More Pulleyblank:
"
Chinese quan EMC kHwen', Tib. khyi,
Burm khwè....Benedict explains
the final *-n of the Chinese form as a
'collective' suffix, also
found in min EMC mjin 'people'.
"
That
must be the suffix of the Chinese personal pronouns
wo "I", wo men
"we"
ni "thou", ni men "ye"
ta "he", ta men "they"
and if the PIE
pronouns are ultimately loaned, we have an
explanation for the PIE 1pl.
*-me(n)- (and for 1sg.?)
And perhaps the -n of the n-stem PIE
*kwo(n)- "dog" has a new
explanation? Perhaps it never had -n in
nom.sg.?
Torsten
***
Patrick:
I am taking the liberty of re-routing this to Nostratic-L, where it
belongs.
Do you work for a branch of the IMF?
Why does every similar form have to be
a "loan"?
I wrote an essay making an argument for the common origin of Nostratic
and Sino-Tibetan five years ago, and posted it to my website:
Have you ever read it?
If you disagree with it, have you ever expressed your specific
reservations?
These elements, -*n(o), 'collective', have been identified in _recent_
postings for PIE (and Nostratic). They have an even earlier
provenance.
What is to be gained explanatorily by considering them "loans"?
In my opinion, nothing.
As for 'dog', *k^ew- means 'wag'; *k^we-n-, means 'the (tail) wagger' =
'dog'. -*n(a) is the individualizing formant.
-*me has been identified and discussed many times here and on
Nostratic-L.
***