The labiovelar

Hittite apparently has two "labiovelar" consonants, g^w and k^w, transcribed in modern scholarship as ku-.  See Hoffner and Melchert § 1.88.  The labiovelars and other sounds, the laryngeals, are the most exotic aspect of Indo-European phonology to an English speaker.  To reproduce them the student must become comfortable with the pronunciation of a consonant that involves placing the back of the tongue to the velum (as with the English k) while simultaneously rounding the lips (Fortson, Indo-European Language and Culture § 3.5).  (I won't address the laryngeals in this post.)  It's easy for me to imagine k^w before a vowel, but it apparently occurs at the end of words as well (e-ku! = "drink" and -ku ... -ku = "either ... or" are cited in Hoffner & Melchert § 1.88).  I am having difficulty understanding whether it can come before another consonant without a vowel being inserted (epenthetic consonants and vowels are common in Hittite), as I see in verb forms like ekumi ("I drink") and ekutteni ("you [pl.] drink") (Hoffner & Melchert § 12.3 and n.3). 

Van den Hout's Hittite text does not discuss this phoneme.  Yet I wonder whether it might not be better to begin learning Hittite with the most accurate pronunciation.  I've thought, having learned Greek, that I might have been better served if I had learned to aspirate the consonants theta (θ),  phi (φ) and chi (χ)--or rather to de-aspirate the more familiar π = /p/, τ = /t/ and κ = /k/ (e.g., Sidney Allen, Vox Graeca 27).  The Greek theta was apparently pronounced not as the th in "thin" but as a t followed by a puff of air; the same goes for phi and chi.  Meanwhile, the standard π, τ and κ were pronounced with no breath at all.  When ancient Greek is taught in America, most teachers differentiate the letters by opposing th to t, f to p, and ch (as in Scottish loch) to k because the more genuine pronunciations would be so hard to distinguish and to produce.  These sounds almost certainly don't reflect the ancient pronunciation. So now I am forced as I read Greek on my own to check myself, to make sure that I am appropriately aspirating and de-aspirating consonants.  Learning from the beginning to pronounce the labiovelars (not to mention any laryngeals) in Hittite would lead to (lifelong?) good--or at least accurate--habits.