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

Kaer Glen,

> It seems obvious that any original plural pronouns would have been

confused

> at some point with the singular, giving rise to b/la for "I" instead

of for

> "we" (*tLu) but I think that b/ngaj? is showing that a form *Na for

"I"

> (*ni) must have existed at some point to produce this derivative

plural,

> existing alongside *la. I wouldn't connect *ma to AC a/put and a/py

unless

These two forms are unrelated as far as my understanding of AC
morphlogy goes.

> Dene-Caucasian SinoTib AC Basque
> *m-lir "ear" *nli? b/ni? belarri

The TB word has a -a, never a -i, unless you know a language that
has??..

> *m-hutL "eye" *mriwk b/mriwk begi
> *m-NuN "heart" *sny@... b/sym bihotz
> *m-kug "leg" *kuk b/kak --
>
> Hmm, lookin' good so far in terms of the consonants but I haven't

figured

> out the vowel pattern in AC yet, obviously. The form for "heart"

seems to

> have an s- prefix instead of the expected *m-.

There is in fact a m- prefixed word for "heart in TB. mgul in tib.

>
> Gotta think about that one. But the other three cognate series are

great.

> One question, how does AC b/kak become Cantonese /geuk/ - Explain the

vowel.

MC chinese has kjak.
Now, I just has a look at Yue Hashimoto 1972, "phonology of cantonese",
which gives the correspondance between MC and cantonese, has -oe:k in
her notation for -jak. This is all very regular.

>
> Dene-Caucasian SinoTib AC Basque
> *sul-mu "three" *sl@... slym hiru
> *li-mu "four" *li b/s-li lau
> *piNu "five" *pN@ a/nga? bost
> *rutL "six" *truk b/rok (sei)
> *sulrit "seven" *snit b/snit sortzi "8"
> *mnrit "eight" *prit b/pret bederatzi "9"
> *hmsi "ten" *psi b/gip hamar
>
> Hmm, alright. Perhaps we should have ST *psi reflecting Tibetan

/bcu/. The
No. WT bcu reflects something like *p-cip, I think, although it is
difficult to prove. The word for "water" in WT has chu, but a literary
word for water is chab. I can't explain those variations, but it is not
surprising that loanwords have a funny phonological behavior.

> form in -u might be explained as influence with "nine"? I have

trouble
That is also a interesting explanation.

>
>
> Huh? Where does the /-r?/ come from? I think you mean that b/lhuj?

from

> *sluj? so that we can explain the otherwise problematic lh- sound,

just as

> AC /lha/ is from *sla? "rodent", yes?

I told you already, sy- in MC comes regularly from b/lh-. Final -j
reflects often -r or -l, as final -n does also. This is reflected in
early Zhou riming where words in -j and -n rime with each other, and of
course in word familuies and phonetic series.
Note that AN has a very clear root luR "flowing", possibly related to
chinese.

>
>
> The AC form b/wa? is beautiful for my evil purposes. The /?/ can

easily be

My personnal opinion is that there was a -h in AC, but its behaviour
was the same as -s (because -s needs to become -h before it can change
into a tonal feature). I am sure it is true (it is the case in AA
languages), but it is rather difficult to prove with riming, phonetic
series or even loanwords. So I don't think ? > h is a good idea.

> explained as coming from *h (as in *hmsi > *?msi > *psi "ten"). But

the form

> could also reflect a DC *uhi with *-i instead (I originally based the

form

> on NEC forms meaning "to rain" often with a d- prefix. Compare also

Swahili

> m-vua "rain".) The latter form, *uhi, would explain the -a- as a
> metathesized final *i. Thus *uhi > *u?i > *ui? > *wa? > AC b/wa?.

Similarly,

> perhaps *m-hutL "eye" > *mruk > *mrikW > AC mriwk (metathesis of

final *kW)
But why ruk > riwk ? the root ruk also exists.

> and *sulmu "three" > *slm@ > *sl@... > slym (metathesis of *-m@). There

seems
Your proto-language was as difficult to pronounce as georgian, with all
those consonant clusters.

> Hmm, interesting stuff. I'm rather disappointed that you can't find a
> corresponding form for *buN "ruminant, cow, ox, bull...". That's my

favorite

By the way... Starostin proposed a comparison of chinese bjun < b/byn
"big horned goat with various TB words. However Sagart showed that the
primary meaning was 'big horned', not 'goat'. Sorry for that one.

>

Guillaume