Re: A SinoTibetan-Vasconic Comparison: A very, very, very, very len

Kaer Glyn,

> I'm also aware of the lack of voicing of stops in SinoTibetan, your

mistake

> is acknowledged but does not hinder the logic of the comparison.

I hope I wasn't misunderstood : there WAS a voicing opposition both in
AC and in TB languages. This opposition doesn't exist in coda and
preinitial position only (and as for AC, maybe there were indeed both
voiced and unvoiced iambic prefixes; this matter is not settled).

> But then, why should phonology be the be-all-and-end-all to accepting

the DC

> hypothesis or AC's membership to it, just because I can't explain

every

> detail about the origins of the phonological system? This is the last

thing

> to worry about. The phonological system is the last thing used to

connect

> one language with another, n'est pas? It's the worst way to prove or

deny

> linguistic relationship.

Well, typological similarity in the phonological system doesnot prove
anything regarding the genetic affiliation of languages BUT regular
correspondances are required to make a convincing comparison, in most
linguists' opinion since NeogrmmarianS.

>
> There still remains good grammatical correspondances and terms

relating to

> body parts that give a strong case. BTW, *m-hutL isn't the only

example.

> There may also be a connection between *m-lir "ear" (Basque belarri,

NEC *Li

> (I recall Chechen lerg), Hurrian lele, etc) and a SinoTibetan

reconstruction

> I have listed in my notes *g-Na which may contain a different prefix

(the N

> means an unascertainable nasal phoneme). You may have a different

view in

> light of your knowledge of AC. I would be interested in your take on

this

> etyma. If the forms are truely connected I would expect instead to

see **mla

> or **nla in SinoTibetan unless maybe *-r actually did survive in some

form

> which would give me much titulation.

Chinese has nyiX < b/ni? It might be cognate with TB, but don't ask me
for the corrspondances.
Tibetan rna could come from a nra cluster, but kachin has na. If n- was
a prefix, kachin would have na-ra in my opinion.

>
> >[...] a cluster m+h- in "DC" should give hm- in AC, should'it ?
>
> I don't recall saying that, do you? Who told you this? Some other

DCist

> perhaps? Give your examples of hm-. I have a SinoTibetan *r-hming

"name"

> listed in my notes and the lack of voicing in these cases might not

be

In chinese and tib, this word is mjieng < b/meng and ming. No need to
postulate an hm- initial or an r-. Where did you get that from ?

> original but perhaps linked to the phonemes' exposure to the

neighbouring

> "prefixes" (in other words, being medial and part of a consonant

cluster).

> Is there a case of a /hm-/ prefix in AC? Or /hn-/? Does this phoneme

occur

> in absolute initial position anywhere?

Well, it seems logical that a cluster nasal + h give a voiceless nasal.

>
>
> >Some of its basic vocabulary comes from an unknown substrate and
>there is
> >also a layer of recent indic khmer loanwords in standard >siamese.
>
> Erh, maybe that's just Dong-Tai itself then? Especially if it

constitutes

> the _basic_ vocabulary. Taking away loanwords in any language will

leave you

> with the pure (so to speak) language itself void of any present

influences

> :)
>

Well, the AN vocabulary in Dong-Tai is also very basic (water, bird,
personal pronouns, etc.). Anyway, it is a fuzzy mixture of languages.

> >die : AC tsyet < b/tet , AA : vietnamese chê/t
>
> Hey, I just went by that word in a Vietnamese dictionary! This one

looks

> like borrowing too.

I don't think so. This word exists in Mon, a language that was not much
influenced by chinese (I could find only one good etymology in
"dictionary of old Mon" by Shorto). Anyway, it is not sino-vietnamese
(chiê/t), although it look like it. It is attested in Khamu as k-cet.
The c- seems quite ancient in AA, while the tsy- initial in MC comes
from a t-.

>
>
> Why must the word start with d-? Is this /dijH/ attested?

Of course. MC reading that I cite are always attested. It is just an
orthographical transcription of Tang rime tables (that indicate also
the inital). The irregularity is that -ij never appears in a a/
syllable and that d- never developps from a b/ syllable. There are two
hypothesis : either the chinese erudite that composed the dictionaries
put this word in the wrong place either this word is really peculiar
because it is irregular (dialect mixture) or comes from a rare AC final
(-ej). Note that Sino-vietnamese is also irregular : it has d-i.a, it
should have just d-i.

> Erh, I have a problem understanding how this /brat/ can get loaned

into

No a/pret. I got it wrong. The chinese word is a/pret

> Tibetan as /brgyad/ because then we would have to explain the nasty,

ol' -g-

> phoneme. Ooh, and actually, it's kinda hard to explain that phoneme

anyway

No. -g- is epenthetic, it is a hardened -y- in fact. No need to
postulate a uvular -r- that is not attested in any modern tib. dialect.
Tib. couldn't have a -ry- combination, so it changed it to -rgy-.
-ya- comes from chinese -e-. Because nobody studied chinese loanwords
in tib., difficult to tell explain you how come. However, I suppose
that the influence of -r- onto the vowel made it perceive differently
by foreigners, and that's why it comes up so strangely in tib. Remember
also my thai example.

Guillaume