--- In cybalist@..., alexmoeller@... wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "richardwordingham" <richard.wordingham@...>
> To: <cybalist@...>
> Sent: Tuesday, September 03, 2002 7:35 PM
> Subject: Re: [tied] a help for Piotr
>
> --- In cybalist@..., alexmoeller@... wrote:
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
Richard:
So what do you think Vinereanu means when he says, 'We have rom.
pãmânt, Sanskrit bhuman (<*gh(d)em or ghemon) but Latin terra'?
I
interpret this as:
(i) Romanian has 'pãmânt', which has the same meaning as
Latin 'terra'.
(ii) Romanian does not have a word related to 'terra' with the same
meaning.
(iii) Romanian 'pãmânt' and Sanskrit 'bhuman' have a common
ancestry.
(iv) Sanskrit 'bhuman' derives from PIE *gh(d)em or *ghemon.
Just how do you interpret it?
<Snip>
There is clearly a massive failure in understanding somewhere in this
discussion.
(I was long uncertain as to whether you were Romanian, and I
eventually got it wrong.)
[Moeller] I interpret this as follows: there are 3 languages with 3
words with the same sense: latin=terra, romanian = pãmânt ,
sanscrit=
bhuman.
Richard:
So do you think he is merely saying that Romanian no longer looks
much like Latin, whatever its historical origins?
Moeller:
For every child now which form appears to be more related to each
other? pãmânt= terra=bhuman. What does look more similar to
each
other? pãmânt to terra or pãmânt to bhuman or terra to
bhuman? This
is question for children here.
Richard:
How do you conclude that Vinereanu is addressing children?
Similarity: pãmânt _resembles_ bhuman.
Relatedness: There seems only a vague possibility that this same pair
might be related. Initial /p/ corresponds to /bh/, so far as I am
aware, only in extreme High German - e.g. Bavarian - and Tocharian,
where the voicing contrasts have collapsed. I would then want to
know whether the Sanskrit form had a -t in its oblique cases, or
whether it was an addition to pãmânt.
To show relatedness from the form and meaning alone, it is necessary
to show _regular_ correspondences. For a sad example of what can
happen when you ignore this requirement, see
http://www.datanumeric.com/dravidian/index.html . It also looks as
though the author has not guarded against loans from Sanskrit to the
Dravidian languages, but this is based on one root and the author's
confidence-dispelling introduction.
How do you interpret 'Sanskrit bhuman (<*gh(d)em or ghemon)'?
Moeller:
From semantic I said all 3 words have the same sense. but the
pavimentum in latin does not mean terra and means pavage in this
toguht, a place where the mand made it artificialy with help of some
another material, an another as "earth" too:-)))
Richard:
Words are notorious for shifting their meanings. In English, 'floor'
is replacing 'ground' as the thing we walk on outside. But 'floor'
should mean something artificial.
[Moeller]
And this change is determined by something. If the factors are not
there , a language does not change. It will develope maybe new words,
but the olds will remain the same. So, which are the factors for
making the romance language to be so distant today from each other
that if you do not learn french for instance you will not understand
it. So there must be some factors who make that such changes appears.
And they are? Which are they? Here is the nice question, and this is
learned by every linguist in the first year at universitiy.
Richard:
No. See
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/14311 . Note
that Piotr refers to sound change as 'stochastic'.
Moeller:
So is not hard to answer. I am not a linguist, i do not have a such
diplom, but it happens I know one of these factors is even the folk
who speaks a new language. The folk will adapte a new language to its
own way to pronounce the words . Am I so wrong here? So the "sound
changes" are determinated by the folk.
Richard:
This is the substrate theory of sound change. But one does not need
substrates to cause sound changes. The Polynesians have had plenty
of sound changes though for the most part their languages have spread
to _uninhabited_ islands. My personal opinion is that changes are
attributed to substrates far too often.
Moeller:
But equa remained equa and 500 years after the umbrian "disspiered"
from history, becoming romans, thevulgar latin bring in Balcans the
latin "equa"?( ths assuming that the romanization schould be true, of
course).
Moeller:
What did determined the latin language to remain 500 years unchanged
in "qu " but from nothing to become imediately "p" in sardian and
romanian. Accidents?I doubt:-)
Richard:
Don't bet too much on them not being accidents!
However, 'substandard' forms may suddenly become acceptable at times
of great upheaval.
Moeller:
Are there the same as in other neoromanic languages?
No. They arent.
Richard:
You should now understand that if they were all the same,
corresponding words would remain the same in all the languages.
However some of the early changes are indeed similar.
<Snip>
There are differences betwen large groups of Romance dialects. The
back vowels of Latin merged differently in the West and the East. I
recall that in some parts of Southern Italy they merged in the same
way as in Romanian.
[Moeller] you are partialy correct in what you say .But
italian has "qu" and the "v" between wovels did not dies. It is still
today there.
Richard:
I said that the languages' words would be the same if the sound
changes were the same. (I should have added 'in the same order'.)
But the words are not all the same, for the sound changes *have* been
different. The fate of 'qu' differs - Romanian has <p> or <c>,
Italian has /kw/, French and Spanish has /k/. Portuguese has /kw/
or /k/, with, except for the '4' words, the same selection rules as
Romanian! However, a difference in timing seems to have had a very
big effect on the result. (This reminds me of a theory on how
different species of zebra get different striping patterns. It's
done by laying down the stripes at different times in the embryo's
development.)
The fate of Latin intervocalic /b/ varies enormously. In Italian
avere 'have', it is missing in some verb forms, /v/ in others,
and /bb/ in yet others. In French it is missing in some verb forms,
and /v/ in others. This sound change is the cause of the
irregualrity of many French verbs. That does not mean there are not
rules, only that they are not simple, and vary from dialect to
dialect.
Moeller:
The question here is only one: A person , person "X" see some rules
which applied to PIE radicals give the actual romanian words from
substrate. OK, it is maybe a question of luck. But these rules,
unchanged gives too the same words from the normal worsd who are
considered to be latin AND the dacian and thracian words . How
that? What does it means?
Richard:
If this is true - I have not checked your claim - it simply means
that in many cases the Latin word is still very close to the IE form,
like <equa> /ekwa:/ 'mare'...
Richard:
or dens, dentis 'tooth'.
[Moeller] you are invited to check. It is my pleasure to do it.
Richard:
Is there an easy way to get at the collection? Or do I need to
search the many postings for 'thraco-dac'?