Re: Why there is t- in German tausend "thousand"?

2013/11/13, gprosti <gprosti@...>:

>
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Bhrihskwobhloukstroy
> <bhrihstlobhrouzghdhroy@...> wrote:
>>
>> 2013/11/13, gprosti <gprosti@...>:
>> >
>> >
>> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Bhrihskwobhloukstroy
>> > <bhrihstlobhrouzghdhroy@> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> 2013/11/13, gprosti <gprosti@>:
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Bhrihskwobhloukstroy
>> >> > <bhrihstlobhrouzghdhroy@> wrote:
>> >> >>
>>
>> *Bhr.: What I meant by "chance" is:
>> 1) every language has different words and these differ because they
>> have different phonemes
>> 2) statistically, some couples of words differ by just one phoneme
>> 3) it's statistically possible that some of these (words differing by
>> a singole phoneme) have - by chance - the same meaning
>
>
> The question is *how* statistically probable it is that two words with the
> same meaning, which share five phonemes in the same sequence, are in fact
> two completely (historically) separate forms.

*Bhr.: 100% probable. It's not my fault, it's phonology. If two words
differ by a phoneme, they are minimal couple. If two words have the
same meaning, but different phonemes (even if just one: one is more
than zero), they are synonyms. If You want to underline the
statistically possible - although rare - case that they are synonyms
differing by just a phoneme, You can label them "paronymic synonyms".
Are paronymic synonyms possible, or are we obliged to convert them
into genetic cognates?

>
>>
>> Maybe You mean an *assimilation*, since the OHG term is du^sunt,
>> thu^sunt (Tausend is in fact [t̺ʰaʊ̯zn̩t]);
>
> Yes, that's what I should have said (thanks).
>
> in this case, on the other
>> side, I'd expect the same assimilation in diot 'folk', but I see
>> nothing like that
>>
>
> Long-distance assimilation/dissimilation are examples of processes that
> don't necessarily spread through the whole lexical inventory of a language
> (in fact, it may be the norm for them to be sporadic).
>
> Haplology is a similar type of process: e.g., standard Spanish shows the
> simplification of *tenisista to "tenista", but no haplology of "narcisista"
> to *narcista.
>
>

*Bhr.: There's no haplology of *tenisista to tenista, rather there's
a readjustment rule quite like that of narcisista:
narcis-ismo > delete -ismo > add -ista > narcis-ista
tennis (< French ten-ez) > delete -is > add -ista > tenn-ista
(celt-a > delete -a > add -ista > celt-ista)