tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post5820801930999766011..comments2024-02-19T12:11:32.695+01:00Comments on Language Evolution: Sex, Greek, and Rix’s LawPiotr Gąsiorowskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comBlogger104125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-70234672462231003612020-06-25T13:59:45.588+02:002020-06-25T13:59:45.588+02:00*h1urús > ἐυρυς has to be h1u>eu though, rig...*h1urús > ἐυρυς has to be h1u>eu though, right? I mean traditionally a full grade h1wé- is reconstructed in the nomnative, but that wouldn't add up eitherAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01200567338682365737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-62521958959122599422020-06-25T13:49:10.096+02:002020-06-25T13:49:10.096+02:00VH only lengthens before a (non-syllabic) consonan...VH only lengthens before a (non-syllabic) consonantAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01200567338682365737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-85545254709178025732017-04-29T11:55:55.336+02:002017-04-29T11:55:55.336+02:00I sometimes insert [ʔ] myself in front of utteranc...<i>I sometimes insert [ʔ] myself in front of utterances that otherwise begin with [h]</i><br /><br />And so did Hillary Clinton when she said she always carried "hot sauce" in her pocket. I think it's an aborted attempt to say "...uh,".David Marjanovićhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00233722577300632805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-50737487455253373052016-06-12T21:44:59.113+02:002016-06-12T21:44:59.113+02:00Sorry about the confusion – the idea isn't tha...Sorry about the confusion – <a href="http://www.academia.edu/1166465/Predicting_IE_Syllabification_Through_Phonotactic_Analysis" rel="nofollow">the idea</a> isn't that the epenthesis happened on the way to Greek, but that it was already present (just not phonemic) in PIE.<br /><br /><i>If laryngeals were stops</i><br /><br />*h₁ may have been, the others clearly were not.<br /><br /><i>Had *h₁ been the glottal stop [ʔ], one would not expect PIE *h₁jós 'which' to become Greek ὅς. No plausible mechanism would devoice the cluster *ʔj-. But *sjo- does become ὅ-, so *h₁ was presumably an unvoiced fricative like [s], namely the glottal fricative [h].</i><br /><br />This is a good argument that *h₁ was [h] shortly before it was lost in Greek. However, that doesn't tell us if it was [ʔ] in PIE. Such a sound shift from [ʔ] to [h] has happened in several modern descendants of Classical Nāhuatl.David Marjanovićhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00233722577300632805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-33698866228115932662016-05-27T12:06:13.993+02:002016-05-27T12:06:13.993+02:00I see no advantage to positing epenthesis in Greek...<br />I see no advantage to positing epenthesis in Greek, or regarding *h₁ as a stop. If a Greek word began with too many consonants, the cluster was simplified, not epenthesized. Thus *pk̂t- > *kt- in κτείς, *bzd- > *bd- in βδέω. Πτάρνυμαι provides no good evidence that *pst- > *pt-, since it could have been remodelled after πτύω. But στήνιον corresponds to Av. fštāna- and illustrates *pst- > *st- in Greek. If laryngeals were stops, one would expect *h₂st- to be similarly simplified, not vocalized to *ast- in ἀστήρ. Insisting on epenthesis of a neutral vowel anyway, to be colored by the laryngeal before the latter vanished like the Cheshire Cat (i.e. *h₂st- > *h₂əst- > *h₂ast- > *ast-), only complicates the situation unnecessarily. Evidently the laryngeals stood between resonants and stops on the scale of sonority, placing them in fricative territory (generally speaking, in the range from lax approximants to affricates). If *h₁ alone among the laryngeals were a stop, one would not expect θεός from *dʱh₁s-ós, but simplification of the cluster *dʱh₁s-. Also the fact that *h₁ alone among the laryngeals fails to color *e points to sub-oral, that is glottal, articulation. Had *h₁ been the glottal stop [ʔ], one would not expect PIE *h₁jós 'which' to become Greek ὅς. No plausible mechanism would devoice the cluster *ʔj-. But *sjo- does become ὅ-, so *h₁ was presumably an unvoiced fricative like [s], namely the glottal fricative [h].<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15595520019236663433noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-24390003211699113832016-05-23T00:28:41.786+02:002016-05-23T00:28:41.786+02:00I'd rather say that *h₁ didn't become a vo...I'd rather say that *h₁ didn't become a vowel; the "reflex" ε is epenthetic, and no epenthetic vowel was needed in *h₁i-. *h₁ really must have been [ʔ], which at some point wasn't perceived as a phoneme any longer, or perhaps [h].David Marjanovićhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00233722577300632805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-22985336416429014642016-05-18T11:39:15.154+02:002016-05-18T11:39:15.154+02:00The proverb ἄριστα χωλὸς οἰφεῖ (cf. "dumm fic...<br />The proverb ἄριστα χωλὸς οἰφεῖ (cf. "dumm fickt gut"), if its accent has been transmitted correctly in comic fragments, belongs to οἰφέω rather than οἴφω. The form OIΠEI from the Law Code of Gortyn (2:3), with Π standing for Φ, although edited as οἴφει or οἴπει, could equally well represent οἰφεῖ, and the infinitive OIΠEN (ib. 2:17) could represent οἰφεῖν. The only basis for presuming οἴφω appears to be the imperative οἶφε in Plutarch (Pyrrhus 28:3), which is not above suspicion of being analogical. After his heroic actions defending Sparta against Pyrrhus, Acrotatus was encouraged by some of the elders to go and copulate with his woman Chilonis. Plutarch quotes them as shouting "οἶχε, Ἀκρότατε, καὶ οἶφε τὰν Χιλωνίδα". Perhaps "οἶχε καὶ οἶφε" i.e. 'go and fuck' was a somewhat vulgar collocation which acquired rhyme like "rough and tough" (these adjectives don't rhyme in OE or Chaucer) or "cows and sows" (these rhyme in East Norse, independently of English, but not generally in Gmc.).<br /><br />If οἰφέω is the historically correct form, it could stand to the missing *ζέφω as zero-grade βδέω 'I fart' (*bzd-) stands to full-grade *pezd- (Latin pēdō). This of course would require that PIE *h₃i- becomes Greek οἰ-, and presumably also *h₂i- > αἰ-, despite *h₁i- becoming ἰ- not εἰ-. I see no inherent problem with such an asymmetry in Rix's Law. Robert Woodhouse has commented on a similar asymmetry in Francis' Law (https://www.academia.edu/14184890), see esp. note 15. PIE *h₁ was the most recessive laryngeal, while *i and *u were the most vocalic resonants. It's not surprising that *h₁ should lose its laryngeal force in these environments before *h₂ and *h₃ did.<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15595520019236663433noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-59538583481536033592016-01-11T12:36:29.042+01:002016-01-11T12:36:29.042+01:00I have never tried to compile a full list. As you ...I have never tried to compile a full list. As you can guess, Turner's dictionary was what I checked in the first place to find some modern reflexes:<br /><br /><a href="http://dsalsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/showrest_?conc.6.1.25405.0.34.soas" rel="nofollow">Searching the entire dictionary for <b>yabh*</b>.</a>Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-56430319429056136702016-01-10T22:57:04.041+01:002016-01-10T22:57:04.041+01:00> In Modern Indo-Aryan its reflexes are quite n...> In Modern Indo-Aryan its reflexes are quite numerous, though hard to recognise after more than two millennia of sound change, sometimes combined with euphemistic deformation.<br /><br />Do you have a list of these? I checked Turner, who does have a few, though none that I've come across before.be_slayedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02920742528327860445noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-59962206291467827782016-01-10T18:17:13.280+01:002016-01-10T18:17:13.280+01:00As regarding morphology, "Kurganic" woul...As regarding morphology, "Kurganic" would be roughly similar to Adrados' IE III A, with features such as the augment and the aorist. Phonetically, "Kurganic" has reversed the so-called "thorn" clusters and plenty of words with initial <b>*y-</b> (likely IPA [<b>ɟ</b>] or [<b>ʝ</b>]), including the relative prounoun <b>*yo-</b>.<br /><br />Although Celtic has got Kurganic lexicon, its morphology is not, reflecting its strong Italic substrate/adstrate, which some scholars mistake for an Italo-Celtic node.Octavià Alexandrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14569731729402710400noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-86066132207263077072016-01-01T18:52:00.815+01:002016-01-01T18:52:00.815+01:00In fact, the real PIE would be more alike to "...In fact, the real PIE would be more alike to "Proto-Nostratic". Of course, the real Nostratic (in the sense hinted to by Krens) is quite another thing.Octavià Alexandrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14569731729402710400noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-74683390289959206472015-12-30T21:07:11.973+01:002015-12-30T21:07:11.973+01:00Vowel coloring by plain velars in Kabardian!
...H...<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabardian_language#Vowels" rel="nofollow">Vowel coloring by plain velars</a> in Kabardian!<br /><br />...However, the plain velars are loanword phonemes. Perhaps the speakers chose the vowel allophones that best approximate the Russian central [ä] or the Turkish back [ɑ] and not-quite-[ɯ]... or there's something wrong with the table, which currently mentions "palatalized palatovelars", "labialized palatovelars" and several "pharyngeals" while the consonant table only mentions [ħ]. I'll have to read the papers the article cites.David Marjanovićhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00233722577300632805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-23983497585891575892015-12-30T20:51:27.576+01:002015-12-30T20:51:27.576+01:00I still don't get it. How does aspirating the ...<i>I still don't get it. How does aspirating the /t/ series help get rid of /b/?</i><br /><br />It helps because [pʰ] is harder to maintain than [tʰ] or [kʰ]; it is quite prone to developing > [f] > [h] > 0. If this happened before the voicing chain-shift, that would neatly explain why PIE <b>*b</b> is absent or nearly so.<br /><br /><i>If so, what is the relevance of ejectives to the /b/ mystery?</i><br /><br />I suppose deglottalization might have triggered that chain shift. But the Moscow School doesn't reconstruct ejectives for Proto-Nostratic for purely IE reasons; it reconstructs them because they're preserved as such in Kartvelian and (largely) Afro-Asiatic.<br /><br /><i>The advantage of ejectives is that they often omit /p'/ in the series...</i><br /><br />Well. First, this never seems to happen in the Caucasus area, where [pʼ] is not even rare. In Hausa and the Mayan languages, */pʼ/ has shifted to the implosive [ɓ] (while /kʼ/ remains as such and /tʼ/ sometimes does, showing up as [ɗ] the rest of the time). /pʼ/ is indeed absent in the Na-Dene languages, but those also lack the equally expected /pʰ/ (with onomatopoetic exceptions in a few languages), and many even lack the plain /p/. The only languages where specifically */pʼ/ is absent, to the best of my heterogeneous knowledge, are the Semitic ones (...the Ethiosemitic branch excepted, where /pʼ/ seems to be a loanword phoneme, or perhaps not).David Marjanovićhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00233722577300632805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-72430826177677119762015-12-30T10:16:52.802+01:002015-12-30T10:16:52.802+01:00However, I think we should replace it with *z in t...However, I think we should replace it with <b>*z</b> in those cases where external data tells us to do so.<br /><br /><i>That's anachronistic.</i><br />Maybe so, but very convenient in my opinion. For example, the late <a href="https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agust%C3%ADn_Garc%C3%ADa_Calvo" rel="nofollow">García Calvo</a> reconstructed the so-called "augment" prefix as <b>*ze-</b>, if I'm not mistaken.Octavià Alexandrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14569731729402710400noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-532568992682095142015-12-30T10:06:34.845+01:002015-12-30T10:06:34.845+01:00I'm afraid this is too simplistic. "Kurga...I'm afraid this is too simplistic. "Kurganic" would be roughly equivalent to Rodríguez Adrados' IE III A (polythematic) and thus the direct ancestor of Indo-Iranian and the Greek-Armenian-Phrygian group, although Karl Horst Schmidt and Villar would include Celtic as well.Octavià Alexandrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14569731729402710400noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-64123579369442272222015-12-30T02:07:23.623+01:002015-12-30T02:07:23.623+01:00Sorry if I'm being dumb - I still don't ge...Sorry if I'm being dumb - I still don't get it. How does aspirating the /t/ series help get rid of /b/? The advantage of ejectives is that they often omit /p'/ in the series... but isn't what you're suggesting that "PN" /ph/ for some reason disappears during the chain-shift while /p'/ survives as PIE /p/? If so, what is the relevance of ejectives to the /b/ mystery?Boinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07484266186870195043noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-33446185492675798462015-12-30T01:27:08.374+01:002015-12-30T01:27:08.374+01:00Yes; and this sounds like "Kurganic" is ...Yes; and this sounds like "Kurganic" is what our esteemed host would call "Proto-Core IE" (last common ancestor of IE except Anatolian) or "Proto-Neo-IE" (last common ancestor of the IE crown-group – IE without Anatolian and Tocharian).David Marjanovićhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00233722577300632805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-42109284383519085412015-12-30T01:24:26.751+01:002015-12-30T01:24:26.751+01:00(South Africa is another area where ejectives are ...(South Africa is another area where ejectives are lenes.)David Marjanovićhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00233722577300632805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-60895772464983058602015-12-30T01:21:28.004+01:002015-12-30T01:21:28.004+01:00However, I think we should replace it with *z in t...<i>However, I think we should replace it with <b>*z</b> in those cases where external data tells us to do so.</i><br /><br />That's anachronistic.<br /><br /><i>The way you've laid it out above suggests that it's PIE /p/ that corresponds to /p'/. I thought in the Glottalic Theory it was the traditional /d/ series that was supposed to have been voiceless ejective, thus accounting for the missing /b/?</i><br /><br />Yes; the trick is that the Moscow School people aren't glottalists.<br /><br /><i>Among its many problems as I recall is that speakers of languages with ejectives generally treat those series as the LEAST marked;</i><br /><br />That depends. It's true in the Caucasus area and maybe in the Afroasiatic languages; it's not true in Navajo or the like, where the ejectives are produced with even higher air pressure and an even longer delay in voice-onset time than the aspirates, which are already aspirated really hard (think Mandarin, not English).<br /><br /><i>If the Nostratic version you're talking about makes the ejectives correspond to the PIE /t/ series instead, that avoids these problems, but I'm not sure it helps with the /b/ mystery, which is all the GT really had going for it.</i><br /><br />It does if we assume a Caucasus-style system where the "plain voiceless" plosives (and affricates...) were aspirated.<br /><br />Of course here we get into an area where evidence is really thin on the ground. "Plain" /t/ and /k/ are aspirated in Arabic, and they were in Hebrew since the earliest Greek transcriptions, but they weren't in Phoenician (or the Greek letters wouldn't have developed as they did)...David Marjanovićhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00233722577300632805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-15128988249814673962015-12-28T17:45:17.055+01:002015-12-28T17:45:17.055+01:00I see what you're hinting to. Then the actual ...I see what you're hinting to. Then the actual PIE would be the ancestor of Anatolian and possibly other less known languages, while most of the lexicon commonly attributed to "PIE" would actually belong to either "Kurganic" and its branches or older substrata.Octavià Alexandrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14569731729402710400noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-52739075176244663192015-12-28T17:32:42.292+01:002015-12-28T17:32:42.292+01:00This comment has been removed by the author.Octavià Alexandrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14569731729402710400noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-70843966856196444052015-12-28T13:08:38.446+01:002015-12-28T13:08:38.446+01:00@ David
The way you've laid it out above sugg...@ David<br /><br />The way you've laid it out above suggests that it's PIE /p/ that corresponds to /p'/. I thought in the Glottalic Theory it was the traditional /d/ series that was supposed to have been voiceless ejective, thus accounting for the missing /b/?<br /><br />Accounting for /b/ is the most attractive feature of the GT. Among its many problems as I recall is that speakers of languages with ejectives generally treat those series as the LEAST marked; and that the theory posits voicing of the ejective series happening independently in most of the IE daughter languages.<br /><br />If the Nostratic version you're talking about makes the ejectives correspond to the PIE /t/ series instead, that avoids these problems, but I'm not sure it helps with the /b/ mystery, which is all the GT really had going for it.<br />Boinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07484266186870195043noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-39499775273333808972015-12-28T12:44:32.930+01:002015-12-28T12:44:32.930+01:00Maybe then /b/ got eaten by both /w/ and /m/?Maybe then /b/ got eaten by both /w/ and /m/?Boinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07484266186870195043noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-43279599090727524972015-12-27T22:31:45.580+01:002015-12-27T22:31:45.580+01:00That's right. That consonant must have disappe...That's right. That consonant must have disappeared at an early data without leaving any trace, so a dummy <b>*h₁</b> occupies its place in reconstructions. However, I think we should replace it with <b>*z</b> in those cases where external data tells us to do so.Octavià Alexandrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14569731729402710400noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-11439146994477880792015-12-27T22:29:13.207+01:002015-12-27T22:29:13.207+01:00This comment has been removed by the author.Octavià Alexandrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14569731729402710400noreply@blogger.com