--- In
Nostratica@yahoogroups.com, "H.M. Hubey" <hubeyh@...> wrote:
> p>t>k and p>b>m might work.
>
> Chuvash has ku (this) instead of Common Turkic bu (this).
> p>t>k and p>b.
>
> Chuvash also has epe (I) instead of CT ben/men.
> Again p>k gives epe>eke (ego, etc). And if it was
something
> like *epen what would
> also give rise to ben/men, epe, etc.
>
How realistic is a change p>t>k?
It depends. There is a principle called "regularization" that is used
often to solve complex problems that are under-determined. In other
words, there is not enough data to give a unique solution. In that case,
to get some kind of solution, some kind of regularization is used.
Assumptions of linguistics and social sciences are basically
regularization efforts. They may also be called axioms (math) or
postulates (physics, etc).
I think there is a direction to sound change flows just like there is
a direction to time. p>t>k is one of the changes that takes place
in languages, just like p>b, t>d, k>g etc.
Also, Turkish ben "I" is from earlier *men.
This alleged change m>b seems to me to go against the flow because
it should be p>b>m, or p>b>B, (where B=bilabial fricative),
or p>b>w etc. If it really happened, then it was due to new language
learners whose phonological repertoire did not yet have m.
- Rob
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--
Mark Hubey
hubeyh@...
http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey