Re: [TIED] Itchy and Scratchy Stops

----- Original Message -----

From: Glen Gordon

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2000 8:32 PM

Subject: Re: [TIED] Itchy and Scratchy Stops

Glen writes:

Why are we talking about hypothetical situations that never happened? Along
with the fact that there is no initial *b in IE, there is no medial *b
either. It would be nice if it did exist, but we have to move on now.

 

Bomhard would perhaps disagree, even about *b-. In an article I've just read he supports a Nostratic etymology for Latin bi:lis 'gall, bile' (< *bistlis [*-st- visible in Celtic] < Nostratic *p'iš-, with Uralic and Dravidian cognates). While such etymologies are a little on the fanciful side, I don't think PIE *-b- was completely absent, though it was definitely very rare (a fact which also calls for an explanation). Could you refresh my memory as regards your proposed etymology for the "apple" word with postulated *-ml- > *-bl-? I think it would be nice to discuss something IE for a change. Then we could consider other examples of *-b- if you don't mind.

...

I can't call myself an Altaicist either but Bomhard went for the
phonological system proposed by Poppe which he illustrates on p.78 in that
book of mine that I have read and that I have within my very hands:

                 p     t     c^    k
                 b     d     z^    g
                       s
                 m     n     n'   -N-
                -l-         -l'-
                -r-         -r'-
                             y

        a    o    u    i    e    e"   o"   u"   i"
        a:   o:   u:   i:   e:   e":  o":  u":  i":

No aspirate voiceless stops. Sorry. This is the real correpondance he had in
mind:

              Nostratic   Altaic
                *t          *t
                *t?         *t-, *-d-
                *d          *d

All right, Glen, I'm sure you know your Bomhard better than I do. Nostraticism is a confusing business. For some unfathomable reason Bomhard's ejectives correspond to Illich-Svitych's plain voiceless stops and vice versa. The Moscow School scholars (including Dolgopolsky) follow their founding father contra the evil Americans. Starostin and Shevoroshkin are steering a middle course, being in principle Illich-Svitych's disciples and paying lip-service to his teaching, but embracing a more Bomhardian version of Nostratic consonantism. But perhaps there were two Proto-Nostratic dialects, East (Russian) Nostratic and West (US) Nostratic.

 

BTW, the most recent version of Bomhard's Nostratic I've seen (1999) has eleven columns of stops/affricates in three series (there are five gaps, to be sure, so the actual number of plosive phonemes is 28), and the three series are symbolised *TH, *D, *T'. It seems he regards aspiration as relevant in the voiceless stops. I've no idea if or how it affects his views on Proto-Altaic.

 

As for the Proto-Altaic system, it woud be interesting to know, in the first place, what professional Altaicists think of it. Unfortunately, while there are more or less generally accepted Turkic, Tungusic and Mongolic reconstructions, the phonology of Proto-Altaic depends very much on the idiosyncratic preferences of individual scholars; it also varies according to whether Japanese and Korean are included or not. Poppe specialises in Mongolic languages, so his Altaic may be expected to gravitate in that direction. I've had another cursory glance at a few articles on Proto-Altaic and couldn't find much agreement on anything, including the number of stop series. There is no standard reconstruction, in a word. The first-ever Altaic Etymological Dictionary (by Starostin, Dybo and Mudrak) is to be published soon; the authors do reconstruct a series of aspirated stops.

Piotr