Austronesian-Nostratic Connections

> -----Original Message-----
> From: tgpedersen [mailto:tgpedersen@...]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 10:01 AM
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [tied] Re: rex, ra_s.t.ra, nation
> URL: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/16887

This discussion has progressed from Indo-European to Nostratic (and
possibly way beyond).

> --- In cybalist@..., "Richard Wordingham"

<richard.wordingham@...>

> wrote:
> > --- In cybalist@..., "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> > > --- In cybalist@..., "Richard Wordingham"
> >
> > > > Maybe you don't like the phonetics, but you've left out
> (Modern?)
> > > > Hebrew sirgel 'ruler (tool, not person)' and regel, ragl-

'foot

> > > (body
> > > > part, not unit of length)'. I've left the lenition out and I
> > need
> > > to
> > > > check the vowels.
> >
> > Sirge:l is the verb, 'to draw straight lines'. The tool
> > is 'sarge:l'. The vowels are short in 'regel' and 'ragl-'.
> > I can't help feeling that the s- in srgl should be a prefix, but

I

> > don't remember a prefix 's-' in Gesenius, the standard reference
> for
> > Hebrew.

> Interesting. Møller mentions a Semitic causative prefix s-

(wherever

> he got that from) which he equates with IE s mobile, to which he
> therefore tentativly also assgns a causative meaning (e.g. melt,
> smelt, and, perhaps reach, stretch).

Proto-Semitic *s > Hebrew *S (normally transliterated 'sh'), and the
causative sh- prefix is mentioned by Gesenius. It's fairly rare in
Biblical Hebrew; the only word I can recall that has it is
hishtah.wa: 'bow down', analysed as hith (reflexive) + sh (causative)
+ h.wy (root). There are other analyses of this word.

> The various Austronesian languages, as far as I have understood it,
> instead of using case suffixes to indicate the role of each NP in

the

> sentence, uses affixes to the verb to put it in a mode that

indicates

> that the sole, uninflected NP in sentence has that particular role.
> Thus the verbal affix for instrument is the prefix Si-, which would
> then be related to the Semitic causative s-. (For object it is the
> suffix -n, cf IE past participles).
>
> http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/austric.html

When gLeN pointed us to a Canadian site on Tagalog, my first though
was that it matched a brief description of Semitic triliteralism far
better than the Semitic languages do! This confirms that Proto-
Austronesian is a feral Semitic-based con-lang :)

It would be nice to hook up Austronesian and Nostratic, but, although
it might resolve the place of Japanese (Altaic?, Austro-Tai?), I
suspect that is getting rather proto-Worldian. (The same's been said
of including Afro-Asian in Nostratic.) What are the feelings of the
long rangers? I don't think it is favourable - see
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nostratic/message/173 and
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nostratic/message/674 .

Richard.