My earlier post ‘Swan’ in Uralic alluded to the possibility of reconstructing Proto-Uralic also *x in positions where it has not previously been considered to occur, particularly by reanalyzing some clusters with *k in them. This is not an idle…
A recent blog post from Christopher Culver brings to my attention an apparent family of Turkic word roots showing irregular variation in form: *künäš ~ *qujaš ‘sun, day, heat’. Aside from the alternation *n ~ *j (for which *ń seems…
I’ve previously posted about the Proto-Uralic “dental spirants”, and on the problems concerning their reconstruction. These are however far from the only PU segments whose reconstruction involves unsolved difficulties. The velar nasal *ŋ provides examples of some different types of…
Freelance reconstruction 
Laterals, palatals and more
A recent volume (1/2013) of Acta Linguistica Hungarica sports an interesting article from longtime Ugricist László Honti, “Comments on Uralic historical phonology”. I’m tempted to add some thoughts of my own. (Who knows, maybe I’ll make a habit out of…
Posted in Commentary, Reconstruction