise then, we might posit that *ker- is underlyingly an athematic root *qēr- (both with an update of plain *k to uvular *q, and athematization of this root à la Jasanoff). Additionally, it has already been remarked by others that vowel colouring does not affect long vowels in PIE, only short vowels^[2]. We can extend this same rule to uvular stops as well. So while *qēr- would be pronounced as /qɛ:r-/, its reduced form *qer- however would be pronounced /qær-/ with colouring. We would also need to reinterpret traditional *kap- "to grasp, to seize" as *qep- with the same vowel colouring, which illustrates how true phonemic *a may be confused with coloured *e /æ/ in these instances.

In the traditional model, consonant clusters oddly prefer palatal *k (in opposition to markedness). However, we can see that the reinterpretation that I'm promoting has the advantage of doing away with palatalization in all these instances. There would still be some clusters with uvular *q as in *qreu- "raw; flesh" (traditional *kreu-) however the new model finally explains the distribution. As I refer to above, I would prefer a modified Glottalic Theory whereby it is both acknowledged that a) some stage of Pre-IE must have contained ejectives (to explain away PIE's curious phonotactic constraint against two voiced stops in the same syllable as a rule forbidding two ejectives in the same syllable) and b) PIE itself did not have ejectives but only unaspirated, semi-voiced "fortis" stops (the traditional stops *d and *g), thereby explaining the complete absence of inherited ejectives in its daughter languages while retaining the explanatory power of Glottalic Theory.

Now, that this is all out of the way: What is the cause of this uvularization in the first place? Nostraticists, working with the flawed palatalized model of yore, were in effect sent down a wild goose chase for a very long time. Afterall, the onus was up to them to explain the source of an effectively non-existent palatalization in Pre-IE. So a new model would shake things up, not only for PIE but for Nostratic as well. So far, I've stuck with my original explanation for uvulars. In my theory, uvulars became phonemicized and distinct from plain stops once Syncope (i.e. the loss of most unstressed vowels) kicked in. Before this time, *k/*k:/*g and *q/*q:/*ɢ were merely allophonic variations of plain *k/*k:/*g which alternated depending on the neighbouring tautosyllabic vowel. In my "Mid IE stage", a low vowel *a lowered *k to /q/ by assimilation while *k remained /k/ neighbouring *e. Since there are only two vowels, *a and *e, in my theory, it's all pretty straight-forward. I date the few roots with uvulars in onset clusters as post-Syncope (that is, dated to the Late IE Period). So *qreu- can be etymologically understood as a Late IE deriviative of *qēr- "to cut" that was coined after *k and *q became phonemically distinct.

I'll rant on some more about this crap later. There's a heckuvalot more to talk about.

NOTES
^[1] Read Fox, Linguistic Reconstruction: An Introduction to Theory and Method (1995), p.179 (see link here): "The fact that *h₂ causes a-colouring would suggest that it is pronounced far back in the mouth - perhaps a uvular or pharyngeal sound [...]". Also Campbell, Historical Linguistics: An Introduction (2004), p.43: "For example, vowels are often lowered before uvular and pharyngeal consonants [...]" (see link).
^[2] Note Ringe, From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic (2006), p.14 (see link): "But the laryngeal had no effect on the *o of *h₂ḱh₂owsiéti '(s)he's sharp-eared', so far as we can tell, nor on the *ē of *ḗh₂gʷʰti '(s)he's drinking' [...]". (Personally, if I was ruler of the linguistic universe, I would rewrite *h₂ḱh₂owsiéti as *ḥkḥousyéti and *ḗh₂gʷʰti as *(ʔ)ḗḥgʷti.)

UPDATES
(Jan 05 2008) Egad, I stated "PIE itself did not have ejectives but only aspirated, semi-voiced 'fortis' stops" and I of course meant unaspirated fortis stops. Sorry, this topic is complex enough without me confusing everyone. I've corrected this error above.

Turfa exposes a 70-year-old error in Etruscology

The above picture is courtesy of Turfa, Catalogue of the Etruscan Gallery of the University of Pennsylvania (2005), p.138 [link] which, while explaining the inscription on this intriguing object, has inadvertantly said something profound about Etruscology (red indicates parts of the text I find somewhat alarming yet also typical of this field):

"E. Fiesel, note to Lehmann-Hartleben 1935:80 (this cites inscription on exterior as name 'sphinx,' but spelled atu, now recognized as aśu, for archaic form of cross-bar sigma. Correct reading given in Fiesel 1936); G. Buonamici, REE in SE 11 (1937):443-44 no. 1, but incorrectly inserts mi before name; TLE 766 (incorrect insertion of mi); Agostiniani 1982:526 (follows TLE 766); Rix, ET Cr 2.42 (mi inserted); Bagnasco Gianni 1996:310-11 no. 303, 335, 374 (follows TLE 766); L. Bonfante, forthcoming: gives correct reading without mi)"

Half of the beauty of this quote is its unnecessary obfuscation, since it is very easy to overlook the ugly jumble of numbers and codes that obscure the account of what is in effect just one example of the perverse carelessness in Etruscology still going on.

Let me translate what the above is effectively saying. It says that the correct transcription was given in 1936 (a total of 40 years before I was born) but then a year thereafter, Giulio Buonamici was the first culprit that inserted mi, presumably because he made an "innocent" mistake of presuming this was a "speaking inscription" with mi preceding the name Thanakvil despite the obvious fact that the name is the very start of the inscription because of the smoothly finished edge of the vessel's rim right next to the initial letter theta, quite visible in the supplied photograph! Personally I don't find a mistake like that very excusable because truly attentive scholars examine and re-examine these artifacts so they wouldn't likely leave mistakes like this left uncorrected for decades unless their ego or disinterest was the reason.

So apparently 1937 was a bad year. Thereafter, Buonamici's lack of diligence was compounded by the errors of new scholars equally ignorant of their archaeology. So Massimo Pallottino, a man considered to be a foremost expert in Etruscology, could not be bothered to verify his antecedents' transcriptions. The TLE (short for Testimonia Linguae Etruscae) was first published in 1954 and listed the many inscriptions known to Etruscology up to then. This means that at this point in time, the mistake was already about to celebrate its 20th anniversary. Even a 20-year-old mistake like this is proposterous in itself.

A few decades went by, Woodstock happened, the Beatles broke up and Elvis died. Vladimir Georgiev published the same gaffe in 1979 (see link here; read also footnote [1] below). Then George Michael popped onto the scene doing his gogo, the Berlin wall came down and finally Helmut Rix, yet another noteworthy academic in the field, published his Etruskische Texte in 1991. Reindexing "TLE 766" as "ET Cr 2.42", he apparently was also too busy to verify the transcriptions he had before him in a mad dash to get something of great magnitude published in his name. At this point, the mistake hit its 54th birthday. You'd think this error was nearing the age of retirement but alas no. Clinton became president, had a cigar controversy, George Michael was outed and it took Larissa Bonfante all this time to publish the inscription correctly again (but not before Turfa set an example). The Bonfantes too then would be implicated in the decades-long gaffe, right up to only a few years ago, if they have at any point published this inserted word.

So from 1936 to 2005, the world of Etruscology had amnesia and actually forgot what was previously known. This mistake is a total of 68 years old, older than my own father. An entire person's lifetime of error! Why did such a simple mistake take so long to correct? Are we to believe that despite what must be at least a thousand people reading the TLE and the ET for such a long time, absolutely none of them noticed this? Or did several people notice this but reckoned that rocking the boat wasn't such a good idea? Or perhaps most have an undue amount of faith in the infallibility of whomever society labels "experts"? How many similar errors are out there like this?

This caper only proves that a deep suspicion of Etruscology and its ivory tower politics is perfectly reasonable. The cold, hard truth seems to be that, unlike other fields such as Egyptian or Near-Eastern studies, there are as yet no genuine experts in Etruscology that have evolved beyond this sort of amateurish disregard for basic details. Etruscology remains stagnant in its infancy. This is why I'm in a mad hunt for detailed artifact pictures. Trust no one, caveat lector.

NOTES
^[1] Notice also how D'Aversa also apes everyone else in the same year while completely misrepresenting the actual sibilants in the inscription by mixing san with sigma, giving them all diacritics. D'Aversa, La lingua degli etruschi (1979), p.292 (see link): mi Θanakviluś Śuciśnaia.