--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "caotope" <johnvertical@...> wrote:
>
> > *at'q'Ruq'q'ar.yA > *Oq'BuqW'aRq'yE > guriaso, kwOmtari, mafuara, baiberi, bembi, etc.
>
> LOL. A good demonstration of the principle of "allowing for arbitrarily complex reconstructions, arbitrary lexical material may be connected".
These are words with the exact same meaning from languages in the same region, hardly arbitrary. Many of these were seen as cognates decades ago by Wietze Baron, with some linguists putting four of these languages in a genetic group as far back as the 1960's. Some of the cognates required, and were seen to have by them, metathesis, sometimes easily seen or seen by variants within one language (F kafëki / kakëfi, Bb rarëfi 'tobacco'; *apitu / atipu > Kw tipu, Gu apëdu 'nose') so I see no problem in saying that F aBëkwO, Bb kubOw 'leaf' are related and show met. with F -B- = Bb -b-, not -B- = -mb- here, especially since the relation between F and Bb was supposed to be "certain" unlike the other languages'.
As to the that point as I made it, consider only the comparison with Fas -B-, etc.:
F Bb Kw Bi Gu Ma *
bh r m r r-m BB-mW
bw mb f bw m pBw
B b f m m Bpw (wY if CYa>E)
B p r r s s pB
B mb bh fr p fB
It is beyond coincidence that these languages just happened to have such a set of correspondences in unrelated words; they are cognates. Even just considering F and Bb, a simple mb>B in Fas is impossible, which was my main consideration in showing the rec. deemed too odd-looking to be right.
As I said, this is only a partial set, there are also such correspondences as:
F Bb Kw Bi Gu Ma *
bh r m r r-m BB-mW
bw mb f bw m pBw
B b f m m Bpw (wY if CYa>E)
B p r r s s pB
f f bh b p ppB
B mb bh fr p fB
B m p p p f
m m fw bhw m mw
m m f bh mW (between V_V)
m m m bh m m (between m_n)
m m f f m m (before n)
f b N(g) b p mw (after Ñ)
0 w m m m mw (initial)
0 0 0/w w m m m (before u; initial)
b b p 0 p p (before u)
m m y y m mY
y mb f w pBY
nb n f bh n-m nf
Those 3 sets such as:
m m f f m m (before n)
show optional dissimilation of m in a word with one or more other nasals (with *mg > Ng in Kw).