Keiler Allan R. A Phonological Study of the Indo-European Laryngeals

Mouton, 1970. — 108 p. — (Janua Linguarum. Series Practica 76).In the present study, Mr. Keiler has chosen as his task the establishment of the contrasting sound properties of the Indo-European laryngeals. Previous attempts at describing the contrastive properties of the laryngeals have involved unwarranted and unproved phonetic speculation and unjustified proliferation of the laryngeal phonemes. In addition, it has been a general methodological practice in IE studies to emphasize the importance of the structural, functional, or purely algebraic nature of the laryngeals.
Mr. Keiler contends that the phonological description of the IE laryngeals is necessary for three reasons. First: The laryngeal theory that has as one of its central merits its insight into the quantitative alternation of long vowels with shwa primum within the root patterning of IE, contains a gross inconsistency: the fact that the allophones of otherwise stable laryngeal consonants in IE nevertheless function as syllables in certain stated environments. An inquiry into the phonological nature of the laryngeals may show that this dual syllabic role is as inherent to the laryngeals as it is to the other IE sonants.
Second: Recent attempts to extend the explanatory basis of the laryngeal theory, based on one or another proposed phonological definition of the laryngeals, are often contradictory as a result of ad hoc formulation for the specific purpose of explaining certain manifestations of sound change. Within the framework of the algebraic approach, it is impossible to state that any such proposed set of sound changes is or is not possible in view of the phonological nature of the laryngeals.
Third: The phonemic system of IE as a whole remains unintegrated as long as the laryngeals are merely symbols added to the phonemic inventory of IE; the establishing of the phonological nature of one of its subsets of phonemes, the laryngeals, may have far-reaching consequences for the entire system itself.