RE : [tied] Re: North of the Somme

From: caotope
Message: 64544
Date: 2009-08-01

> > > > > How about my favorite phoneme: /n,W/, the nasal labio-velar?
> > > >
> > > > Well if we want to derive them all from a single form. But
> > > > that doesn't seem to be necessary. This case rather looks
> > > > like related substrate languages having related, but
> > > > distinct, invertebrate terminology.
> > >
> > > Ends up as the same thing: if we want to know the structure of
> > > that language family, we will have to posit proto-forms,. And
> > > labial/velar stop/nasal alternation is one of the
> > > characteristics of the language of geminates as defined already,
> >
> > With stops, maybe. Nasals simply seem to assimilate to them.
>
> That should be read as 'labial / velar alternation combined with
> stop / pre-nasalized stop alternation'.

So that's /Nk_w/ then, not /N_w/?

> > So what exactly did you want to do with a labiovelar nasal again?
> > This thing needs an outline.
>
> Posit it for the substrate language and derive labial or velar auslaut stops of semantically related words in NWEuropean languages, geminate or nort, prenasalized or not.

I'm talking about these invertebrate words specifically. What do you think is their "family tree"?


> > > eg. dup-/dump-/dunk-/duck-.
> >
> > English "dunk" is supposedly a German loan,
>
> I've never heard that. ON dunka, perhaps k- derivative of ON duna "crash", say Dansk Etymologisk Ordbog, Da. dunke, Sw. dunka. The German relative of the above series is 'tünchen' "whitewash".

AHD relates this to MHG _dunken_ via Pennsylvania Dutch (as it's originally attested in America), ultimately from PIE *teng-.

> cf. "thunk" -
>
> ??

Supposedly onomatopoetic, plausibly cognate. ;)

> > and I'm not sure what you are getting at with "dup-".
>
> You will be, after you read Schrijver's article:
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/62677
> Search 'dup'.

That racks up the alternation count a lot actually. How do we figure they're ALL original alternation and not later reshaping? No. _duppe_ works from *-mp- as well. There may also be secondary influence from the _deep_ root here and there.


> The idea that the labial and the velar series sometimes reflect a single, not two substrate phonemes, BTW is not Schrijver's but introduced later by Meid (IIRC) and earlier, but unnoticed by Kuhn.
>
> Torsten

I sense a methodological issue here. We are supposed to accept an a/u alternation, and at the same time, reduce all consonant alternations to parallel development? Even when parallel forms end up in the same language?

John Vertical