Jedediah:
> And as for connections to Sino-Tibetan etc., well, I don't know.
> I do wonder what sort of correspondences the supposed connection is
> based on, though.
From what I understood, the pronouns are one of the issues. I've seen
*s&- and *N&- reconstructed for Proto-Athabascan 1ps and 2ps which
would relate to NEC and NWC pronouns for 1p and 2p. Check out Ingush
or Chechen. The /s/ is the same and *N has become NEC *h. I've also
heard but haven't been able to confirm from my own reading yet that
an *n-variant of the 1ps exists in NaDene. Well SinoTibetan shows a
1ps in velar nasal *N-. I've seen *Na ~ *Nei "I" reconstructed for
ProtoSinitic with *nei reconstructed for "you" -- Mandarin /wo3/ and
/ni3/; Cantonese /ngo"/ and /lei"/ (the " indicates low rising tone).
I'm thinking that originally the "SinoDene" pronouns were *s& for 1ps
(with *n& in oblique cases) and *N& for "you". It would then become
simply *n& and *N& in early SinoTibetan. Then plain *n was palatalized
to *n^ in ST while *N- became *n-. Then *n^ in turn became a velar
nasal *N. As I said, *N becomes NEC *h and appears to do the same in
NWC (look up Abkhaz).
In Nostratic, I think that *s changed to *h yielding *hu, which was
the absolutive 1ps which opposed ergative *nu ~ mu. The 2ps is also
*nu but in the absolutive (from earlier *Nu). It's ergative form
was *ku (masc) and *tu (fem/pl). Eventually Nostratic pronouns
survived into IndoEuropean, but severely skewed. The remnants of
former *hu are seen in the perfect 1ps *-xa and *nu ~ mu survived as
*me and durative-aorist *-m.
But these ideas are just enhancements of what Allan Bomhard has
already published on the subject of Nostratic itself. A Nostrato-
Caucasic family would have to have existed at an obscenely early
date like 30,000 BCE. Yes, it's tentative, conjectural, yadayada,
but it's still cool to think about. Now, I will say no more. Carry
on.
= gLeN