Re: [tied] The "Mother" Problem

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-
language@...> wrote:

> I would like to propose as a way to understand these anomalies
> that we attempt to analyze the components of these compounds.

Good to hear from you again, Mr. Ryan.

> The first element I would propose to identify in the four words
> designating members of the nuclear family is *H2éH2{e}-
> ter, 'fire', itself a compound (a reduplication of **H2e-
> , '**bright' [cf. 4. *a:y-, 'burn'] + 3. *ter-, '*make' [cf. Gk.
> toreía, 'preparation of embossed work in stone or metal']).
>
> This would, of course, yield *á:tr.-.

Interesting idea. However, I thought the only words for 'fire' in
IE were *péxwr. and *(h)égnis. Are there others? (Here I use 'x'
for /h2/ and 'h' for /h1/.)

You bring up the root *ter- '*make'. That made me think that maybe
the IE nomen agentis form with *-tér/*-tor could be, instead of an
earlier active participle, a compound consisting of a verbal noun
(root noun?) and a root noun from *ter-. So, for example,
*xégto:r 'driver' would come from *xeg-ter-s, lit. 'one who makes a
drive'.

> The camp-fire is an appropriate symbol for the nuclear family
> that gathered around it.

That is certainly true. However, a compound with the second
member 'fire' would be taken to mean a kind of fire, it seems. I
think it's more likely that the kinship terms under discussion were
attributive of the characteristics of each member of the family.

> If combined with *bheH2r-, 'what protrudes, **male genital', we
> obtain *bhar- + *á:tr.-, which would give *bhrá:tr.-, 'male part
> of the family'. To connect it with 1. *bher- is rather too broad.
> What, pray tell, did the primeval son 'carry'?

Firewood, perhaps? Supplies for horses and/or livestock?

Are there examples of 'syllabic laryngeals' disappearing completely
between two consonants, as you imply above?

> I propose another gender designation underlies 'daughter'
> instead of connecting it with 'milking' through *dheugh-.

I had forgotten that there was a root for 'to milk', *dheugh-.
Thanks for pointing that out.

> Though 'milking' is certainly a related concept, I propose the
> better identification of *dheugh- is 'pair of breasts', seen
> darkly in English 'dug'; and that the other meanings are denominal.

Assuming that the English correspondence is correct, does 'dug'
reflect the zero-grade form of the root?

One would think that a denominal verb from this root would be formed
from an attached verbal element, such as 'pull' (given the nature of
the action of milking).

> If combined with *dheugh-, 'pair of breasts', we obtain *dheugh-
> + *á:tr.-, which would give *dhughá:tr.-, '(pair of) breasts of
> the family'.

The mother also had (a pair of) breasts, though.

> Compounds of this kind are rare in IE but Ind. prá-pada, 'tip of
> the foot', can be cited.

That's probably cognate to English 'forefoot'.

> Explicit reference to distinguishing sexual characteristics is
> quite common in languages around the world to designate male and
> female.
>
> By contrast, I propose that the designations for 'mother'
> and 'father' were functional rather than descriptive.
>
> I suggest the basis for *ma:tér- is not 3. *ma:-, 'mother', but
> rather *am{m}a-, '**nurser' (*H2e-me-H2e-me, 'family-breast'
> {reduplicated}) through **am{ma:}-á:tr.-. Though I employ *H2 for
> the reconstruction of both 'bright(ness)' and 'family', I believe
> the former was phonetically /ha/ and the latter /?a/. Therefore, I
> question the reconstruction of *ma:tér-, and believe it is
> accented in Indian to pattern with [pitár] but that this accent is
> not original. It should be reconstructed as *má:tr.-.

Are there roots *xe- and *me- for 'family' and 'breast',
respectively, in IE?

I agree that the Indic pattern is a later innovation.

If the Ablautend vowel was originally /a/, we can then posit the
following. The IE 'nursery word' for 'mother' was most likely
either *am(m)a or *mam(m)a. This word, however, would have gotten
distorted beyond recognition with later sound laws, giving something
like *em or *mem (though something similar happened with
English 'Mom'). Perhaps a 'pseudo-laryngeal' was 'imported' into
the mother-word to preserve the vowel quality? Then we could have
something rather satisfactory: a formal term for 'mother' derived
from 'Mom' by adding the kinship term *-xter, giving *méxtr. (in
phonemic terms), later becoming *méxters from the influence of
*pxtérs (and later *mextérs in Indic).

> Finally, we have 'father', the 'feeder'. Rather than connecting
> it with *pa:-, I would connect it with the derived root *p6-t-
> (*pH2-té-), which, when combined, gives us *pH2-t-á:tr.-. For
> euphony, this was simplified to *pH2{t}-tér.

Is that derived stem a frequentative? If not, then what?

> I cannot acknowledge any such guarantee. A quick look at the
> language outside of IE around the world will assure even the most
> casual student that every imaginable consonant has been pressed
> into service somewhere to express the idea of 'mother'
> and 'father'.

That is certainly true as well. However, I'd say that this is
somewhat mitigated by the fact that language is inherited by one
generation from the previous one and how infants seem to learn how
to speak. The first words an infant typically learns are those
which he can use to communicate his needs. In order to do that,
however, he first has to get the attention of who can provide for
his needs (the 'mother', whether biological or not). His mother,
speaking a tongue that was passed to her by her parents and so
forth, has a set idea of what her child should call her. Therefore,
it seems like the infant initially experiments with different sounds
('baby-talk') until he comes upon a combination that resonates with
his mother's idea of what he should call her (e.g. 'mama'). So,
even though he has already learned to speak (i.e. make combinations
of sounds that can exist in human language), he has not yet spoken
his first *word* (i.e. a combination of sounds that exists as a word
in the language of his parents). Plus, parents often use
the 'nursery-words' they inherited when referring to themselves to
their infant children, making it more likely for the infants to make
connections between those sounds and their parents. All in all,
then, 'nursery-words', like any other words in a language, are
carried from generation to generation. However, they seem to be
particularly resistant to change, since they are usually the first
words that we learn.

- Rob