--- In Nostratica@..., "Gerry" <waluk@...> wrote:

> --- In Nostratica@..., "Richard Wordingham"
> <richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
> > --- In Nostratica@..., "Gerry" <waluk@...> wrote:
> > > --- In Nostratica@..., "Richard Wordingham"
> > > <richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I will be looking at roots.

I've now launched the first broadside at Austronesian. We'll see if
anyone's interested.

> You are the one who mentioned "syntactic parallels". I was
> simply following form (the *gate-keeper* that I am). Likely I

should

> have said syntactic similarities. Actually in all the languages I'm
> familiar with, there is some type of exclamation for "good morning".
> Is there a human language that doesn't express this type of

greeting?

I think I misused the phrase 'syntactic parallel', or at least pushed
it to its outer limit.

Not all languages have expressions with the same literal meaning as
'good morning'. Welsh does, German does, but Thai doesn't - one
phrase does for every time of day. I've been racking my brain to
remember whether French has a literal equivalent. 'Bon matin' just
doesn't feel right.

> The accusative case and infinitive part of speech doesn't occur in
> all languages.

The 'accusative and infinitive' is a form of indirect speech. The
most striking thing about it is that it is very similar to a causative
expression. There is a limited parallel in English.

Causative: I made him open the box.
Acc & Inf parallel: I saw him open the box.

Latin & Greek take it one step further.
English: I said that he opened the box.
Latin (lit. trans.): I said him (to) open the box.

The Latin syntactic analogue of 'I said that ...' was very little used
in classical Latin, though Greek made far freer use of it, and modern
Romance languages now use the Latin analogue.

> > Farsi has a structure CV(CC), while
> > Standard Thai has C(C)V(C). Proto-Slavonic seemed to be heading
> for
> > (CC)CV, but only got as far as (CCC)VC. Incidentally, '(CC)' is

to

> be
> > read as 'no, 1 or 2 consonants', not as '0 or 2 consonants'.
>
> Quick question: can a CV(C) also be represented as (C)V(C)? Any
> rule for use of parentheses?

The parentheses mean optional. Lack of parentheses means compulsory.
So, for example, 'ba', 'bad', 'bist' are all examples of the structure
CV(CC), but 'ast' is not. Thus, anything that can be described as
CV(C) may be described as (C)V(C), but so (C)V(C) includes examples,
such as 'au', which does not comply the structure CV(C).

> >In discussing Indo-European, it
> > is very useful to include R for resonant - /l/, /r/, /w/, /y/,

/m/,

> > /n/ - in the code. This is a very useful notation, sometimes used
> > with R restricted to a smaller set. For example, it is much more
> > informative to say that Proto-Slavonic had a syllable structure
> > (CCC)V(R) or that Standard Thai has C(R)V(C). For an example of
> this
> > notation in action, you could read Witzel's paper 'Autochthonous
> > Aryans' ( http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/EJVS-7-3.htm

),

> > where he points how one can identify non-Indo-European words in
> Vedic
> > Sanskrit.
>
> Wow. Now it gets very confusing. Witzel's paper, BTW, is very
> informative.

The notation isn't confusing. To use the Thai example of C(R)V(C), it
tells you that it can't have word like English 'lift' (Thai for
'elevator' is /lif/ or /lip/) or 'Sprite', but suggest that 'classic'
*might* be easy to borrow. It's actually used in a lot of commercial
names, but for no good reason they pronounce it /kla:sik/. Similarly,
the Farsi syllable structure of CV(CC) tells you that Persians will
have problems saying 'Scotland'. What these simple formulae don't
tell you is what else isn't allowed or how foreign combinations will
be treated. For example, in Thai 'Sprite' becomes /saprai/, while in
Farsi 'Scotland' becomes /iska:tland/.

When it does get confusing is when you force the notation to carry all
the phonological constraints. The treatment of semivowels and
diphthongs may be tweaked to give an apparently simple formulation.
So, to stop -ait in Thai, I could insist that [ai] = vowel [a] +
consonant [y], and so say that C(R)V(C) prevents -ait. That approach
can be confusing though elegant.

Richard.