--- In Nostratica@yahoogroups.com, Heike Bödeker
<heike.boedeker@...> wrote:

This is a nightmare! I can't even get Heike's text up when I try to
use the reply feature. Fortunately I can extract it by view
source. I apologise for any HTML left in.

> At 22:04 02.08.03 -0400, H.M. Hubey fwd'ed an Article from Fritz

Hintze on Turkic, Uralic, Meroitic, Nilo-Saharan.

> To finally come up with a few comments rather than letting it all

end with a clarification re how to proceed with uploadings files
instead of sending attchments directly to the list:

I was trying to goad Mark Hubey into providing the ASCII text for
us. I've finally extracted it using GhostScript. I've stuck it
into this reply for possible convenience.

> One nowadays often has the opportunity to simply do some proto-form

matching, which also gives more security that items indeed are to be
reconstructed for proto-languages and don't just pop up as in the
best case ghost words, in the worst chance resemblances. E.g. for
Nilo-Saharan case suffixes (actually stemming from prepositions as
in the Koman subbranch, which was the first split-off from PNS) one
might refer to Ehret, 'A historical-comparative reconstruction of
Nilo-Saharan', K=F6ln: K=F6ppe 2001, here pp. 202-209. The case of
Uralic and Turkic is similar. What we, alas, do not yet have is a
comprehensive account of Comparative Mongolian, and that's the
problem:

>> 1. Meroitic -k, Barea -ge: Fenno-Urgic -k 'to' (e.g. Ingrelian

ala-k 'down'.

>> 2. Meroitic -te, Nubian -do locative suffix 'in': Old Turkish -

ta, -da 'in' Finnish -ta 'in'

> (2) one might have added the "non-classical" Poppe,

'Grammar of Written Mongolian.' Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz =B31974, p.
75
=A7 287 =97, more precisely it's a 13-14th cent. thing) dative-
locative -da/-de/-ta/-te.

And of course, if prepositions are admitted, we have PIE
de/do/ad 'to, at'.

>> 3. Meroitic -k feminine suffix: Mongolian -k-chin feminine of

adjectives; Meroitic kdi 'woman': Turkish kari 'woman'
(correspondence d:r looks better than d:ss but to make the matter
even more surprising, there is one Eastern Turkish language, where
the word for woman is kissi!)

(3) the suffix in Uiguro Mongolian is -Gcin (whereby G denotes an
uvular voiced plosive) denoting "colors and names of female animals"
(op.cit..: 41 =A7120). Also note the morphonology of this type of
suffix, which drops any final consonant. There is, however, a
suffix -jin < *-din / -cin < *-tin which designates female beings
(op.cit..: 42=A7124), a variant of which we obvioulsy also have in
qa-(Ga)-tun and (a)ma-tun. So sorry, no feminine -k- here.

>> 4. Meroitic t demonstrative, Nubian ter 'he' etc. Mongolian

tere 'he' 'that', Finnish te 'this one' (I used te instead of ta-
unlaut)

And, boringly, add PIE *to- 'that', Cushitic *tini. (I can't work
out its precise meaning from Bender's table of demonstratives in
Baldi's collectione entitled 'Patterns of Change'.)

>> 5. Old Nubian -ka accusative suffix: Old Turkish -g, -ig,

Mongolian -g, -gi accusative suffix.

> (5) -(yi)gi pops up as late as in 17-18th cent. UM texts only, the

source
from which it was grammaticalized being unknown AFAIK.

>> 6. Old Nubian -ka dative suffix: Old Turkish -qa, -ke dative

suffix

>> 7. Old Nubian -n(a) genitive suffix: Mongolian -in, -n, Finno-

Ugric -n genitive suffix.

> (7) UM -yin is the allomorph for vowel stems, maybe Hintze had in

mind
the Xalxa form which is written -iyn in the Cyrillica.

>> 8. Old Nubian -r 'intentive' verbal suffix; Old Turkish -r, Finno-

Ugric -r factitive verbal suffix.

> (8) UM has a -ra/-re suffix which probably is a detransitivizer.

It might
be a match, though, if we were dealing with some underlying
recessive/accessive polysemy. As so often, further research needed
here.

>> 9. Meroitic tar 'give' causative verbal affix (according to Dr.

Priese) Old Nubian tir 'give' causative verbal affix: Old Turkish -
tur 'give' causative verbal affix (also Etruscan tur `give': hmh)

>> 10. Old Nubian -a participle, conjunctive converb: Old Turkish -a

conjunctive converb

>> 11. Old Nubian -ra predicative converb: Mongolian -ra final

converb

> (11) -r-a/-r-e probably derives from a deverbal noun -r + -a/-e

locative.<br><br>

>> 12. Old Nubian -sa verbal participle praeteriti: Mongolian -san

participle praeteriti

> (12) UM has -Gsan/-gsen here, the Xalxa form is eroded.<br><br>

>> 13. Old Nubian -s verbal suffix, praeteritum: Fenno-Ugric -s

verbal suffix, praeteritum (cf. Old Nubian ki-s-in 'you came' with
Wogulian min-s-en 'you came')

>> 14. Old Nubian -men (-m-en) negation of verbs: Old Turkish -ma

negation of verbs

I suppose PIE (or is that Graeco...Indo-Iranian sprachbund)
*ma: 'not' might also go here.

>> 15. Old Nubian -in,-en verbal suffix, 'you' 2 sg: Wogulian -en

verbal suffix 'you' 2. sg.

And add Omotic 2.s. *-ne. Bender (in Baldi) interprets this as a
strange switch of 1s *-ne and 2s *-t.

>> 16. Old Nubian possessive pronoun=genitive of personal pronoun

(ir 'you', in-na 'your'): Old Turkish the same (sen 'you', san-
ing 'your'), Mongolian the same (chi 'you', chinu 'your')

But this is very common! Germanic immediately springs to mind, and
interference effects between the two occur throughout PIE.

>> 17. Old Nubian -t, -it deverbal nouns: Old Turkish -t, -it,-id

deverbal nouns

And PIE verbal nouns in *-tu and *-ti.

>> 18. Old Nubian -ki deverbal nouns: Turkish -ki abstract nouns,

Finno-Ugric -k deverbal nouns

> (18) UM has a -ki suffix which, like the Turkish equivalent, might

be an Iranian loan.

>> 19. Old Nubian min 'what', Mongolian men 'what': Wogulian

men 'what', Hungarian mi 'what';

And Afro-Asiatic *ma 'what?' and *mi 'who?' (Bender in Baldi).

> (19) "what?" is denoted by yaGu. I don't have any slightest

whether a lexeme men occurs in any Mongolian language, and if so,
what it means :-)

>> 20. Old Nubian -guria 'because of': Turkish -göre 'because of'

> As in all, I (without regretting the effort I put into checking

the above stuff :-)) think it's pretty much the amount of chance
resemblances a tour de force through any morphosyntax (especially
when abstracting from systemic aspects, i.e. trying to reconstruct a
functionally coherent system at each p-stage) would yield, not a
convincing proof that 'widely believed in but barely proven' Niger-
Saharan (into which we probably could stuff back problematic stuff
like Meroitic, Shabo, Krongo...) and Nostratic were related.

What should we make of the (dismissed) suggestions that Omotic is
Nilo-Saharan, not Afro-Asiatic? Though Bender (in Baldi) adduces
evidence for Omotic being Afro-Asiatic, it does not feel
overwhelming.

Richard.