--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "C. Darwin Goranson"
<cdog_squirrel@...> wrote:
>
> I like this idea of prenasalization. The m/w thing seems a nice
> touch, and your theory has some interesting parts ot it, but I do
> have a few questions about it.
> 1) How would the /b/ turn into a /w/ around an /m/? Where would the
> lip-rounding come from?
I don't know. /b/'s have turned into /w/'s before. Perhaps the
pre-voicing part of the pre-nasalization 'softened' the /b/.
> 2) Wouldn't this have similar effects on other voiced stops?
As Richard notes, pre-nasalized labials seem to go away. The problem
is where they went. The other pre-nasalized stops don't seem to do that.
> 3) Do we know of any other languages in the general region of the
> Urheimat (that is, from Turkey to the Caspian to the Volga, possibly
> to the Danube near the Black Sea) that might have used
> prenasalization?
It's common in Sino-Tibetan which today extends all the way to north
of Pakistan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Tibetan_languages
Pre-nasalization is the heaviest among the Kamarupan languages
http://stedt.berkeley.edu/html/STfamily.html#TBlg
Tangut (Xixia) had too, it seems.
Quote from the above URL:
"
...the extinct Xixia (=Hsi-hsia = Tangut) language, spoken in a
once-powerful empire in the Tibetan-Chinese-Uighur border regions,
finally destroyed by the Mongols in the 13th c.
"
Matisoff: Handbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman
"
Of particular interest is the most anciently attested Qiangic
language, Xixia (Tangut), where Nishida (1964/66, 1976) reconstructs a
voiced prenasalized series. There are at least 5 striking etymologies
(discussed in JAM 1978b: 18) where there is independent Lolo-Burmese
evidence for the nasal prefix which Nishida reconstructs:
'ruler, lord, emperor'
Xixia *ndzï (N. 1976:35)
Proto-Lolo-Burmish *m-dz&w2 > Lahu jô-mô, Luquan nts'y, Nasu
dz'j33-mo33, WB cûi 'rule, govern'
'be settled; come to rest'
Xixia *ndîe~ (N. 1966:354)
PLB *m-din,1 <> *?-din,)1 > Lahu dè 'come to rest' <> te 'put sthg
down'. Cognate to
OC *d'ieng / Mandarin dìng .. (GSR #833z). ...
'drink'
Xixia *ndeh (N. 1966:415)
PLB *m-dan,1 <> *m-don,1 > Lahu dò 'drink' <> to (< *?-d-) 'give to
drink', Luquan nt'a11 Nasu d'o213, Yi Xide ndo33, Yi Dafang ndo21, Mpi
ton,5 <> tan,5. Cf. also WT h.thun,. ...
'shine'
Xixia *mbih (N. 1966:447) PLB *m-ba3 > WB pa', Lahu ba
The development of *-a > Xixia -i is quite regular, with many
examples. ...
'tail'
Xixia *mbih (N. 1966:464) PLB *m-ba3 > Mpi m2pa4.
"
> From what I've read, that kind of thing tends to
> occur in Central Africa, and it's unlikely the PIEans came from
> there.
True. The PIE'ers are supposed to have come from the east to the
Ukraine. My favorite loan-etymology is due to Pulleyblank.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/47115
and check for cow + Chinese in the archives.
Torsten