Allam R. Bomhard:
Indo-European and the Nostratic Hypothesis
has the following roots with the general sense of "turning"
and "circle":
007 *b(a|&)r- "to twist, turn"
031 *b(u|o)r- "to whirl, rage, palpitate"
066 *p[h](i|a)r- "to turn, twist"
084 *d(a|&)r- "to bend, twist, turn"
127 *t'(u|o)m- "to twist, turn, wind"
170 *sY(i|e)r- "to twist, turn, tie, bond;
band, cord, any cord-like object:
sinew, tendon, nerve, vein"
177 *c[h](u|o)k[h]- "to bend, turn, wind, twist;
to close, shut, cover"
217 *tl\(a|&)l- "to be bent, curved, round"
227 *g(a|&)w-al- "to twist, turn, bend"
239 *g(u|o)r- "to turn, twist, wind, wrap, roll"
261 *k[h](u|o)n-k'- "to be bent, curved, crooked;
hook"
263 *k[h](a|&)r- "to twist, turn, wind"
267 *k[h](a|&)d- "to twist, wind, wrap, bend"
281 *k'(a|&)w- "to make a round hole in"
293 *k'(a|&)r- "to twist, turn, bend, wind;
to tie (together), bind;
(adj.) curved, bent, crooked"
303 *gY(i|e)r- "to enclose, gird"
306 *kY[h](a|&)l- "to twist, twine, wind around, plait"
317 *kW[h](u|o)l- "to bind, curve, turn, revolve,
move around"
331 *kW[h](u|o)r- "to twist or twine together,
tie together, bind, fasten"
315 *h\(a|&)n- "to bind, curve, twist"
472 *y(a|&)?- "to tie, bind, gird"
496 *w(a|&)lY- "to turn, roll, revolve"
498 *w(a|&)n,- "to bend"
531 *m(u|o)r- "to twist, turn, bend"
559 *n(a|&)t'Y- "to turn, twist together"
598 *n(a|&)t'Y- "to turn, twist (together)"
584 *l(a|&)w- "to bend, twist, turn"
592 *r(a|&)k[h]- "to twist, turn, bind"
605 *r(a|&)t[h]- "to turn, roll; to run"
and in the related sense of "clothes" and "wrap":
030 *b(u|o)r- "t0 cover, enclose, wrap up"
059 *p[h](a|&)l- "to cover, hide, conceal"
060 *p[h](a|&)l- ("covering" >) "skin, hide"
(derivative of the preceding)
247 *k[h](a|&)r- "skin, hide, bark, rind"
323 *kW[h](u|o)r- "body, belly"
327 *kW[h](a|&)r- "vessel, pot"
353 *q[h](a|&)- "to cover, conceal"
and "hard center(?)":
332 *kW[h](u|o)r- "worm, grub, maggot, insect"
' = glottalisation
Y = palatalisation
Something here is not right. I can't imagine Proto-Nostratic speakers
needing so many words for "turning".
Obviously the majority can be described as:
velar stop-vowel-(d/l/r/n)-
in other words they could could derived by common and well-known
changes from something like
*kVl-
or
*kWVl-
in which latter case we can also derive roots beginning with labial
and dental stop from it (7, 66, 84, 217, 315); palatalisation takes
care of 170.
Christopher Ehret:
Nostratic or proto-human?
in:
Colin Renfrew & Daniel Nettle (eds.)
Nostratic: Examining a Linguistic Macrofamily
says, if I may quote
"
...
What I have found in doing reconstruction in both the Nilo-
Saharan and AfroAsiatic families is that there are a very great
number of narrow semanic fields in a typical language within
which the meanings of particular roots circulate. Over the long
run of language history, if a word is preserved in the spoken
language, its changes in meaning stay within one of those
narrow and self-evident ranges. If a word has something to do
with holding or carrying, it will continue nearly always to be
used in a meaning that belongs in obvious and overt ways to
that semantic category. If it has to do with turning, the most
far-out shift it might make is to the meanings "change" or
"bend", and after the latter shift perhaps it might be drafted
as the basis for the construction of a noun meaning "snake" or
"knee".
...
"
He also claims some of Bomhard's roots can be related to roots
fron Nilo-Saharan and Proto-Bantu (Niger-Congo) by simple
correspondences. Below are some of those for "turning"
and "wrapping":
Proto-Nostratic Nilo-Saharan
170 *sYir- "to twist, turn, *s.i:d_ "to twist (tr.)"
tie, bind"
239 *gur- "to turn twist, wind, *n,u:r "to bend"
wrap, roll"
267 *kad- "to twist, wrap, *kHud_ "to turn (tr.)"
(expected *a?)
wrap, bend"
293 *k'ar "to twist, turn, bend" *k'er "to twist"
317 *kWul- "to bend, turn, *kHul- "to bend"
curve, revolve"
323 *kWur- "body, belly" *kHu:r "skin, hide"
Proto-Nostratic Bantu (Niger-Congo)
033 *bur- "to whirl" *-bud-ung- "to become round"
066 *pir- "to turn, twist" *-pid- "to turn"
247 *kar- "skin, hide; bark, rind" *kada- "crab (i.e. shelled
animal)"
317 *kWul- "to bend, turn, *-kud-un,g- "to make smooth
curve, revolve" and round"
One thing puzzled me sometime back in the list cybalist
1) the roots *tawr- "bull" and *k-rn- "horn" are represented in both
Senitic and IE (Greek, Italic, Germanic).
2) Orbiting around the sun, intersecting the earth's orbit, are the
Taurids, the remnants of a large body. When the earth passes through
this orbit some of those rocks will shower the earth as meteorites.
Because of their orbit, they will appear to come out of the upper
horn of the constellation Taurus.
Suppose some remote time in the past an extra large fragment hit the
earth and caused flooding of Sundaland and emigration therefrom. Only
natural to wonder if the roots *tawr- "bull" and *k-rn- "horn" were
borrowed from there.
The "Canberra document" (by Laurent Sagart, at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/austronesian/message/431
)
has among its PAN/PECL reconstructions
PAN
*(q)uRun, "horn/antler"
and further
ta?urun,u "pygmy deer" Kanakanubu
taurun,u do. Saaroa
with prefixed ta-. In other words, Semitic and IE *tawr- means "the
horned one", and is with *k-rn- perhaps a loan from a Austronesian
language (now _that_, if true, I find interesting).
from the same document:
Austronesian-Sino-Tibetan-(TP: IE) comparisons
basic vocabulary
PAN/PECL Old Chinese Tibeto-
Burman PIE
12 horn/antler (q)uRung a k-rok rung=rwang *k-rn-
50 wrap around (belt) -kes a ket see
Bomhard above
51 bent, crooked -kuk b (N-)kh(r)ok kuk do.
53 curled, bent -kul b (N-)k(h)ro[r|n] kuar (PS) do.
cultural vocabulary
4 cage, enclosure kurung a k&-rong kru:n, *kr-g-,
*kr-ng-
Morphology AN Chinese TB
IE AfrAs
sV-
verb valency increaser + + +
+ +
IE: s-mobile, AA: causative
pV-
verb causative + +
+ +
Germanic preverb be-, same as pre/postposition Bomhard 23 Proto-
Nostratic *b[i|e]-, with cognates in PIE, PAA and Sumerian. Møller
claims German "das Meer besegeln" should be analysed "das Meer-bi
segeln", thus the preverb is derived from the postposition. So did
PAN once have postpositions?
m-
intransitive + +
+ +
"The Austronesian 'Actor Focus' (AF) marker is a nasal affix m-
(prefix) or -um- (infix)... In [Gyarong and Xide Yi], the N-prefix
has voiced a following voiceless stop. In many [Tibeto-Burman]
languages ..., the nasal element has been lost and only voicing of
the root initial remains." In IE, an alternation bH/p, dH/t etc and a
less common one b/p, d/t etc of no discernible function have been
noted. Møller systematically relates these PIE alternations to
similar PAA ones, but blames them on alternating stress. But note in
the above examples from Bomhard of Proto-Nostratic "turn"; both *k-
and *g- occur, and the verb is a good candidate for having both a
transitive and an intransitive form.
verb-en
'thing verb-ed' + + +
IE: obviously the past participle suffix -n. Etruscan has a -n
adjectivising suffix
-ar-
distributed action + + +
Germanic: not in the root itself, but as a suffix is -r- and -l- much
used to mean "several times" or "repeatedly" or "all over the place.
Compare also
http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/kr.html
http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/krn.html
http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/kwl.html
Note all the crab, turtle, frog words. I think they have to do with
cosmology, not subsistence hunting (a nouvelle cuisine crab, turtle,
frog terminology spreading like wildfire in Africa? Nah. Cosmology
spreading with round-Africa trade sounds better to me.)
Torsten