From: Arnaud Fournet
Message: 60571
Date: 2008-10-03
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Wordingham" <richard.wordingham@...>
>> > The reconstruction being offered, ignoring the vowels, is *s'-l-t_
>> > (_ for interdental), where <s'> is the sound with Arabic reflex
> /s/ and
>> > the Hebrew reflex transcribed <s'>, written with sin, and pronounced
>> > /s/ by the Jews. (The Samaritans pronounce it differently.)
>> ===========
>> ok,
>> This reconstruction is therefore inadequate as :
>> Arabic is th not **s
>> Hebrew is sh not s(in)
>> Obvious improvement th_l_th < *t_l
>
> No one disputes that most forms indicate Proto-Semitic *t_-l-t_. It's
> a question of which is more plausible - *t_-l-t_ > *s'-l-t_ or
> *s'-l-t_ > *t_-l-t_?
===========
Then, my own point of view is *t_l_t > *th_l_th
and then, you are free to play with *th_l_th
the way you want.
Arnaud
===============
>> > A
>> > lateral fricative makes sense as a Semitic reconstruction,
>> ========
>> No, it does not at all.
>
> What do you propose for what was traditionally written as *s'? (I
> favour orthographic stability in protoforms - without it we lose the
> ability to communicate.)
===========
I was stating that I disagree with the protoform having s',
This is different from what *s' might be.
Arnaud
==========
>
>> > I note
>> > that in Hebrew sin-lamedh-C is disproportionately (just one example in
>> > my pocket dictionary) rare compared to initial shin-lamedh-C.
>
>> Because shin reflects many proto-phonemes, when sin reflects only one.
>
> *t_ and *s^ give shin, *s' gives sin. However, I was allowing for sin
> being less frequent than shin when I said 'disproportionately'. I
> guess you want a chi-squared test. It should be valid, for the rarity
> of sin-lamedh was hypothesised on the basis of s'-l-t_ > t_-l-t_.
=========
I'm not asking for chi-squared test.
What would be the relevance ?
t_ become shin only in Hebrew, not in Arabic.
Arnaud
============
>
>> > What's the Proto-Semitic 'sun' root currently
>> > considered to be? s^-m-s^ or s^-m-s? s^-C-s^ is actually quite
>> > common in Hebrew, but that may just be a feature of Hebrew.
>
>> I guess Arabic has shams
>
> Yes, some languages provide evidence for one form, others for the
> other. I think I've seen assimilation claimed for Hebrew (and thus
> Aramaic and Akkadian), and dissimilation claimed for Arabic (and thus
> also for South Arabian). Is there now a consensus?
> Richard.
============
I cannot answer your question.
I think shams is from *sam.ts
Arnaud
============