tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post6960097441152305278..comments2024-02-19T12:11:32.695+01:00Comments on Language Evolution: Wild WatersPiotr Gąsiorowskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-82997262438131942922017-07-09T13:11:46.049+02:002017-07-09T13:11:46.049+02:00An interesting paper. Thanks for the link!An interesting paper. Thanks for the link!Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-22285713215954068492017-07-09T00:46:26.645+02:002017-07-09T00:46:26.645+02:00Stagnant water: "*h₂we-h₂p- f. ‘pond, tank, p...<a href="http://www.academia.edu/14460684/Flowing_and_Stagnant_Water_in_Indo-European" rel="nofollow">Stagnant water</a>: "*<i>h₂we-h₂p-</i> f. ‘pond, tank, pool, lake’, orig. ‘a reservoir of stagnant water’ [...] represents a compound containing the Proto-Indo-European privative particle (prefix) *<i>h₂we-</i> ‘away, not’ and the term *<i>h₂ep-</i> ‘flowing water; water on the move’"...David Marjanovićhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00233722577300632805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-73161840259015341382013-06-14T00:25:34.874+02:002013-06-14T00:25:34.874+02:00Yes, the idea was partly inspired by the Baltic de...Yes, the idea was partly inspired by the Baltic development.<br /><br />The "thematization" in *abonā and *brigā - whether by actual derivation or paradigmatic transfer on the basis of the accusative - can probably be counted as a Gallo-Brit. shared innovation.<br /><br />There could easily be more cases of thematization of consonant stems to ā-stems in British Celtic. However, with the loss of the case system, we are typically not able to tell apart a surviving non-neuter consonant stem acc.sg. and a fem. ā-stem acc.sg.<br /><br />AndersAndershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06450011985307557883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-28973161896144056012013-06-13T17:51:52.417+02:002013-06-13T17:51:52.417+02:00I haven't thought of that (I have always assum...I haven't thought of that (I have always assumed that the transparent femininine suffix was simply added to the stem), but it sounds like a plausible process, analogous to the shift of consonantal stems to the i-stem declension in Balto-Slavic (where *-m̥ > *-im, reanalysed as *-i-m), the partial confusion of consonantal stems and u-stems in Germanic, etc.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-32863545601968699562013-06-13T17:42:27.334+02:002013-06-13T17:42:27.334+02:00"This seems to be confirmed by the Celtic nas..."This seems to be confirmed by the Celtic nasal stem *abon- (Old Irish aub < *abū < *abō(n) ‘river’) and its synonymous derivative *abonā (Welsh afon), known from a number of tautological hydronyms in Britain (the River Avon is literally ‘the River River’)."<br /><br />I may be misinterpreting the above (if so, just ignore), but does the synonymous Gallo-Brit. *abonā really have to be a derivative of *abon-? (or directly from *h2ap- for that matter.) I'm thinking it could be the same word, with "thematization" from the acc.sg. *abon-m > *abon-am --> *abona-m (and for that matter from the acc.pl.)<br /><br />The same thing may have happened with *brig- 'hill, high place' < *bHrg'H-, which comes out as *brigā in Brit. (MW, MBret. bre 'hill') and on the continent, whereas Old Irish preserves the athematic inflection (Old Ir. brí).<br /><br />Admittedly, rivers and (river) goddesses tend to like the suffix *-onā, but since the word just means 'river', it might be more straightforward to identify *abonā with *abon- directly.<br /><br />AndersAndershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06450011985307557883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-30589983361280440282013-06-07T03:12:18.118+02:002013-06-07T03:12:18.118+02:00It's not about articulatory impossibility, it&...It's not about articulatory impossibility, it's about reasonable phonotactics.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-55205421775298511142013-06-07T01:52:56.280+02:002013-06-07T01:52:56.280+02:00The idea of a distinction between "tame water...The idea of a distinction between "tame water" and "wild water" is very interesting. As a little-known fact, Uralic is also a family where two roots for "water" are found in complementary distinction, and perhaps this was the case here as well.<br /><br />The better-known root is *wetə (also reconstructed *weti, *wete), but this is absent from two subfamilies: Samic and Khanty. While latter has simply shifted *jäŋə "ice" to a new function, Samic *čācē (→ Northern Sami <em>čáhci</em>, Inari Sami <em>čääci</em>, etc.) is a more interesting story: this appears to be cognate with Khanty *sēč "flood waters", both pointing to Proto-Uralic *śäčä. It may or may not be a coincidence that reflexes of this are not known from any branch retaining *wetə, but a generalization of one basic "water" root out of two could well explain the distribution here.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-55644755724825028342013-06-05T16:00:38.890+02:002013-06-05T16:00:38.890+02:00IMHO the glottalic theory is preferrable to the tr...IMHO the glottalic theory is preferrable to the traditional model because it's typologically more consistent and also it's correlated with other language families, but unfortunately it has been poorly formulated by its own proponents and even worser understood by other scholars.<br /><br />For example, the near-absence of a phoneme <b>*b</b> in PIE has nothing to do with a supposed impossibility of a labial ejective <b>*pˀ</b> (which is false), but because its place is occupied by the approximant <b>*w</b>.<br /><br />Also the supposed incompatibility of two ejective stops in the same root doesn't exist, as there're plenty of them in Kartvelian.<br /><br />To be continued...Octavià Alexandrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14569731729402710400noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-22816457872633867382013-06-05T12:34:09.375+02:002013-06-05T12:34:09.375+02:00This also explains why .... the latter can't c...<i>This also explains why .... the latter can't combine with each other, i.e. neither **TeD nor **DeT are allowed.</i><br /><br />How does it explain it? Since when is plain modal voicing incompatible with voicelessness in the same root? And why did *<b>Tˀ</b> so often merge with <b>D</b> (in Anatolian, Balto-Slavic, Iranian, Celtic, Albanian) but never with *<b>T</b> in languages that developed a two-way system?<br /><br />I agree that the prohibition against **<b>deg-</b>type roots and the absence or near-absence of PIE *<b>b</b> are pretty good arguments in favour of some unusual phonation type rather than plain voicing, but the system reformed by the glottalic theory gives rise to more questions than it answers.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-25094709334835287692013-06-05T12:15:25.930+02:002013-06-05T12:15:25.930+02:00I have no strong opinion either way, but since the...I have no strong opinion either way, but since the Greek word is a derivative in <i>-ió-</i>, not the original consonantal stem, and means 'cousin/cousin's son' rather than 'nephew/grandson', Benveniste's explanation of the initial <i>a-</i> as reciprocal *sm̥-, hence *sm̥-nept-ió- 'fellow nephew/grandson (of the same person); one of the same offspring' is attractive.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-40472320590368952502013-06-05T11:20:00.897+02:002013-06-05T11:20:00.897+02:00I see you have *népot-s. What is your opinion abou...I see you have *népot-s. What is your opinion about the reconstruction with an initial *h2 (because of Greek <i>anepsios</i>) that I've seen in some etymological dictionaries from the Leiden school (De Vaan, Derksen)? Hanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10929065286701743522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-82545032480968841352013-06-05T10:44:05.794+02:002013-06-05T10:44:05.794+02:00In the glottalic theory (largely modelled after Ka...In the glottalic theory (largely modelled after Kartvelian), traditional <b>T, D, Dh</b> are respectively <b>T, Tʔ, D</b>. Thus having two glottalized stops in the same root (<b>**TʔeTʔ</b>) was forbidden by phonotactical rules. This also explains why <b>Tʔ</b> (I don't know how to write superscripts here) can combine with either <b>T</b> or <b>D</b>, but the latter can't combine with each other, i.e. neither <b>**TeD</b> nor <b>**DeT</b> are allowed.<br /><br />In some IE languages <b>Tʔ</b> merged with <b>D</b>, but in others the latter developed into breathy voiced <b>Dʱ</b> (Indic) and further into voiced aspirated <b>Tʰ</b> (Greek, Italic).Octavià Alexandrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14569731729402710400noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-24117736636674455572013-06-05T04:35:52.830+02:002013-06-05T04:35:52.830+02:00Octavià: How would you account for the fact that a...Octavià: How would you account for the fact that among the stops series you posit as "original", *PeP *PeB *BeP but no *BeB occur in PIE roots, but adding the *Bh series, *BeBh *BheB *BheBh but no *PeBh *BheP occur? Saying that the "h" in "Bh" was originally some kind of unit independent of the stop seems to me to be a step <i>away</i> from explaining this, 'cause now **h only can occur after stops when the <i>other</i> stop in the root was an original *B or also had **h after it, which is even weirder.Alex Finkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12107450410589171885noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-68133635504428503102013-06-04T22:09:09.613+02:002013-06-04T22:09:09.613+02:00I have no idea. From what I've read, *pa- is p...I have no idea. From what I've read, *<b>pa-</b> is pan-Uto-Aztecan (and of course it must be somehow related to *<i>ap-</i> ;)). If a specialist in UA ever strays here by any chance, I'll be grateful for a comment. But in IE the situation is not all that clearcut. In Old Indo-Aryan both original 'water' words survived, and both were strangely recessive (only the derivative <i>udaká-</i> was rather common) and prone to lexical replacement by etymologically obscure synonyms like <i>jala-</i>. And I have not even discussed the word-family of <i>vār-</i> (also 'water'), another Vedic candidate for PIE status. Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-73404690288390895612013-06-04T18:01:56.233+02:002013-06-04T18:01:56.233+02:00How very French! There the initial and final conso...How very French! There the initial and final consonants have fallen away through normal sound correspondences and the -tl is just an inflectional suffix (non-possessed noun).<br /><br />I wonder if the rest of Uto-Aztecan, Southern in particular, has a similar development WRT to water words that you refer to in IE, where one etymon becomes dominant in one group and the other in other groups.Jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07187836541591828806noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-11997530489499809062013-06-04T12:17:17.209+02:002013-06-04T12:17:17.209+02:00I'm afraid the "breathy voiced" seri...I'm afraid the "breathy voiced" series isn't just a modern version of the traditional "voiced aspirated", as it also constitutes an assumption about the actual phonetics of PIE. However, I regard this as a dialectal (Kurganic?) feature of some IE languages and thus not reconstructible for PIE itself.<br /><br />Simmetrically to voiceless aspirated, voiced aspirated stops in Indic appear to have originated in the <i>phonologization</i> of sequences of voiced+laryngeal, later generalized to other stems. In Greek and Italic the new series was rendered as voiceless aspirated. Thus <b>*d+h</b> would be phonologized as <b>dh</b> in Indic and <b>*tʰ</b> in Greek and Italic (there're even some instances of Grassmann's Law in Latin itself). I'm planning to give more details about this in my own blog.<br /><br />This is why I prefer (for the sake of readability) the traditional notation <b>bh</b> instead of the modern <b>bʰ</b> (which should be <b>bʱ</b> according to IPA standards).Octavià Alexandrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14569731729402710400noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-82054936583374049082013-06-04T01:02:01.836+02:002013-06-04T01:02:01.836+02:00Precisely (plus the fact that a word-final *h₂ cou...Precisely (plus the fact that a word-final *<b>h₂</b> could have <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szemer%C3%A9nyi's_law" rel="nofollow">a similar lengthening effect</a>.<br /><br />The acrostatic inflection is presumably also the outcome of phonological processes operating at some pre-stage of PIE, but our current understanding of them, based on internal reconstruction, is far from clear. It seems that some root vowels were underlyingly long/tense. One possible explanation of the acrostatic alternations is that the "weak" cases of such roots retained a full (though shortened/laxed) vowel even if followed by an accented suffix, and that at a later date the accent was attracted back to that vowel, while the suffix got phonetically reduced.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-54337327098723627772013-06-04T00:42:50.775+02:002013-06-04T00:42:50.775+02:00OK, thanks again. I thought all the nouns you list...OK, thanks again. I thought all the nouns you listed were acrostatic, hence the misunderstanding. So the existence of lengthened vowels may be a result of a certain type of acrostatic inflection, i.e. morphologically conditioned, or it may simply be conditioned by following consonant + s, i.e. phonologically conditioned.jgresshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03287009809340785879noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-15365158374170646082013-06-04T00:24:01.917+02:002013-06-04T00:24:01.917+02:00The 'sky-god' word is not acrostatic but a...The 'sky-god' word is not acrostatic but accentually mobile: nom.sg. *<b>diḗu-s</b>, gen.sg. *<b>diw-és</b>, with the root vocalism alternating between short *<b>e</b> (when accented) and zero (when the accent shifts away from the root). "Acrostatic" means that the accent is fixed on the root and doesn't move to inflectional endings. There are two widely recognised acrostatic types, with the alternations *<b>o/e</b> and *<b>ē/e</b>. In each pair the first member counts as "strong" and the second as "weak". (I don't think it's the whole story, but as I'll be presenting a conference paper exactly about this stuff in July, I can't reveal too much prematurely.) Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-15366897746826642742013-06-04T00:13:13.943+02:002013-06-04T00:13:13.943+02:00The most uncanny thing is that it's also cogna...The most uncanny thing is that it's also cognate with Nahuatl <i>atl</i> 'water'.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-50501848968252662962013-06-04T00:08:58.368+02:002013-06-04T00:08:58.368+02:00Thanks! Yes it's coming back to me now.
Can ...Thanks! Yes it's coming back to me now. <br /><br />Can we distinguish among different acrostatic paradigms? Some seem to show alternation between o-grade and e-grade like "thief", while others only show e-grade like "sky-god". Is the paradigm with alternating vowels the original one, according to most IEists?jgresshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03287009809340785879noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-86624383878037396432013-06-03T22:00:00.534+02:002013-06-03T22:00:00.534+02:00"(like Hopi kuuyi) versus ‘wild water’ as a n..."(like Hopi kuuyi) versus ‘wild water’ as a natural force beyond human control (like Hopi paahu)."<br /><br />"Paahu" looks cognate with the "-pah" suffix in Ute-southern Paiute, as in the town of Tonopah or the Moapa Valley, which refers to a spring or well. It also looks cognate with the "wak", O'odham, in San Xavier del Bac just outside Tucson.Jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07187836541591828806noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-38895382985531047922013-06-03T20:40:49.430+02:002013-06-03T20:40:49.430+02:00"Here" -> "here are". Sorry..."Here" -> "here are". Sorry for my messy typing.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-78635732082415717632013-06-03T20:38:11.633+02:002013-06-03T20:38:11.633+02:00As opposed to the other 'water' word, *h₂a...As opposed to the other 'water' word, *<b>h₂ap-</b> is monosyllabic and animate. Animate nouns had the nom.sg. ending *<b>-s</b> which caused the lengthening of the vowel of the preceding syllable when added to stems ending in a single consonant. After some consonants the ending was lost, so it is often thought that the lengthening was compensatory, but in fact we find the lengthening (at any rate in Indo-Iranian, but not only there) also when the suffix is preserved. Hence the long vowel in Iranian (we have no Vedic nom.sg.; given the regular developments in Indo-Aryan, *h₂ōp-s would have lost its final fricative there but retained the long vowel).<br /><br />Here a few typical examples:<br /><br />*<b>h₂nér-s</b> > *<b>h₂nḗr</b> 'man'<br />*<b>népot-s</b> > *<b>népōts</b> 'grandson, nephew'<br />*<b>djéu-s</b> > *<b>diḗus</b> 'sky(-god)'<br />*<b>ḱlóp-s</b> > *<b>ḱlṓps</b> 'thief'<br /><br />This "sigmatic" lengthening affects only animate nouns because neuter consonant stems have no nom./acc.sg. ending.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-5245285448249336742013-06-03T20:34:16.073+02:002013-06-03T20:34:16.073+02:00Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the pla...Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the placement of the so-called "breathy voiced" series against it's "plain voiced" counterpart or it's "voiceless" counterpart rather arbitrary? At least how would the distinction between, say, the traditionally constructed near triplet *ǵerh2 , *ǵʰer , and *ḱer arise? Do you posit an underlying phoneme triggering the distinction, like a laryngeal of some sort? Or? Even so, what are the explanations for the strange reinterpretations of sound laws like Grimm's or the ones cited above? How does Germanic b/p/f correspond roughly to Latin f/b/p in such a model?<br /><br />Regardless, is it wholly necessary to get pedantic about the transcription system if what's being addressed is the differences between regular sound correspondences and not the sound laws causing that differentiation themselves? It's not about the phonetics of PIE, per se, as much as it is in the correspondences in the daughter languages.<br /><br />My apologies if this is out of place for me, but I believe Gasiorowski has emphasized agnosticism in the past, simply following convention in reconstruction transcription for the sake of readability. I don't see the relevance of attacking this.<br /><br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04528350368394727988noreply@blogger.com