Re: Anser (was: swallow vs. nighingale)

----- Original Message -----

From: Richard Wordingham

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 5:12 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Anser (was: swallow vs. nighingale)

<snip>

Incidentally, are you and Arnaud paying attention to the Chinese tone
correspondences? Thus the 'calf' word (U+4414) Mandarin bin4,
Cantonese baan3 must derive from Middle Chinese *p rather than *b (or
*bH if you prefer), but the 'thigh' word (U+9AC0) Mandarin bi4
Cantonese bei2 makes no sense - unless of course there is a typo in
what I am using for a Cantonese dictionary.

Richard.

***

Richard, I cannot answer your question with any certainty.

In the case of bin4, Starostin uses *P rather than *p to reconstruct the Sino-Tibetan form. I have no idea what difference he is attempting to indicate with this notation. He also notates Old Chinese as  *b(h)in?  What does that mean? If there is a place of his website to explain this system of notation, I have not found it.

Perhaps I can hazard an opinion after I receive Matisoff and try to absorb what he has written.

You will have to explain further about bi4. I do not grasp your point.

 

Patrick Ryan