From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 42897
Date: 2006-01-12
----- Original Message -----
From: "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 8:17 AM
Subject: [tied] The personal pronouns of PIE (and other families) are loans
>
> > ***
> > Patrick:
> >
> > There would be no example of PIE *nu becoming *m if this is not
> it;
> > consequently, like the -*n-infix, I do not believe it is probable
> though, of
> > course, anything is possible.
>
> Miguel uses a suffix *-mu which he uses to derive forms in -m, -w-
> and -o: (if memory serves), but anything you can get get from *-mu,
> you can get from *-nu too, plus it matches an existing morpheme. As
> for the uniqueness, that's what you must expect in fused verbal
> constructions, cf. the Romance future and conditional.
>
> ***
> Patrick:
>
> When anyone utilizes a unique process to explain something, he
must be aware
> that others will consider probability in evaluating the
explanation -
> particularly when more probable explanations are available as
alternative
> explanations.
>
> Like your proposal, I think Miguel's is _possible_ but highly
improbable.
>
Actually, my proposal gets worse than that; I think my *-nu suffix
was once *mnu < *mVn-u, the 'me' root plus locative *-u, thus "at
me" (or "at mind".
***
Patrick:
If you will forgive, I must agree: that is definite worse.
I would be willing to posit a -*u (as in *tew-) but I think the semantics
suggest a meaning of 'topical' = 'about' rather than locative, more or less
like Japanese -wa.
***
Nostraticists want us to believe that personal pronouns are
inherited, not borrowed. What I can't understand then, is, how come
eg. the reflexes of *mVn- "me" (cf Etrusc. mini, Finnish minä)
aren't horribly disfigured by the phonetic developments in the
respective branches, given the time depth of the splits between the
member groups of Nostratic? Why are they still so similar?
Can we infer from the survival of *mVn- in those separate branches,
that Proto-Nostratic *m and *n have survived? I don't think so.
***
Patrick:
On the contrary, I do. There are many factors that influence retention of
phonemes: one is, simply, that *m, particularly) and *n (only slightly less
so) seem to be rather tenacious - all other circumstances being even
somewhat neutral. That does not mean that we do not see *m -> *w, or *n > l,
etc.
As for retention of *mVn, we simply do not know how long *m and *n retained
some shred of semantic integrity. If *me is 'conversant' and *no is a
collective, an independent compounding of the elements cannot be ruled out.
***
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