More rounds of supposition and hypothesis to come....
>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).
Yes, understood. However, I'm wondering, was there aspiration contrast at
all either? The correspondance *pingu > *bnga is nagging me. It makes me
feel that even */p[h]/- and */p/- were the same in ST.
>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.
This is what I am trying to do. Give me time. I've found some connections
that I think are worth while so we'll see how it goes. There is also a
popular term, DC *muhini "brain" (however it sometimes refers to other
squishy organs like the liver). It apparently exists in NEC, Basque and
Nostratic:Semitic. I'm hypothesizing that it is the origin of IE *men-/*mer-
"think". That in itself would suggest along with other clues that there is a
nifty rule on intervocalic laryngeals that I think I've just found in
ProtoSteppe... but I digress.
Maybe you could help find a cognate in ST for me. It should pop up something
like **bryang (based on *m-hutL > mriwk and *mnrit > *bryat > pret). I'm
always on the look-out for new body parts.
Ah yes, and *cir(tLi)k?u & *r-tLik?u "squirrel/weasel/mouse" (Basque sagu
"mouse", Burushaski c^arge "squirrel", NEC:Ingush surtq?a "weasel",
Nostr:Kartvel:Georgian cirq?wi) which according to my not-so-perfect notes
is to be found in ST with a tentative reconstruction of *k-r-Lei "squirrel"
from a book I have no reference for...sigh.
The reconstruction here is very wrong but it must have been based on
something recoverable in Chinese. Maybe the reconstruction would be better
/*slyak/ (*cir(tLi)k?u) or /*rlyak/ (*r-tLik?u)? (Note *tLu "we" & AC la
"I"). Have fun with that one.
Me (Glen):
>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). [...] 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.
Guillaume:
>Chinese has nyiX < b/ni? [...] 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.
Ah good, there it is. Maybe *-r is becoming -X, hmm. Don't have many
examples of *-r final roots in DC yet. Perhaps I was somewhat right in my
guess of *nla, but more like *nlyax perhaps?
Does Kachin have a prefix /ma-/ in its word for "eye"? Both *m-hutL and
*m-lir are under the *m-class and both are disyllabic words contracted to a
monosyllabic word in ST. They should undergo the same treatment in Kachin.
If one has a "prefix", the other should too.
>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 ?
Hmm, dunno. A book told me and I assumed that the evidence was based on
Tibetan because I know of Cantonese /meng/. At any rate, it would seem more
logical to me that DC *h-mV- would become our desired *hm- in ST. I will
stick with *m-h- > AC mr- (mriwk). Voicing or devoicing of the consonant
cluster may be dependent on the first phoneme.
> > >die : AC tsyet < b/tet , AA : vietnamese ch�/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 [...]
>The c- seems quite ancient in AA, while the tsy- initial in MC comes
>from a t-.
But AC tet or tsyet? If tet, I would say that this is a problem.
>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-.
How so? Kind of difficult to explain that vowel change. I'm not so sure
whether explaining it as a hardened -y- is more feasible than a hardened
uvular. Afterall, a uvular *Ry whether palatal or not is closer to a velar
*g than a tapped or trilled palatal *ry. Your version sounds only close to
*rzhy... *ry > *rzhy > *rgy??
- gLeN
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