From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 39251
Date: 2005-07-16
----- Original Message -----From: elmeras2000Sent: Saturday, July 16, 2005 11:12 AMSubject: [tied] Re: Short and long vowels--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-
language@......> wrote:
> Because I think that, of the four laryngeals in Nostratic (/?,
h, ¿, H/), by pre-PIE, only two remained: /?/ and /h/, neither of
which had 'coloring' properties.
What do you mean by "by pre-PIE"? How far pre? By PIE, we know with
certainty that three distinct laryngeals existed. They cause three
distinct sets of secondary developments in Greek. There is no way
that can be accounted for by a system containing only two
laryngeals.***Patrick:If you would give a couple of examples of what you specifically believe could only be effected by four 'laryngeals', I will attem to explain it with only two.***
> In my hypothesis, PIE *a/*a: can only be there because Nostratic
*a was lengthened, and so retained its vowel quality; Nostratic
short *a (like short *e and *o) would have become the Ablaut vowel.
I arrived at the same (tentative) conclusion on the basis of IE
alone, only I do not see the justification for calling the long /a:/
lengthened rather than just long.***Patrick:I am glad for any point of agreement.Most frequently we can detect the presence of 'laryngeals' though I know it is hard to be sure with *na?s-.I would propose that any long vowel in PIE has either 1) adjacency to a former voiceless aspirated plosive (*ph, *th, *kh) or other aspirate (*mh, *nh (l), *wh, *sh); or 2) adjacency with a 'laryngeal'.Why not propose a PIE root with a long vowel you consider to be 'natural', and I will try to show that one of the conditions above is met.***
> In order for PIE *a to have been retained, it must previously
have been lengthened.
>
> Therefore: *hayés- > *a:yés- > *á:yos- > *áyos-.
But if the laryngeal is /H2/, the [a] could be /e/. That's why I
said: "That makes "*hayés-" suspect. Why did you depart from
precisely that form?"***Patrick:I do not accept coloring by 'laryngeals'. There is _only_*h or *?, and they will lengthen any Nostratic vowel long enough for it to pass into PIE with vowel quality intact but with added length.***
> For two reasons:
>
> 1) I have identified, I think, two major sources of -*s-stems
in PIE: -*s, 'state or condition', and -*s, 'color adjectives'; I
think this is from the latter;
Could you mention six or seven examples that gave you the impression
that s-stems are colour adjectives? I don't know any. Your "reason"
says nothing that favours unaccented *ha- over *H2é- for the
interesting prestage of PIE.***Patrick:I have already responded to your second question above. I do not admit the possibility of *H2é-.I will attempt to suggest some possible examples of -*s as a formant of color adjectives and nouns characterized by color:1) *á:yo-s, 'reflective, metal'2) *ghré:/ó:-s-, 'growing plant-color, green' (actually two different roots of allied meaning)3) *réudh-s-, 'pair of lips-body', 'reddish' (-*dh is a formant of bodily parts)4) *réu-s-, 'pair of lips', 'pink'5) *é:li-s-, 'smoke-come apart (release)-like', 'orangish'6) *á:li-s-, 'water-come apart (release)-like', 'whitish'7) *bhéro-s-, 'trunk-color', 'brownish'***
> 2) I believe originally short PIE *o arises from *é from which
the stress-accent has been removed.
Some apparently believe that. Maybe you could then explain to me why
they have that belief. If *p&2té:r is opposed to *swéso:r, doesn't
the difference of accent placing suffice to explain -e-/-o- (as input
to subsequent lengthening), does the o-form really have to have been
accented earlier??***Patrick:In my opinion, yes.*séwe-, 'own, relative' + *sére- 'connect(ion)' -> *swesér- (root-syllable accentuation) -> *swésor-.***
> 3) the analytical development of this word, as I see it, is
*há, 'water' + *ye, '-like' = *háye, 'water-like' = 'wet,
reflective, bright' + *so, 'skin', forms color adjectives/nouns =
*hayés(o), 'metal(lic), reflective substance'. > pre-PIE *a:yés-.
Each new morpheme added onto the right shifts the stress-accent one
place to the right; so, for polysyllables, basically a penultimate
accent. But then, probably because of contact with a root-syllable-
accenting language speaking group (Uralics? Basques?), root-syllable
accentuation became the rule for PIE, with formerly accented *é
becoming *o: > *á:yos-; with no competing **áyos- from another
source > *áyos- by 'economy of effort' principle.
Is there any evidence to show this, or is it just idle speculation?***Patrick:Well, absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence but we know of no competing **áyos-.***
> If you would want to provide an example of a -*s-root that you
feel contravenes my hypotheses, I would be glad to _try_ to explain
it.
I have no basis on which to check your postulates. If I say
*ménos 'though' is against this, you will just say *me- 'shoe', *na-
'stone' => 'have stone in shoe, worry', + *-so 'skin' => 'getting
worry over stone in shoe under one's skin' or some such nonsense. I
don't see the point. This is a public discussion list: Does ANYBODY
ELSE see a point in this?***Patrick:Well, I do not blame you for being sceptical but you can keep me as honest as I try to keep myself by looking at http://geocities.com/proto-language/ProtoLanguage-Monosyllables.htm . The meanings I assign to the monosyllables are augmented from time to time but I hope you will be able to see that a semantic thread connects the meanings assigned under every monosyllable. There are even semantic connections between non-aspirated monosyllables, e.g. T?A and aspirated monosyllables: THA. It would not be possible for me to assign 'shoe' to ME but coincidentally, I do assign 'rock' to NA and 'skin' to SO.As for I way of judging my output, consistency would be one measure; and logical argument with the postulates made. If I ever thought I had presented a rationale in a similar form to 'getting
worry over stone in shoe under one's skin', I assure you, would stop writing, and devote myself to other pursuits.I am currently trying to justify the basic meanings I have assigned to the monosyllables in an Addendum to the main list of equvalencies. Anyone who is so sceptical can read a few of these entries, which are incomplete and in progress, to see if the data and my interpretation of it make any sense at all.***
> The one that comes immediately to mind for me is *awes-. This is
a little different accentually because, I believe, the -*s came from
*-sa:, the earlier form of the 'condition or state' suffix. I
hypothesize: *há-wa: > *há-wa + *sha = *a:wésa: (any short vowel,
when stress-accented, becomes *é) > *a:wésa (final stress-unaccented
vowel are shortened or lost, if short already) > (root-syllable
accentuation leftward shift prevented by voweled final syllable)
which is subsequently lost *a:wés-. PIE *(a/a:)us-o:s- is, I
believe, a result of reduplication: *a:wos-á:wos-. I suspect that
the earliest semantic reference of this word was to the dew that
forms at dawn rather than the onset of sunlight itself. There are
many associations of this word with the planet Venus, which, our
ancestors believed, was connected with moisture and water.
You seem to be a complete stranger to the general prerequisite of
scholarly debate that statements be justified. Does ANYBODY ELSE see
any point in this?***Patrick:I have evidence for my postulates but it is complicated; and I would be willing to bet that you have never read it outside of what I can squeeze into these postings. Have you?***
[Jens:]
> Does this mean: Nostratic *-a?- > PIE *-a:- without laryngeal in
> PIE? I would be ready to accept that, provided there is some
> evidence showing it.
> Patrick:
> Well, my reasoning here will probably be a little strange but
based on other hypotheses, any long vowel after *n can _only_ come
as a result of a 'laryngeal' after the vowel; any aspirated
Nostratic *nh* became *l in PIE (in Sumerian also; though it shows
up as <n> in Egyptian) so *nV: has to reflect a
following 'laryngeal' or deletion of some other consonantal phoneme.
Though you may not agree, for my purposes, pre-PIE /?/ is also
a 'laryngeal'. I do not believe, as Bomhard does, that long vowels
were present in Nostratic. Any long vowel in PIE, therefore, is a
result of a short Nostratic vowel + preceding lost aspiration or a
following 'laryngeal' or compensated consonant.
Could you mention some facts that has forced you to formulate one of
the hypotheses involved in this? As it stands, you are only saying:
I know, and I won't tell you why. Grimm and Verner did not do that.***Patrick:I can tell you exactly why. I found that *l in PIE corresponded to words of similar meaning in Egyptian, which I regard as cognates through Nostratic, that were written with <n> though not all Egyptian <n> corresponded to PIE *l; about 50% of the time, Egyptian <n> corresponded to PIE *n. When I could find Sumerian cognates, I found basically the same circumstances as in PIE.Now it is a little more complicated than that because Nostratic *ro shows up in Sumerian as <l> but in PIE and Egyptian as <r>; all Nostratic *rhV shows up in Sumerian as <l>, in PIE, only *rho shows up as *l (but frequently Indic *r); and in Egyptian both *rh and *r show up as <3> and <r>.Spread through the essays at my website, I have hundreds (literally) of examples of these correspondences, and they have improved (I hope) with time. I have adopted an idea of your, that PIE *n is a causative rather than an ingressive as I formerly held, etc.***
> I speculate that the process involved is basically 'any hemimora
is retained': if the *C is removed from any VC* closed segment, the
*V is lengthened by one hemimora: *VV = *V:; I consider *CV and *V:
one full mora.
Couldn't you do better than just "speculate" and instead
*demonstrate* that it is that way?***Patrick:Jens, that is not so easy. I warrant you cannot demonstrate that *H2 gives an *a-coloring to vowels. Because it is a circular argument.***
> This particular root is one that derives from (Northern?)
Nostratic but does not seem to be present in either Egyptian (as a
representative of AA), or Sumerian so direct proof is not possible.
Then on what grounds *are* you making such pronouncements?***Patrick:Its absence in any even closely related form.***
>
> But any PIE root that has a voiced initial plosive, *b, *bh, *d,
*dh, *g, *gh which shows *CV: is a result of Nostratic *CVL
(aryngeal). In the long discussion we had over the significance of
*CV?- roots, which you showed rather conclusively, could not
be 'statives' for PIE as I had postulated, what we actually see is
*CV:-. I still think they had a stative significance in Nostratic,
and are the result of *CV + *?a, a 'stative' suffix, but this was
obviously lost by PIE; and we can consider PIE *CV: a lexicalized
root without stative significance.
If you "still think" something, you should also have a reason for so
thinking. Now what reason drove you to this?***Patrick:Madness, pure and simple.Seriously, part of my assignment of meanings to grammatical morphemes comes from what I consider to be there semantic connections, and structural characteristics.***
> > I am afraid you will like my explanation of *sal- even less.
> Here, I believe the pre-Nostratic form was *sHala-, i.e. with
> aspirated /s/: Nostratic *sa:l-.
[Jens:]
> Does this mean: Nost. aspiration + /a/ > PIE /a:/ without
> laryngeals? I can accept that too if it is supported by evidence.
> Patrick:
> Yes, if we mean 'lost' aspiration.
>
> As for evidence, this may be the hypothesis that you will have
the most difficult time accepting because it contravenes current PIE
theory so much. I believe that voiceless aspirated plosives must be
reconstructed for PIE: *ph, *th, and *kh.
I know they must, the evidence is there.***Patrick:Any point of agreement? Bozhe moi!***
> Aside from the sproradic evidence in Old Indian, they can be
detected by the lengthened vowel in PIE but, with the lengthening
effect of suffixed -*?a, this is a very tricky proposition. It is
really only through Egyptian that an aspirated voiceless plosive can
be confirmed. If we have a PIE *ta:, we can only know that it is
from *t(h)a rather than *ta? if an Egyptian cognate shows <D> rather
than <d>. And then there is the semantic 'evidence'; *tha means
something slightly different than *ta.
I have no idea what you're talking about. How can an opposition
believed to be retained in Egyptian prove that the same opposition
was retained also in Indo-European?***Patrick:Because it is a retention from Nostratic, PIE can be assumed to have had the same source. Though the PIE evidence is uneven, we can see a frequent correlation between PIE voiced and voiceless aspirates and voiceless affricates in Egyptian. Sumerian offers less but some evidence. Nostratic *b and *bw show up in Sumerian as <b> and <p>; both are Egyptian <b>; and PIE maintains the distinction with *b and *bh. Though both Nostratic *p and *ph show up in Egyptian as <b> also, and in Sumerian as <p>, PIE maintains the Nostratic opposition with *p and *p(h).***
> PIE *mel-, 'beat', for example, I believe derives from Nostratic
*male:- (Egyptian mn, '*mace'); it forms no exceptions to regular
Ablaut.
Do you mean the root of Eng. mill and meal? Why would that have
original -a-, and, even more bewildering, how can the Egyptian word
show anything about it? Bomhard/Kerns posit mul-/mol-, apparently on
the basis of Uralic mol-.***Patrick:Well, there are a number of questions there.First, I have a Nostratic Dictionary at my website, http://geocities.com/proto-language/NostraticDictionary.htm in which I discuss just this root.My conclusion there was as follows:"In spite of the non-determination of the Nostratic vowel quality by the reputed Dravidian cognate for Bomhard's PN *mul-/*mol- "to rub, to crush, to grind", I do accept provisionally that "PU *mola- "to rub, to crush, to break, to smash"" is somewhat persuasive grounds for assuming a Nostratic *mol- (Bomhard's "PN *mul-/*mol-") , 'to crush by rubbing'. However, it should be noted that Uralic "[mola]" is reconstructed by Décsy (which Bomhard and I have apparently used as a primary source: The Uralic Proto-Language: Comprehensive Reconstruction, Gyula Décsy, 1990) but designated by him through the brackets as "uncertain"; Ante Aikio, a Uralic scholar, informs me that the only branch of Uralic that could occasion such a narrowly based reconstruction is Sami, which has moallu, 'crumb'. Normally, of course, one would hope for an attestation from more than one branch; and it might have been advisable for Bomhard to so notify his readers."The Dravidian cognate is *mel-, which does not support Bomhard's reconstruction of *mu/ol-.In my Proto-Language Monosyllables, I take up the question again under the heading MA in the Addendum. Here I came to the conclusion I wrote here. There is also the possibility that more than one Nostratic root is involved.Sumerian does not have mil, mal, or mul in the meaning 'grind', but it does have ma-5, 'grind'. Sumerian <a> always reflects Nostratic *a if no semivowel follows.***
> My impression is that /a:/ will not reduce farther than /a/,
however.
Mine too.
> On the other hand, we have PIE *ansu-, 'spirit', which, I
believe, derives from Nostratic *ngo-só-wa. This produced *n(g)séu,
and finally with the root-syllable stress-accentuation, *'n(g)sou-,
to which a prothetic *a- was added: *ánsu-. This prothetic vowel
_could_ disappear with regular further shifts: *Nsú- (cognate:
Egyptian gs, 'friendly, (by the) side').
The Hitt. cunterpart of Norse O,ss (stem *ansu-) is hassu- 'king'.
You cannot let the word begin with the nasal.***Patrick:Now I have a question for you. What is the initial <h> in Hittite supposed to be representing from Nostratic?***
>
> ***
> > Before I offer an opinion on "*ste:w- -> *sté:w-/*stéw-",
could
> you confirm for me if this is the root meaning 'thicken'?
[Jens:]
> It isn't: *stew- 'bekannt sein, preisen' (Kümmel in LIV,
> although 'bekannt sein' is plainly just the mediopassive). It's
one
> of the most classical examples of Narten ablaut.
> Patrick:
> Yes, I would have to agree on all counts. I would hypothesize
that the Nostratic form was *dá-wa, seen in PIE *deu-, 'honor,
praise' (cognate, Egyptian dw[3], 'praise'); with *s-mobile,
*ste/e:u-, 'praise well/loudly. this long vowel is a result of
purely internal PIE processes
Why on earth should the root be pieced together by material of other
roots? What IE material are you talking about? There is quite some
hesitation about roots that look like this in IE. LIV acknowledges
*dewH2- 'zusammenfügen', and perhaps that's all it is. There may
also be evidence for a root of the shape *deHw- however, but that is
something quite new to the field. None of these would fit *stew-.***Patrick:Well, now I am puzzled. How could we compare any PIE s-mobile form with a root outside of PIE if we did not attempt to find the Grundform?AA does not have s-mobile. Neither does Sumerian. In fact, what other language do we know that does have it?Do you wish to make comparison of PIE s-mobile forms impossible?As for LIV, if you are saying that if it is not in LIV, it does not exist in PIE, I think you err mightily.'Praise' is 'praise' is 'praise'. You cannot do away with p. 218-9 of Pokorny's dictionary by fiat.***
> I do not expect that you will be able to agree with much of what
I have hypothesized but thank you for the opportunity to expostulate
it.
Do you mean "expound"? Expostulate seems to have some quite
embarrassing meanings which you hardly intend. Or has that been lost?***Patrick:I am a native speaker of English. I would feel no embarrassment at someone labeling me as expostulating; it simply means 'earnest and serious argumentation'.***
Jens
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