How does Armenian fit into the Indo-European family?
Darkstar
How in the world is Armenian supposed to fit into the IE family?
Cf. /mek/ -*/oynos/, /yerku/ - */duwo/, /yerek/ -*/treyes/. Doesn't it
seem a little too far-fetched? Many Armenian words are so different
they don't even sound like IE.
What's that stuff about comparing Armenian to the Hellenic group? Are
there any other theories concerning its origin?
phog...@abo.fi
Darkstar wrote:
> Hi, everyone! Long time no see.
>
> How in the world is Armenian supposed to fit into the IE family?
> Cf. /mek/ -*/oynos/, /yerku/ - */duwo/, /yerek/ -*/treyes/. Doesn't it
> seem a little too far-fetched? Many Armenian words are so different
> they don't even sound like IE.
Certainly, because they have been borrowed from Urartian or some other
little-known ancient language.
> What's that stuff about comparing Armenian to the Hellenic group? Are
> there any other theories concerning its origin?
Armenian is quite unmistakably an IE language, but its vocabulary has
been very much relexified and mixed up by subsequent influences. Even
the original IE stock is difficult to keep apart from the numerous
Iranic influences. I reckon the most important evidence of its IE
origins is grammatical and morphological structure, which is not
exotic at all from the IE point of view, although the vocabulary is
exotic.
Peter T. Daniels
The change from *dva to _erk_ is perfectly regular.
Armenian was assumed to be an Indo-Iranian language until H.
Huebschmann cast out the loanwords and discovered the correspondences
that set it apart, in KZ NS 3 (1875).
I leave it as an exercise for the reader to discover why Zeitschrift
fuer verglaeichende Sprachforschung is abbreviated "KZ."
Darkstar
In what way? I see no regularity here. It might be regular. But the
fact is Anatolian parallels are much closer. I wonder if this somehow
sets Armenian aside from other IE languages.
> I leave it as an exercise for the reader to discover why Zeitschrift
> fuer verglaeichende Sprachforschung is abbreviated "KZ."
That's a hell of an excersise! Thank you very much! :-) :-)
Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Mar 10, 7:46 am, "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote:
> > Hi, everyone! Long time no see.
> >
> > How in the world is Armenian supposed to fit into the IE family?
> > Cf. /mek/ -*/oynos/, /yerku/ - */duwo/, /yerek/ -*/treyes/. Doesn't it
> > seem a little too far-fetched? Many Armenian words are so different
> > they don't even sound like IE.
> > What's that stuff about comparing Armenian to the Hellenic group? Are
> > there any other theories concerning its origin?
>
> The change from *dva to _erk_ is perfectly regular.
In what way? I see no regularity here. Even if it's regular, the fact
is Anatolian parallels are much closer. I wonder if this somehow sets
Armenian aside from other IE languages.
> Armenian was assumed to be an Indo-Iranian language until H.
> Huebschmann cast out the loanwords and discovered the correspondences
> that set it apart, in KZ NS 3 (1875).
>
> I leave it as an exercise for the reader to discover why Zeitschrift
> fuer verglaeichende Sprachforschung is abbreviated "KZ."
> The change from *dva to _erk_ is perfectly regular.
That's a hell of an excersise! Thank you very much! :-) :-)
Darkstar
phog...@abo.fi wrote:
> Darkstar wrote:
> > Hi, everyone! Long time no see.
> >
> > How in the world is Armenian supposed to fit into the IE family?
> > Cf. /mek/ -*/oynos/, /yerku/ - */duwo/, /yerek/ -*/treyes/. Doesn't it
> > seem a little too far-fetched? Many Armenian words are so different
> > they don't even sound like IE.
>
> Certainly, because they have been borrowed from Urartian or some other
> little-known ancient language.
That's the same as stating they've been borrowed from God knows where.
Maybe it's more ancient than it seems--- like Hittite, for instance.
Just a guess.
[...]
Darkstar
As an addition:
Does anyone really believe it's close to Hellinic. As far as I
remember history, Armenia has been part of Byzantine. Could it be that
this is where the Hellinic influence come from?
Richard Wordingham
> > The change from *dva to _erk_ is perfectly regular.
>
> In what way? I see no regularity here. It might be regular. But the
> fact is Anatolian parallels are much closer. I wonder if this somehow
> sets Armenian aside from other IE languages.
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Mar 10, 7:46 am, "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote:
> > > Hi, everyone! Long time no see.
>
> > > How in the world is Armenian supposed to fit into the IE family?
> > > Cf. /mek/ -*/oynos/, /yerku/ - */duwo/, /yerek/ -*/treyes/.
> > > What's that stuff about comparing Armenian to the Hellenic group? Are
> > > there any other theories concerning its origin?
>
> > The change from *dva to _erk_ is perfectly regular.
> In what way? I see no regularity here.
I think you'll find it's *dw > er and *s > ku (or is it just /k/?),
with the protoform being more like *dwo:s. A better fit is obtained
if you assumed that PIE has *sW, a labialised sibilant, a hypothesis
associated for purely historical reasons with the glottalic
hypothesis.
It's highly unlikely that the hypothesis of a connection with Greek is
due to a Byzantine influences, though it is entirely possible that it
is a result of much earlier loans. In general, a Byzantine loanword
would not show the same correspondences between Greek and Armenian as
a word inherited from PIE would. Greek, Armenian and Indo-Iranian
share several gammatical features. The most notable are the augment
for past tenses and singular agreement for neuter plural subjects.
(The latter is often projected back to PIE, but I don't think the
evidence is there.) You will therefore come across occasional
references to a sprachbund of the three languages.
mb
> Hi, everyone! Long time no see.
>
> How in the world is Armenian supposed to fit into the IE family?
> Cf. /mek/ -*/oynos/, /yerku/ - */duwo/, /yerek/ -*/treyes/. Doesn't it
> seem a little too far-fetched? Many Armenian words are so different
> they don't even sound like IE.
Before you call any of them far-fetched you should have a look all the
regular correspondences. Sound changes in Armenian have been more
extensive than in most other languages.
Peter T. Daniels
Armenian and Greek are generally regarded as closer to each other than
either is to the other branches of IE.
For the perfectly regular sound change of *dva > erk, see any
historical phonology of Armenian, e.g. in A. S. Kaye, ed.,
*Phonologies of Asia and Africa*.
Darkstar
> On Mar 10, 7:37 pm, "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote:
> > > The change from *dva to _erk_ is perfectly regular.
> >
> > In what way? I see no regularity here. It might be regular. But the
> > fact is Anatolian parallels are much closer. I wonder if this somehow
> > sets Armenian aside from other IE languages.
>
> > Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > > On Mar 10, 7:46 am, "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote:
> > > > Hi, everyone! Long time no see.
> >
> > > > How in the world is Armenian supposed to fit into the IE family?
> > > > Cf. /mek/ -*/oynos/, /yerku/ - */duwo/, /yerek/ -*/treyes/.
> > > > What's that stuff about comparing Armenian to the Hellenic group? Are
> > > > there any other theories concerning its origin?
> >
> > > The change from *dva to _erk_ is perfectly regular.
>
> > In what way? I see no regularity here.
>
> I think you'll find it's *dw > er and *s > ku (or is it just /k/?),
> with the protoform being more like *dwo:s. A better fit is obtained
> if you assumed that PIE has *sW, a labialised sibilant, a hypothesis
> associated for purely historical reasons with the glottalic
> hypothesis.
By reconstructing the protoform as */duwosW/ --> */dwosu/ for Armenian
and as */duwos/ for the rest, you're actually setting Armenian aside.
Otherwise, the final /sW/ would be reflected in the mainstream PIE
dialects. Reconstructing it as */dwo:s/ hardly brings us much closer
to /erku/.
I'm no expert on the Armenian phonology, but I know that no other IE
language has such profound changes in */duwo/. In fact, almost all of
them have the word beginnig with /d/ or /t/ with just a few rare
exceptions like German /zwei/ and Kashmiri /zi/, Khatri /bo/ and
Khowar /ju/ (while the rest of the Dardic languages still preserve the
initial /d/). Even Tocharian has the obvious /wu/. The Indo-Iranian
languages run quite smoothly as well with /bu/ for 'two' only in Wakhi
and /lu/ in Munji (Pamiric), which are obviously from */duwo/.
Albanian has /dy/ also. Even Etruscan has /zal/!
This is why I wonder about the exact evidence which demonstrates the
affinity of Armenian to the mainstream IE languages.
> It's highly unlikely that the hypothesis of a connection with Greek is
> due to a Byzantine influences, though it is entirely possible that it
> is a result of much earlier loans. In general, a Byzantine loanword
> would not show the same correspondences between Greek and Armenian as
> a word inherited from PIE would. Greek, Armenian and Indo-Iranian
> share several gammatical features. The most notable are the augment
> for past tenses
But vowels (as in the augment) are generally less stable than initial
consonants. The consonants changed, while the vowels preserved? That's
odd.
> and singular agreement for neuter plural subjects.
[...]
Could you elaborate on this?
Peter T. Daniels
So what? it's entirely regular.
> This is why I wonder about the exact evidence which demonstrates the
> affinity of Armenian to the mainstream IE languages.
Then read the fucking literature.
Can't handle German? That's your problem.
John Atkinson
"Richard Wordingham" <jrw...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote...
>> > The change from *dva to _erk_ is perfectly regular.
>>
>> In what way? I see no regularity here. It might be regular. But the
>> fact is Anatolian parallels are much closer. I wonder if this somehow
>> sets Armenian aside from other IE languages.
>
>> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> > On Mar 10, 7:46 am, "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote:
>> > > Hi, everyone! Long time no see.
>>
>> > > How in the world is Armenian supposed to fit into the IE family?
>> > > Cf. /mek/ -*/oynos/, /yerku/ - */duwo/, /yerek/ -*/treyes/.
>> > > What's that stuff about comparing Armenian to the Hellenic group?
>> > > Are
>> > > there any other theories concerning its origin?
>>
>> > The change from *dva to _erk_ is perfectly regular.
erkow being the Classical Armenian equivalent of modern yerku.
>> In what way? I see no regularity here.
>
> I think you'll find it's *dw > er and *s > ku (or is it just /k/?),
> with the protoform being more like *dwo:s. A better fit is obtained
> if you assumed that PIE has *sW, a labialised sibilant, a hypothesis
> associated for purely historical reasons with the glottalic
> hypothesis.
As I understand it, it's *d >(e) r and *w > k
It's certainly regular. Compare Classical Armenian erkar "long" <
dweh2ro-, erknc^'im "I fear" < *erki-nc^'inm <*dwi-n-sk-, erkun
"birth-pangs < *h1dwon-.
On its own, initial *w- becomes g-. The voiced stops, *b *d *g always
become voiceless, p t k. Presumably, -w- assimilated and became
voiceless too, hence > -k- instead of -g-. (cf skownd < *kywon-t-,
dog -- palatized stop ky > s because Armenian's a satem language.) The
rhotacisation of the initial stop before -k- is less explicable, but
hardly unknown in other languages. Initial e- is a prosthetic vowel.
John.
phog...@abo.fi
Darkstar wrote:
> phog...@abo.fi wrote:
> > Darkstar wrote:
> > > Hi, everyone! Long time no see.
> > >
> > > How in the world is Armenian supposed to fit into the IE family?
> > > Cf. /mek/ -*/oynos/, /yerku/ - */duwo/, /yerek/ -*/treyes/. Doesn't it
> > > seem a little too far-fetched? Many Armenian words are so different
> > > they don't even sound like IE.
> >
> > Certainly, because they have been borrowed from Urartian or some other
> > little-known ancient language.
>
> That's the same as stating they've been borrowed from God knows where.
That is the idea, yes. However, even Proto-Germanic includes AFAIK a
rather high percentage of words which cannot be traced back to IE. The
explanation is that they have been borrowed from the language of the
Megalithgräberkultur, which is also responsible for the initial-
syllable accentuation in Proto-Germanic.
mb
> Darkstar wrote:
...
> > > Certainly, because they have been borrowed from Urartian or some other
> > > little-known ancient language.
>
> > That's the same as stating they've been borrowed from God knows where.
>
> That is the idea, yes.
Not the numbers. They are regular IE (likely Indo-iranian influence
for "mek").
phog...@abo.fi
They certainly are, and so are personal pronouns, and verbal endings,
and the declension of the verb "to be". The words might look weird,
but the whole grammar has a distinctly Indo-European look and feel.
Richard Wordingham
> Richard Wordingham wrote:
> > On Mar 10, 7:37 pm, "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote:
> > > > The change from *dva to _erk_ is perfectly regular.
> > > In what way? I see no regularity here.
> > I think you'll find it's *dw > er and *s > ku (or is it just /k/?),
> > with the protoform being more like *dwo:s. A better fit is obtained
> > if you assumed that PIE has *sW, a labialised sibilant, a hypothesis
> > associated for purely historical reasons with the glottalic
> > hypothesis.
Sorry, I confused it with the sound change *sW > k`.
> By reconstructing the protoform as */duwosW/ --> */dwosu/ for Armenian
> and as */duwos/ for the rest, you're actually setting Armenian aside. I'm no longer so sure about the final *sW (or *s) - I think I was putting two much weight on the Latin accusative plural.
> Otherwise, the final /sW/ would be reflected in the mainstream PIE
> dialects. Reconstructing it as */dwo:s/ hardly brings us much closer
> to /erku/.
Final *sW is reconstructed for the PIE nominative plural ending, but I
think final *sW merges with *s everywhere else, and even in Armenian
after a consonant.
> But vowels (as in the augment) are generally less stable than initial
> consonants. The consonants changed, while the vowels preserved? That's
> odd.
It may seem odd, but that's what we observe.
> > and singular agreement for neuter plural subjects.
It's simple enough. A neuter plural subject take a verb in the 3rd
singular, not the 3rd plural, in Avestan and Classical Greek. Scrub
my comment on number agreement in Armenian. There's a short list of
common features at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/8028
.
Darkstar
I can read German. My problem is that I just can't get "the fucking
manual". Our local libraries are really Scheisse, the few books I can
get are costly or rare. I'd have to order one from Amazon which is a
lot of hassle around here.
On the other hand, if I could read all the manuals, there would be no
talking at sci.lang, would there?
Hey, you don't have to get mad. :-). I know what you're thinking,
'Here he comes again with another crackpot theory'. But that's what
the web talk is all about. We come here to share. Maybe something
comes out of it.
I remember most things most people said in our previous debates
including matters that were left unresolved. Sometimes I disappear for
months, but that was because I thought that both parties ran out of
arguments or because I just had other business on my mind. But I still
value your input. No one knows everything. It's the integration from
different parties that matters. I have technical education, but I've
been learning modern languages for ages -- especially, English,
Spanish and German. Finally, I realized that historical linguistics is
great stuff. I sort of moved on into it from a different direction.
Now I'm trying to catch up. So why not ask some questions or make some
theories? You'll correct me if I get too wrong.
Darkstar
> "Richard Wordingham" <jrw...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote...
> > On Mar 10, 7:37 pm, "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote:
> >> PTD wrote:
> >> > The change from *dva to _erk_ is perfectly regular.
> >>
> >> In what way? I see no regularity here. It might be regular. But the
> >> fact is Anatolian parallels are much closer. I wonder if this somehow
> >> sets Armenian aside from other IE languages.
> >
> >> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >> > On Mar 10, 7:46 am, "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote:
> >> > > Hi, everyone! Long time no see.
> >>
> >> > > How in the world is Armenian supposed to fit into the IE family?
> >> > > Cf. /mek/ -*/oynos/, /yerku/ - */duwo/, /yerek/ -*/treyes/.
> >> > > What's that stuff about comparing Armenian to the Hellenic group?
> >> > > Are
> >> > > there any other theories concerning its origin?
> >>
> >> > The change from *dva to _erk_ is perfectly regular.
>
> erkow being the Classical Armenian equivalent of modern yerku.
>
> >> In what way? I see no regularity here.
> >
> > I think you'll find it's *dw > er and *s > ku (or is it just /k/?),
> > with the protoform being more like *dwo:s. A better fit is obtained
> > if you assumed that PIE has *sW, a labialised sibilant, a hypothesis
> > associated for purely historical reasons with the glottalic>
>
> It's certainly regular. Compare Classical Armenian erkar "long" <
> dweh2ro-, erknc^'im "I fear" < *erki-nc^'inm <*dwi-n-sk-, erkun
> "birth-pangs < *h1dwon-.
>
> On its own, initial *w- becomes g-. The voiced stops, *b *d *g always
> become voiceless, p t k. Presumably, -w- assimilated and became
> voiceless too, hence > -k- instead of -g-. (cf skownd < *kywon-t-,
> dog -- palatized stop ky > s because Armenian's a satem language.) The
> rhotacisation of the initial stop before -k- is less explicable, but
> hardly unknown in other languages. Initial e- is a prosthetic vowel.
>
> John.
Hi, John.
Thanks. That's what I expected to get -- a more specific answer.
Anyway, it's not that I say they are irregular, I just mean the
reconstruction is too long and unnatural, therefore subject to
Ockham's razor. Generally, using prosthetic phonemes is a bad habit --
they're quite rare and are often the first sign of ad hoc
conjecture...
Intrinsically, it could reconstructed in the following way:
/erkou/ <-- */eskou/ (if rhotacism) <-- */THeskou/ (if there was a
lost light dental as in spoken Eng. /get'm/ or Spanish /ciu'a/ <-- /
ciudad/) <-- */THesHou/ (if /k/ or /kh/ is from aspiration). That
would be more like it.
Or, if no rhotacism, simply:
/erkou/ <-- */THerkou/ <-- */THerHou/
Consequently,
/erekh/ <-- */THerekh/ <-- */THereH/
To me, it's enough evidence to wonder about the origins of Armenian.
It might have branched off earlier from other IE languages, more or
less like Etruscan. But maybe I'm wrong, and there are better
reconstructions -- I don't know yet. Just thinkin'.
John Atkinson
"Darkstar" <darks...@front.ru> wrote...
Tell that to the Basques!
There are lots of other languages that don't permit word-initial /r/
> Intrinsically, it could reconstructed in the following way:
> /erkou/ <-- */eskou/ (if rhotacism) <-- */THeskou/ (if there was a
> lost light dental as in spoken Eng. /get'm/ or Spanish /ciu'a/ <-- /
> ciudad/) <-- */THesHou/ (if /k/ or /kh/ is from aspiration). That
> would be more like it.
> Or, if no rhotacism, simply:
> /erkou/ <-- */THerkou/ <-- */THerHou/
>
> Consequently,
> /erekh/ <-- */THerekh/ <-- */THereH/
>
> To me, it's enough evidence to wonder about the origins of Armenian.
> It might have branched off earlier from other IE languages, more or
> less like Etruscan. But maybe I'm wrong, and there are better
> reconstructions -- I don't know yet. Just thinkin'.
The following are the main universally-accepted shifts from PIE to
Armenian:
(1) *s > 0 initially and between vowels. (Final -s > k', but only in
plural suffixes, so this's probably a replacement, not a sound shift).
(2) Satem: PIE labiovelars > velars, palatals > fricatives or
affricates
(3) *p > h or 0
(4) Quasi-Grimm's law: plain voiceless stops > voiceless aspirates,
voiced stops > voiceless stops, voiced aspirates > voiced stops.
(5) Glides: *j > 0, *w > g (like in Celtic)
If you're going to play reconstruction, I reckon you should at least
take these into account.
J.
Peter T. Daniels
> > > I'm no expert on the Armenian phonology, but I know that no other IE
> > > language has such profound changes in */duwo/.
>
> > So what? it's entirely regular.
>
> > > This is why I wonder about the exact evidence which demonstrates the
> > > affinity of Armenian to the mainstream IE languages.
>
> > Then read the fucking literature.
>
> > Can't handle German? That's your problem.
>
> I can read German. My problem is that I just can't get "the fucking
> manual". Our local libraries are really Scheisse, the few books I can
> get are costly or rare.
If you have a library, then you have Interlibrary Loan.
Does your library have no standard manual of Indo-European, such as
Meillet 1937 or Szemerenyi 1999?
> I'd have to order one from Amazon which is a
> lot of hassle around here.
> On the other hand, if I could read all the manuals, there would be no
> talking at sci.lang, would there?
>
> Hey, you don't have to get mad. :-). I know what you're thinking,
> 'Here he comes again with another crackpot theory'. But that's what
> the web talk is all about. We come here to share. Maybe something
> comes out of it.
Is that you, Heidi?
> I remember most things most people said in our previous debates
> including matters that were left unresolved. Sometimes I disappear for
> months, but that was because I thought that both parties ran out of
> arguments or because I just had other business on my mind. But I still
> value your input. No one knows everything. It's the integration from
> different parties that matters. I have technical education, but I've
> been learning modern languages for ages -- especially, English,
> Spanish and German. Finally, I realized that historical linguistics is
> great stuff. I sort of moved on into it from a different direction.
> Now I'm trying to catch up. So why not ask some questions or make some
> theories? You'll correct me if I get too wrong.-
Then why do you start out by claiming that, contrary to all evidence,
Armenian couldn't possibly be IE, or whatever it was you were claiming?
mb
...
> > > > > In what way? I see no regularity here.
> > > This is why I wonder about the exact evidence which demonstrates the
> > > affinity of Armenian to the mainstream IE languages.
> I know what you're thinking,
> 'Here he comes again with another crackpot theory'. But that's what
> the web talk is all about. We come here to share. Maybe something
> comes out of it.
What pointed in the "crackpot" direction is your declaring that there
are no IE correspondences _before_ you get the facts.
Dušan Vukotić
If the Armenian were an IE language than it would take a great deal of
linguistic manipulation to explain sound changes that made 'y-erku'
from IE *dwo- (two). I cannot believe that normal people (not only
scientist!) could accept such bulshit as truth. What is to be said
about the Armenian cardinal number y-erek (three; erku/yerku two and
erek'/yerek' three)?
Of course, Armenian erku/yerku (two) and erek'/yerek' (three) could
possibly be compared to Serbian/Slavic ordinals 'drugi/другой (second)
and 'treći/третий' (third) - i.e. adjective 'odredjen' (defined,
determined) ;-))
DV
mb
...
> If the Armenian were an IE language than it would take a great deal of
> linguistic manipulation to explain sound changes that made 'y-erku'
No one asked you if you could figure it by yourself. But then, no
doubt you know Armenian well and have figured out all the
correspondences.
...
> Of course, Armenian erku/yerku (two) and erek'/yerek' (three) could
> possibly be compared to Serbian/Slavic ordinals 'drugi/другой (second)
> and 'treći/третий' (third) - i.e. adjective 'odredjen' (defined,
> determined) ;-))
Obvious! Armenian, too, is derived from modern Serbian.
Darkstar
Well, since the /r/ is indeed initial, just might be. But the rest of
it still looks too complex compared to the processes in numerals
within the other IE branches. I'm merely stating that Armenian seems
to have gone a longer way than others.
These laws seem to be not applicable in this particular case, except w
> g. Do you have more examples (also in Celtic)?
Another similar question. How could /me, mek/ develop from *oynos?
What are other cases in any world language of /oy/ --> /m/ transition?
Darkstar
Let's not get into a debate on whose Dad will beat up whose Dad. I
know Armenian is what I'm interested in in the moment.
Anyway, I've got all the facts in the dictionary. I know how words in
IE languages (particularly numerals) look like. What are other facts
relevant to the case?
Darkstar
Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Mar 11, 6:03 pm, "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote:
>
> > > > I'm no expert on the Armenian phonology, but I know that no other IE
> > > > language has such profound changes in */duwo/.
> >
> > > So what? it's entirely regular.
> >
> > > > This is why I wonder about the exact evidence which demonstrates the
> > > > affinity of Armenian to the mainstream IE languages.
> >
> > > Then read the fucking literature.
> >
> > > Can't handle German? That's your problem.
> >
> > I can read German. My problem is that I just can't get "the fucking
> > manual". Our local libraries are really Scheisse, the few books I can
> > get are costly or rare.
>
> If you have a library, then you have Interlibrary Loan.
>
> Does your library have no standard manual of Indo-European, such as
> Meillet 1937 or Szemerenyi 1999?
Maybe, you're right. I should check out the web and the library
first.
> > I'd have to order one from Amazon which is a
> > lot of hassle around here.
> > On the other hand, if I could read all the manuals, there would be no
> > talking at sci.lang, would there?
> >
> > Hey, you don't have to get mad. :-). I know what you're thinking,
> > 'Here he comes again with another crackpot theory'. But that's what
> > the web talk is all about. We come here to share. Maybe something
> > comes out of it.
>
> Is that you, Heidi?
No.
> > I remember most things most people said in our previous debates
> > including matters that were left unresolved. Sometimes I disappear for
> > months, but that was because I thought that both parties ran out of
> > arguments or because I just had other business on my mind. But I still
> > value your input. No one knows everything. It's the integration from
> > different parties that matters. I have technical education, but I've
> > been learning modern languages for ages -- especially, English,
> > Spanish and German. Finally, I realized that historical linguistics is
> > great stuff. I sort of moved on into it from a different direction.
> > Now I'm trying to catch up. So why not ask some questions or make some
> > theories? You'll correct me if I get too wrong.-
>
> Then why do you start out by claiming that, contrary to all evidence,
> Armenian couldn't possibly be IE, or whatever it was you were claiming?
Please don't distort.
Peter T. Daniels
I remembered who you are. You're in Russia, right?
There must be far, far more material on Armenian in Russian than in
English, German, or French. In particular, anything by I. M. Diakonoff
is highly reliable. And certainly there are handbooks of IE philology
by Russian scholars going back a century and more. They will provide
the relevant facts.
Peter T. Daniels
I remembered who you are. You're in Russia, right?
Peter T. Daniels
I remembered who you are. You're in Russia, right?
Peter T. Daniels
I remembered who you are. You're in Russia, right?
Darkstar
Peter:
I need to know what is generally accepted throughout the world, not
just by Dyalonoff. The library has very few materials from the western
libraries (although some shabby books from the 60s might be there).
Even getting an article over the net is a hassle.
Of course with lots of time, money and effort you can get anything,
but that's a different story. I wanted a quick and dirty reply for the
time being.
John Atkinson
"Darkstar" <darks...@front.ru> wrote in message
news:1173720479.3...@s48g2000cws.googlegroups.com...
> w> g
w >g >k you mean. Also *-s > -0 was used. Anyway, you're right, I
didn't include in my Big Five the two other laws that apply in this
case, viz *d, *t > (e)r in a consonant cluster, and *o: > u (spelled
<ow>). I'm not sure just what the conditioning factors are for the
first -- note that it also occurs in erek', "three". The second occurs
a lot, but is hardly a big issue.
>. Do you have more examples
gorc < *worgyo- (E work); gitem < weid- (E wit); ger < *wer- < *Huper (E
over)
> (also in Celtic)?
The transition w- > gw- > g- went only halfway in Celtic:
Welsh gwas < *h2wes (E was/were), gweint < *wen- (E wound), gweled <
*wel- (see), gwellt < *wel (grass), gwlan <*wlh2neH- (E wool), gwlydd <
*weld- (E wilt), gwynt < *h2weh1-nt- (E wind)
In Irish gw- > f- (e.g., folt corresponds to gwellt)
> Another similar question. How could /me, mek/ develop from *oynos?
> What are other cases in any world language of /oy/ --> /m/ transition?
It doesn't come from *oynos.. Like Greek heis (m)/mia (f)/hen (n) and
Tocharian B se (m)/sana (f), both meaning "one", it comes from *sem-s,
the other PIE root meaning "one" (or perhaps "together" or something
like that). English <same>, Slavic <so>, Sanskrit <sam-> also come from
*sem-
John.
Christopher Culver
> It doesn't come from *oynos.. Like Greek heis (m)/mia (f)/hen (n) and
> Tocharian B se (m)/sana (f), both meaning "one", it comes from *sem-s,
> the other PIE root meaning "one" (or perhaps "together" or something
> like that). English <same>, Slavic <so>, Sanskrit <sam-> also come
> from *sem-
What is this Slavic "so" of which you speak? The Common Slavonic
preposition *sU "[together] with"? That originally had a palatal
velar, having the same origin as Latin "cum".
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
Brian M. Scott
<crcu...@christopherculver.com> wrote in
<news:87k5xme...@aura.christopherculver.com> in
sci.lang:
> "John Atkinson" <john...@bigpond.com> writes:
>> It doesn't come from *oynos.. Like Greek heis (m)/mia (f)/hen (n) and
>> Tocharian B se (m)/sana (f), both meaning "one", it comes from *sem-s,
>> the other PIE root meaning "one" (or perhaps "together" or something
>> like that). English <same>, Slavic <so>, Sanskrit <sam-> also come
>> from *sem-
> What is this Slavic "so" of which you speak? The Common Slavonic
> preposition *sU "[together] with"? That originally had a palatal
> velar, having the same origin as Latin "cum".
Russian prefix <su-> 'together' (Cz. <sou->, Slk. <sú->,
Pol. <so,->, Sln. <so->, Blg. <sa^->), < PSlav. *so,- < PIE
*som. See Derksen's Slavic inherited lexicon at
<http://www.ieed.nl/%5Cindex2.html>.
Brian
Peter T. Daniels
And the quick and dirty answer you were given is that the descent from
IE to Armenian is perfectly regular and explicable by phonological
processes that operate the world over.
Unless your library didn't exist 100 years ago, it surely has
Brugmann. And Russia had some pretty celebrated universities 100 years
ago.
John Atkinson
"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> ...
> Christopher Culver <crcu...@christopherculver.com> wrote:
>> "John Atkinson" <john...@bigpond.com> writes:
>
>>> It doesn't come from *oynos.. Like Greek heis (m)/mia (f)/hen (n)
>>> and
>>> Tocharian B se (m)/sana (f), both meaning "one", it comes from
>>> *sem-s,
>>> the other PIE root meaning "one" (or perhaps "together" or something
>>> like that). English <same>, Slavic <so>, Sanskrit <sam-> also come
>>> from *sem-
>
>> What is this Slavic "so" of which you speak? The Common Slavonic
>> preposition *sU "[together] with"? That originally had a palatal
>> velar, having the same origin as Latin "cum".
>
> Russian prefix <su-> 'together'
Is there really such a prefix in Russian?
> (Cz. <sou->, Slk. <sú->,
> Pol. <so,->, Sln. <so->, Blg. <sa^->), < PSlav. *so,- < PIE
> *som. See Derksen's Slavic inherited lexicon at
> <http://www.ieed.nl/%5Cindex2.html>.
Thanks, Brian. Likewise Lith <sam->.
Christopher was right, in that I was assuming, without thinking at all
about it, that OCS prefix so- (from *sem, I'm pretty sure -- or rather,
its ablaut variant *som) and Russian s(o) were cognate.
Nevertheless, I'm not convinced that preposition s(o) is cognate with
Latin <cum> (and OIr <com->). I favour <cum> being cognate with the OCS
preposition kU (Russian k(o), towards), which comes from PIE *kom,
with. Since Sanskrit has kam, towards, the velar's not palatal in *kom.
FWIW, Mallory and Adams derive Russian s(o) (together with Lith su and
Greek ksun or sun) from _yet_another_ root meaning "with", namely *ksun!
Do other references agree? (Sorry Brian, can't raise Derksen right now,
his server's down.)
(There's another OCS prefix sU-, meaning good (cf Greek, Skt, etc),
supposedly from *h1su- -- but I'm sure that's irrelevant!)
I'm confused. Please sort me out.
John.
mb
Again, the observable regularities throughout the language. As opposed
to impressionistic judgment. Nothing to do with dads.
Dictionary helpful only if all similar forms of all different groups
have been critically processed, loans and their own regularities
sorted by periods, and so on. Simpler to read the result from someone
who did all the work. You got a couple recommendations for references.
If you want to contest them, fine, read them first and prepare the
argument.
mb
> > > It might have branched off earlier from other IE languages, more or
> > > less like Etruscan. But maybe I'm wrong, and there are better
> > > reconstructions -- I don't know yet. Just thinkin'.
You'll have it all uphill to try and push an IE origin on Etruscan
anyway.
...
> These laws seem to be not applicable in this particular case, except w
> > g. Do you have more examples (also in Celtic)?
You got to work on more than one word, really.
> Another similar question. How could /me, mek/ develop from *oynos?
> What are other cases in any world language of /oy/ --> /m/ transition?
In the case of mek, look at the massive (Indo-)Persian influence and
to yek / ek.
Brian M. Scott
<john...@bigpond.com> wrote in
<news:cXpJh.10435$8U4....@news-server.bigpond.net.au> in
sci.lang:
> "Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> ...
>> Christopher Culver <crcu...@christopherculver.com> wrote:
[...]
>>> What is this Slavic "so" of which you speak? The Common Slavonic
>>> preposition *sU "[together] with"? That originally had a palatal
>>> velar, having the same origin as Latin "cum".
>> Russian prefix <su-> 'together'
> Is there really such a prefix in Russian?
>> (Cz. <sou->, Slk. <sú->,
>> Pol. <so,->, Sln. <so->, Blg. <sa^->), < PSlav. *so,- < PIE
>> *som. See Derksen's Slavic inherited lexicon at
>> <http://www.ieed.nl/%5Cindex2.html>.
> Thanks, Brian. Likewise Lith <sam->.
> Christopher was right, in that I was assuming, without
> thinking at all about it, that OCS prefix so- (from
> *sem, I'm pretty sure -- or rather, its ablaut variant
> *som) and Russian s(o) were cognate.
> Nevertheless, I'm not convinced that preposition s(o) is
> cognate with Latin <cum> (and OIr <com->). I favour
> <cum> being cognate with the OCS preposition kU
> (Russian k(o), towards), which comes from PIE *kom,
> with. Since Sanskrit has kam, towards, the velar's not
> palatal in *kom.
> FWIW, Mallory and Adams derive Russian s(o) (together with
> Lith su and Greek ksun or sun) from _yet_another_ root
> meaning "with", namely *ksun! Do other references agree?
Watkins agrees, but see below.
> (Sorry Brian, can't raise Derksen right now, his
> server's down.)
It's working for me, but if he has the thing, I can't figure
out where to find it. Vasmer has the traditional derivation
from *k^om.
On Cybalist a few years ago Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:
PSl. *sU(n)- (*so~- in old compound nouns) is most
likely the same thing (modulo apophony) as Skt.
sa(m)-, Germanic *sam- and Gk. (h)a-, namely
PIE *som- 'together, with'. There are some perfectly
parallel forms like PSl. *so~logU (< *som-logHo-):
Gk. alokHos (< *sm.-logHo-) 'bedmate, spouse' or
PSl. *so~dU 'trial, judgement' < *som-dHh1-o-
'putting together, confrontation', as in Skt. sandHi-,
sandHa-.
More recently, in connection with something else, Miguel
wrote:
The question is rather why the preverb / preposition
(which is _always_ sU- before a consonant, no matter
what's in the next syllable, and sUn- before a vowel)
differs from the reflex soN- in compound nouns such
as soNsędU "neighbour". The answer is that where
the prefix is separable, when it is used as a preverb
or preposition, *k^om and *som develop according
to the Auslaut rules, giving *suN > sU. In fixed
compounds, *k^om-/*som- develop as in the Inlaut,
giving soN-. Besides from *k^om "with" and *som
"one, together", Slavic sU- can also reflect *(h1)su
"well, good" (e.g. sU-dorvU *"good-wood" > "healthy").
In that case, we always have sU-, of course.
I can't tell from this whether he's saying that <sU-> ~
<soN-> has two distinct souces, *k^om- and *som-, or merely
that it could equally well come from either.
> (There's another OCS prefix sU-, meaning good (cf Greek,
> Skt, etc),
I think that I first encountered it in OIr <so-, su->.
> supposedly from *h1su- -- but I'm sure that's
> irrelevant!)
> I'm confused. Please sort me out.
Fat chance: I'm *always* confused when it comes to Slavic.
Brian
John Atkinson
> John Atkinson <john...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>> "Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> ...
>>> Christopher Culver <crcu...@christopherculver.com> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>>>> What is this Slavic "so" of which you speak? The Common Slavonic
>>>> preposition *sU "[together] with"? That originally had a palatal
>>>> velar, having the same origin as Latin "cum".
>
>>> Russian prefix <su-> 'together'
>
>> Is there really such a prefix in Russian?
(Of course there isn't -- the prefix's <s(o)-> in Russian, same as the
preposition :-)
>>> (Cz. <sou->, Slk. <sú->,
>>> Pol. <so,->, Sln. <so->, Blg. <sa^->), < PSlav. *so,- < PIE
>>> *som. See Derksen's Slavic inherited lexicon at
>>> <http://www.ieed.nl/%5Cindex2.html>.
>
>> Thanks, Brian. Likewise Lith <sam->.
>
>> Christopher was right, in that I was assuming, without
>> thinking at all about it, that OCS prefix so- (from
>> *sem, I'm pretty sure -- or rather, its ablaut variant
>> *som) and Russian s(o) were cognate.
They're certainly merged throughout Balto-Slavic, whether or not they're
derived from the same PIE root. Lithuanian has prefix <su-> and
preposition <su`> -- although M and A claim the "with" prefix in Lith is
<sam-> (see above) my Lithuanian text doesn't agree with them, listing
over 100 words with prefix <su-> and only two words starting with
<sam-> -- and in neither of them does it look like a prefix.
The vowels in Baltic su and Slavic sU would be regular from PIE /*u/,
not /*o/. (Short /*o/ > Baltic /a/, Slavic /o/.) At first sight this
suggested to me that they must all come from *ksun, not *k^om or *som.
(<sU> gives later Slavic <so> (etc) when the jer is strong, <s> when
it's weak.) But see Miguel's auslaut explanation, below.
Latin <cum>, with, is regular from either *ko(m) or *k^om.
Sanskrit <sam>, with, is regular from either *k^om or *som.
Sanskrit <kam>, towards, must come from *ko(m)
OCS <kU>, towards, is almost certainly from *ko(m), with vowel change by
auslaut.
*ksun seems to be _necessary_ only to explain Greek <ksun>. Could this
actually be < *ko(m)-som or something?
The only good reason for deriving <cum> (and OIr <com->) from *k^om
rather than *ko(m) is semantic -- the other *ko(m) words all mean
"towards", not "with". Except for this, *k^om wouldn't be needed at
all.
Conclusion: The only roots really required are *som, with, together,
and *kom, towards (also with). We can, if we want to, forget about
*k^om and *ksun.
Of course, I'm sure any IE specialist could fault this conclusion --
probably by producing more data.
>>[...]
I'm not confused any more -- see above -- but I probably should be.
John.
phog...@abo.fi
I told you already: the grammatical structure. I do not know how well
you are acquainted with non-IE languages, but the grammatical
structure of Armenian lacks many of the typical grammatical quirks of
the neighbouring non-IE languages (ergative case, for instance). The
paradigm of the verb "to be" - em, es, e - sounds almost ridiculously
IE.
Christian Weisgerber
> > > > > > This is why I wonder about the exact evidence which demonstrates the
> > > > > > affinity of Armenian to the mainstream IE languages.
>
> I told you already: the grammatical structure.
We are now waiting with baited breath for PTD to jump in and point
out that typological similarity does not prove relatedness.
--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de
Peter T. Daniels
> <phogl...@abo.fi> wrote:
> > > > > > > This is why I wonder about the exact evidence which demonstrates the
> > > > > > > affinity of Armenian to the mainstream IE languages.
>
> > I told you already: the grammatical structure.
>
> We are now waiting with baited breath for PTD to jump in and point
> out that typological similarity does not prove relatedness.
What phoglund actually pointed out was morphological correspondence,
including an example of suppletion, the gold standard of genetic
comparison.
Joachim Pense
I don't find the example of suppletion in PHs post:
| I told you already: the grammatical structure. I do not know how well
| you are acquainted with non-IE languages, but the grammatical
| structure of Armenian lacks many of the typical grammatical quirks of
| the neighbouring non-IE languages (ergative case, for instance). The
| paradigm of the verb "to be" - em, es, e - sounds almost ridiculously
| IE.
Joachim
Trond Engen
> [...]
>
> Latin <cum>, with, is regular from either *ko(m) or *k^om.
>
> Sanskrit <sam>, with, is regular from either *k^om or *som.
>
> Sanskrit <kam>, towards, must come from *ko(m)
>
> OCS <kU>, towards, is almost certainly from *ko(m), with vowel change by
> auslaut.
>
> *ksun seems to be _necessary_ only to explain Greek <ksun>. Could this
> actually be < *ko(m)-som or something?
>
> The only good reason for deriving <cum> (and OIr <com->) from *k^om
> rather than *ko(m) is semantic -- the other *ko(m) words all mean
> "towards", not "with". Except for this, *k^om wouldn't be needed at all.
>
> Conclusion: The only roots really required are *som, with, together,
> and *kom, towards (also with). We can, if we want to, forget about
> *k^om and *ksun.
How does the Germanic prefix */ga-/ fit into this? Is there a relation
between the <co-> and */ga-/ prefixes and what seems to be similar
suffixes <-cus>/<-icus>(/-a/-um) and e.g. Scand. <-ig>/<-ug>? My old
Latin dictionary gives several examples of alternate writing
<-cu->/<-quo-> (IIRC, unfortunately I don't have the book at hand).
Could this be significant in any way?
> I'm not confused any more -- see above -- but I probably should be.
Happy to help.
--
Trond Engen
- providing confusion since 1968
Peter T. Daniels
> Am 13 Mar 2007 14:43:39 -0700 schrieb Peter T. Daniels:
>
> > On Mar 13, 3:59 pm, n...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:
> >> <phogl...@abo.fi> wrote:
> >>> > > > > > This is why I wonder about the exact evidence which demonstrates the
> >>> > > > > > affinity of Armenian to the mainstream IE languages.
>
> >>> I told you already: the grammatical structure.
>
> >> We are now waiting with baited breath for PTD to jump in and point
> >> out that typological similarity does not prove relatedness.
>
> > What phoglund actually pointed out was morphological correspondence,
> > including an example of suppletion, the gold standard of genetic
> > comparison.
>
> I don't find the example of suppletion in PHs post:
He gave a paradigm of 'be'!
(it's still here, directly below)
Brian M. Scott
<tron...@engen.priv.no> wrote in
<news:45f7de51$0$24599$8404...@news.wineasy.se> in
sci.lang:
> John Atkinson skreiv:
>> Latin <cum>, with, is regular from either *ko(m) or *k^om.
>> Sanskrit <sam>, with, is regular from either *k^om or *som.
>> Sanskrit <kam>, towards, must come from *ko(m)
>> OCS <kU>, towards, is almost certainly from *ko(m), with vowel change by
>> auslaut.
>> *ksun seems to be _necessary_ only to explain Greek <ksun>. Could this
>> actually be < *ko(m)-som or something?
>> The only good reason for deriving <cum> (and OIr <com->) from *k^om
>> rather than *ko(m) is semantic -- the other *ko(m) words all mean
>> "towards", not "with". Except for this, *k^om wouldn't be needed at all.
>> Conclusion: The only roots really required are *som, with, together,
>> and *kom, towards (also with). We can, if we want to, forget about
>> *k^om and *ksun.
> How does the Germanic prefix */ga-/ fit into this?
It's generally taken to be from *kom and to belong with
Latin <cum>, Celtic *kom-, etc.
> Is there a relation between the <co-> and */ga-/ prefixes
> and what seems to be similar suffixes
> <-cus>/<-icus>(/-a/-um) and e.g. Scand. <-ig>/<-ug>?
These are from *-(i)ko-, an adjective-forming suffix.
[...]
Brian
Joachim Pense
> On Mar 14, 2:15 am, Joachim Pense <s...@pense-mainz.eu> wrote:
>> Am 13 Mar 2007 14:43:39 -0700 schrieb Peter T. Daniels:
>>
>>> On Mar 13, 3:59 pm, n...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:
>>>> <phogl...@abo.fi> wrote:
>>>>> > > > > > This is why I wonder about the exact evidence which demonstrates the
>>>>> > > > > > affinity of Armenian to the mainstream IE languages.
>>
>>>>> I told you already: the grammatical structure.
>>
>>>> We are now waiting with baited breath for PTD to jump in and point
>>>> out that typological similarity does not prove relatedness.
>>
>>> What phoglund actually pointed out was morphological correspondence,
>>> including an example of suppletion, the gold standard of genetic
>>> comparison.
>>
>> I don't find the example of suppletion in PHs post:
>
> He gave a paradigm of 'be'!
>
yes, "em, es, e", which is free of suppletion (all *H1es), other than
e.g. in German, where "bin, bist, ist" comes from both *bhu and *H1es.
Peter T. Daniels
> >>> What phoglund actually pointed out was morphological correspondence,
> >>> including an example of suppletion, the gold standard of genetic
> >>> comparison.
>
> >> I don't find the example of suppletion in PHs post:
>
> > He gave a paradigm of 'be'!
>
> yes, "em, es, e", which is free of suppletion (all *H1es), other than
> e.g. in German, where "bin, bist, ist" comes from both *bhu and *H1es.
em, es, e isn't directly comparable to sum, es, est?
Trond Engen
> On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 12:31:01 +0100, Trond Engen <tron...@engen.priv.no>
> wrote in <news:45f7de51$0$24599$8404...@news.wineasy.se> in sci.lang:
>
>> John Atkinson skreiv:
>>
>>> [On Slavic and Latin prefixes]
>>>
>>> The only good reason for deriving <cum> (and OIr <com->) from *k^om
>>> rather than *ko(m) is semantic -- the other *ko(m) words all mean
>>> "towards", not "with". Except for this, *k^om wouldn't be needed at
>>> all.
>>>
>>> Conclusion: The only roots really required are *som, with, together,
>>> and *kom, towards (also with). We can, if we want to, forget about
>>> *k^om and *ksun.
>
>> How does the Germanic prefix */ga-/ fit into this?
>
> It's generally taken to be from *kom and to belong with Latin <cum>,
> Celtic *kom-, etc.
I wrote my message too hastily. My point was meant to be that I didn't
get */ga-/ (or <cum>) to fit well with the argument that the other
*ko(m) words all mean "towards", not "with". It's not a big deal,
though. The semantic glide is trivial.
>> Is there a relation between the <co-> and */ga-/ prefixes and what
>> seems to be similar suffixes <-cus>/<-icus>(/-a/-um) and e.g. Scand.
>> <-ig>/<-ug>?
>
> These are from *-(i)ko-, an adjective-forming suffix.
Yes, sorry, I was aware of that. I meant to ask for the origin of the
suffix itself and the possibility of a connection to the prefix */ko-/.
If such a connection exists, I would expect the explanation to shed some
light on the prefix, too.
--
Trond Engen
- explicitly expressive
Nikolaj
> Conclusion: The only roots really required are *som, with, together,
> and *kom, towards (also with). We can, if we want to, forget about
> *k^om and *ksun.
This is interesting. It seems then that these two roots were reduced to
inital consonant only in Slovene... s(z) - with (s hišo, z mizo - with
house, table) and k(h) - towards (k hiši, h kravi - toward the house,
the cow).
Hočete kavo s smetano ali brez? (Do you want your coffee with cream or
without?) Z. ;)
> Sanskrit <sam>, with, is regular from either *k^om or *som.
> Sanskrit <kam>, towards, must come from *ko(m)
Do you know a word in Sanskrit with 'kam' prefix meaning towards? I
can't find any... (words with 'sam' are well known, there are many)
John Atkinson
"E" (actually "e:", with long e) ) is the only non-obvious one, though
it's completely regular: *H1esti > *esti > *eti (non-final s > 0) >
*eyi (t > y before a front vowel -- cf hayir, father) > ei > e:
(diphthongs ei and oi > e:)
Armenian "es" must come from *H1hes-si (with geminate s), apparently an
older version of the late PIE *h1esi which gave rise to "es" in Latin
and its cognates in most other branches.
John.
John Atkinson
> John Atkinson pravi:
>
>> Conclusion: The only roots really required are *som, with, together,
>> and *kom, towards (also with). We can, if we want to, forget about
>> *k^om and *ksun.
>
> This is interesting. It seems then that these two roots were reduced
> to inital consonant only in Slovene... s(z) - with (s hišo, z mizo -
> with house, table) and k(h) - towards (k hiši, h kravi - toward the
> house, the cow).
Yep. Similarly in Russian (and no doubt other Slavic languages), except
when it would result in an unacceptable consonant cluster, when they
become so and ko. Likewise v/vo. Somewhat similar, o/ob/obo and
ot/oto.. But do and po don't shorten.
>
> Hočete kavo s smetano ali brez? (Do you want your coffee with cream or
> without?) Z. ;)
>
> > Sanskrit <sam>, with, is regular from either *k^om or *som.
> > Sanskrit <kam>, towards, must come from *ko(m)
>
> Do you know a word in Sanskrit with 'kam' prefix meaning towards? I
> can't find any... (words with 'sam' are well known, there are many)
I couldn't find any either. I thought, from what my source said, that
it was a separate word in Sanskrit, a preposition or postposition, not a
prefix. But this doesn't seem to be the case either. A little googling
gives me "kam-", desire, fuck, "kam", who, and "kam ", indeed
(particle)" -- none of which sound like they come from a word meaning
"towards".
Could it be that Mallory and Adams have come uip with yet another
non-word?
John.
Nikolaj
>> This is interesting. It seems then that these two roots were reduced
>> to inital consonant only in Slovene... s(z) - with (s hišo, z mizo -
>> with house, table) and k(h) - towards (k hiši, h kravi - toward the
>> house, the cow).
>
> Yep. Similarly in Russian (and no doubt other Slavic languages), except
> when it would result in an unacceptable consonant cluster, when they
> become so and ko.
In Macedinian it is regularly 'so' and in Serbian/Croatian 's' becomes
'sa' before 's'. Slovene on the other hand, as I have shown, uses 'z'
before voiced sounds and pausa and 'h' instead of 'k' before nouns that
start with 'k' or 'g'.
Likewise v/vo. Somewhat similar, o/ob/obo and
> ot/oto.. But do and po don't shorten.
Also no 'vo', 'o' in Slovene. There are 'v', 'ob', 'od'.
>> > Sanskrit <sam>, with, is regular from either *k^om or *som.
>> > Sanskrit <kam>, towards, must come from *ko(m)
>>
>> Do you know a word in Sanskrit with 'kam' prefix meaning towards? I
>> can't find any... (words with 'sam' are well known, there are many)
>
> I couldn't find any either. I thought, from what my source said, that
> it was a separate word in Sanskrit, a preposition or postposition, not a
> prefix. But this doesn't seem to be the case either.
Yes. I have never heard of it in any such role with meaning 'towards'.
> A little googling
> gives me "kam-", desire, fuck, "kam", who, and "kam ", indeed
> (particle)" -- none of which sound like they come from a word meaning
> "towards".
Hm, desire, fuck? Should that be 'kAma'? And it is not usually
translated that way... ;) More apropriate word for 'fuck' would be
'yabhana' (yabhana n. copulation, sexual intercourse) from a verb root
'yabh'. In Slovene it becomes: 'jebanje'.
Joachim Pense
It is. And sum, es, est isn't an example of suppletion either. It's
all *H1es.
sum, fui, there's suppletion (fui again from *bhu)
Joachim
John Atkinson
> John Atkinson pravi:
>> Nikolai:
>
>>> This is interesting. It seems then that these two roots were reduced
>>> to inital consonant only in Slovene... s(z) - with (s hišo, z mizo -
>>> with house, table) and k(h) - towards (k hiši, h kravi - toward the
>>> house, the cow).
>>
>> Yep. Similarly in Russian (and no doubt other Slavic languages),
>> except when it would result in an unacceptable consonant cluster,
>> when they become so and ko.
>
Russian (and no doubt other Slavic languages) pronounce 's' as [z]
before a voiced consonant (before vowels it uses 'so' -- e.g.,
'soobraznyi' and 'souchnik' -- and since it's a clitic, I doubt if it
can ever be followed by a pause -- but I only have a reading knowledge
of the language, so don't take my word for that!) . It's just not shown
in the orthography in Russian, which (unlike Slovene, apparently) mostly
doesn't spell out allophonic alterations in prefixes. (Exception --
prefixes ending in /-z/ -- compare <razvitcja> and <razoruzhat'>, but
<raskajatsja>.)
>> Likewise v/vo. Somewhat similar, o/ob/obo and
>> ot/oto. But do and po don't shorten.
>
> Also no 'vo', 'o' in Slovene. There are 'v', 'ob', 'od'.
> [...]
John.
Darkstar
Sorry to miss all the fun. Been at work lately.
> >. Do you have more examples
>
> gorc < *worgyo- (E work); gitem < weid- (E wit);
But */w/ is neatly reflected as /v/ in most IE languages. Isn't it
strange it's so different in Armenian? The only possible explanation
is to postulate an initial */H/ which was lost in all other branches
which had a different common ancestor. Consequently, */w/ was lost in
Proto-Armenian. And I don't think that Greek <organon> and <oido> fit
the theory of being related to their Armenian cognates or they should
be <horganon>, <hoido>, etc.
> ger < *wer- < *Huper (E over)
Although */H/ initially preserved before front vowels while */w/ was
lost, hence L. <super> and Greek <hyper>.
> > (also in Celtic)?
>
> The transition w- > gw- > g- went only halfway in Celtic:
>
> Welsh gwas < *h2wes (E was/were), gweint < *wen- (E wound), gweled <
> *wel- (see), gwellt < *wel (grass), gwlan <*wlh2neH- (E wool), gwlydd <
> *weld- (E wilt), gwynt < *h2weh1-nt- (E wind)
>
> In Irish gw- > f- (e.g., folt corresponds to gwellt)
>
> > Another similar question. How could /me, mek/ develop from *oynos?
> > What are other cases in any world language of /oy/ --> /m/ transition?
>
> It doesn't come from *oynos.. Like Greek heis (m)/mia (f)/hen (n) and
> Tocharian B se (m)/sana (f), both meaning "one", it comes from *sem-s,
> the other PIE root meaning "one" (or perhaps "together" or something
> like that).
So it's */semei/ --> */hemei/ --> Myc. Greek /eme/. And then again /
heis, mia, hen/, probably because of errors in the Mycenean
transcription. Confusing, but ok.
So it must be one of those unique features relating Greek to Armenian
(which could not be borrowed during the Byzantine era).
Tocharian /sana/ has no /m/, but let's not get bogged down in those
factual minutiae.
> English <same>, Slavic <so>, Sanskrit <sam-> also come from
> *sem-
Slavic <sam>, as well. Also Latin <sim-ilis>, Avestian <hama>, of
course. The <so>-line discussion is actually redundant/irrelevant.
Darkstar
Don't get me wrong. I've never seriously claimed Armenian is not IE.
Rather it was that Armenian might probably be *a very early* branch of
IE like Hittite or Etruscan.
> The paradigm of the verb "to be" - em, es, e - sounds almost ridiculously
> IE.
If so, it's another indication it's *older* than it's known to be.
Darkstar
As to the Indo-Iranian examples. Pahlavi (of Zoroaster) indeed had /
e:vak/. But even going from /v/ to /m/ may be a big deal. How often
does this occur within one family and what are other examples of Indo-
Iranian <v> reflected as Armenian <m>? Armenian does have it's own /v/
as in <vec> '6'.
mb
You still haven't brought a scrap of evidence against all evidence
that Etruscan has anything to do with EI.
> > The paradigm of the verb "to be" - em, es, e - sounds almost ridiculously
> > IE.
>
> If so, it's another indication it's *older* than it's known to be.
Shared by a multitude of other modern languages. Even if it weren't,
how's that supposed to be an "indication of old age"?
mb
Vec is *s-. No relation. As for "going from *v to *m", how is it
supposed to "go", and even if it did, what do you mean by "a big
deal"? All regular correspondences of armenian are there to read
about, so learn the language and forget your making a big deal out of
nothing.
John Atkinson
[...]
>
>> >. Do you have more examples [of *w > g]
>>
>> gorc < *worgyo- (E work); gitem < weid- (E wit);
>
> But */w/ is neatly reflected as /v/ in most IE languages.
It isn't in Germanic, Italic, Celtic, or Greek, for starters.
> Isn't it strange it's so different in Armenian?
Why? It's a pretty common shift. A recent example is the western
Romance languages which have borrowed words starting with /w/ from
Germanic a millenium or so ago, replacing the /w/ with /g/ -- Germ
*werra, warD- > Spanish guerra, guardia, etc.
> The only possible explanation is to postulate an initial */H/
What do you mean by /H/? I've been using this symbol to denote a PIE
laryngal, which, in Armenian as elsewhere, is lost initially, after
changing the vowel. It seems you're using it for something else (?)
> which was lost in all other branches
> which had a different common ancestor. Consequently, */w/ was lost in
> Proto-Armenian. And I don't think that Greek <organon> and <oido> fit
> the theory of being related to their Armenian cognates or they should
> be <horganon>, <hoido>, etc.
Why? Initial /h-/ in Greek usually comes from /*s-/. Thus oida < *wida
< PIE *weid- (cf Arm gitem) and orge:, power <*worg^e: (cf Arm gorc).
(I don't know the Armenian cognate of Gk organon.)
>
>> ger < *wer- < *Huper (Eng over)
>
> Although */H/ initially preserved before front vowels while */w/ was
> lost, hence L. <super> and Greek <hyper>.
No, the laryngal *H here was lost in Greek, Latin, and Armenian. The
Latin and Greek come from *sHuper, with added "s-mobile", a prefix
which is sometimes added to PIE roots, for uncertain reasons (unknown to
me, anyway!) English "over", OIr for, Av upairi, Skt upari all come
from *Huper, without the s-mobile. Since initial /*s-/ is lost early on
in Armenian, it's presumably impossible to tell whether ger comes from
*Huper or sHuper.
>> > (also in Celtic)?
>>
>> The transition w- > gw- > g- went only halfway in Celtic:
>>
>> Welsh gwas < *h2wes (E was/were), gweint < *wen- (E wound), gweled <
>> *wel- (see), gwellt < *wel (grass), gwlan <*wlh2neH- (E wool), gwlydd
>> <
>> *weld- (E wilt), gwynt < *h2weh1-nt- (E wind)
>>
>> In Irish gw- > f- (e.g., folt corresponds to gwellt)
>>
>> > Another similar question. How could /me, mek/ develop from *oynos?
>> > What are other cases in any world language of /oy/ --> /m/
>> > transition?
>>
>> It doesn't come from *oynos.. Like Greek heis (m)/mia (f)/hen (n)
>> and
>> Tocharian B se (m)/sana (f), both meaning "one", it comes from
>> *sem-s,
>> the other PIE root meaning "one" (or perhaps "together" or something
>> like that).
>
> So it's */semei/ --> */hemei/ --> Myc. Greek /eme/. And then again /
> heis, mia, hen/, probably because of errors in the Mycenean
> transcription. Confusing, but ok.
> So it must be one of those unique features relating Greek to Armenian
> (which could not be borrowed during the Byzantine era).
>
> Tocharian /sana/ has no /m/, but let's not get bogged down in those
> factual minutiae.
In Tocharian, "final *-m became -n, as also in Greek and Celtic"
(Fortson p 354). No doubt this has something to do with it. But I know
bugger all about Toch!
[...]
John.
phog...@abo.fi
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote...
>
>
>
> > On Mar 14, 12:32 pm, Joachim Pense <s...@pense-mainz.eu> wrote:
>
> >> >>> What phoglund actually pointed out was morphological
> >> >>> correspondence,
> >> >>> including an example of suppletion, the gold standard of genetic
> >> >>> comparison.
>
> >> >> I don't find the example of suppletion in PHs post:
>
> >> > He gave a paradigm of 'be'!
>
> >> yes, "em, es, e", which is free of suppletion (all *H1es), other than
> >> e.g. in German, where "bin, bist, ist" comes from both *bhu and
> >> *H1es.
>
> > em, es, e isn't directly comparable to sum, es, est?
>
> "E" (actually "e:", with long e) )
The "e" of the third person form is indeed spelt with a letter
different from the first and second person forms, but is that then a
historically long e? (I confess my Armenian is still rather limited,
and I don't know anything about Armenian historical linguistics. Peter
is welcome to give references to articles found in JSTOR.)
John Atkinson
<phog...@abo.fi> wrote in message
news:1174043131.3...@p15g2000hsd.googlegroups.com...
Classical Armenian (which is what I was quoting), "distinguishes seven
vowels: /a/, /I/, /ə/ (schwa), /E/ (open e), /e/ (closed e), /o/, and
/u/ (transcribed as a, i, ə, e, ē (e with a macron), o, and ow
respectively)".
CA doesn't seem to actually have a length distinction in vowels, so it
appears I was wrong to call <ē> (e-with-a-macron) "long" and to write it
as "e:". However, as I said, it < *ei (and also < *oi), and is
phonemically different from <e>, which comes from PIE short e. So my
derivation remains unchanged.
PIE long e > CA <i> -- but this vowel isn't involved in "be", of course.
The vowels of modern Armenian are somewhat different. I know there's
eight of them, but I don't know their relationship to the vowels of the
classical language, or how they're transcribed.
John.
Yusuf B Gursey
> mb wrote:
> > "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote:
> > > > > It might have branched off earlier from other IE languages, more or
> > > > > less like Etruscan. But maybe I'm wrong, and there are better
> > > > > reconstructions -- I don't know yet. Just thinkin'.
>
> > You'll have it all uphill to try and push an IE origin on Etruscan
> > anyway.
>
> > ...
> > > These laws seem to be not applicable in this particular case, except w
> > > > g. Do you have more examples (also in Celtic)?
>
> > You got to work on more than one word, really.
>
> > > Another similar question. How could /me, mek/ develop from *oynos?
> > > What are other cases in any world language of /oy/ --> /m/ transition?
>
> > to yek / ek.
>
> As to the Indo-Iranian examples. Pahlavi (of Zoroaster) indeed had /
Pahlavi is no thte language of Zoroastrian scripture.
> e:vak/. But even going from /v/ to /m/ may be a big deal. How often
> does this occur within one family and what are other examples of Indo-
> Iranian <v> reflected as Armenian <m>? Armenian does have it's own /v/
> as in <vec> '6'.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Mar 15, 8:03 pm, "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > mb wrote:
> > > "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote:
> > > > > > It might have branched off earlier from other IE languages, more or
> > > > > > less like Etruscan. But maybe I'm wrong, and there are better
> > > > > > reconstructions -- I don't know yet. Just thinkin'.
>
> > > You'll have it all uphill to try and push an IE origin on Etruscan
> > > anyway.
>
> > > ...
> > > > These laws seem to be not applicable in this particular case, except w
> > > > > g. Do you have more examples (also in Celtic)?
>
> > > You got to work on more than one word, really.
>
> > > > Another similar question. How could /me, mek/ develop from *oynos?
> > > > What are other cases in any world language of /oy/ --> /m/ transition?
>
> > > In the case of mek, look at the massive (Indo-)Persianinfluence and
> > > to yek / ek.
>
> > As to the Indo-Iranian examples. Pahlavi (of Zoroaster) indeed had /
>
> Pahlavi is no thte language of Zoroastrian scripture.
>
you probably meant "Avestan"
Darkstar
> "Darkstar" <darks...@front.ru> wrote...
> > John Atkinson wrote:
> >> "Darkstar" <darks...@front.ru> wrote
> [...]
> >
> >> >. Do you have more examples [of *w > g]
> >>
> >> gorc < *worgyo- (E work); gitem < weid- (E wit);
> >
> > But */w/ is neatly reflected as /v/ in most IE languages.
>
> It isn't in Germanic, Italic, Celtic, or Greek, for starters.
See corrections below.
> > Isn't it strange it's so different in Armenian?
>
> Why? It's a pretty common shift. A recent example is the western
> Romance languages which have borrowed words starting with /w/ from
> Germanic a millenium or so ago, replacing the /w/ with /g/ -- Germ
> *werra, warD- > Spanish guerra, guardia, etc.
I think going from a bilabial phoneme to a dorsal g/k is going a
little too far. Besides, originally it probably was <gUerra>/
<gUardia> as reflected in writing. I would also assume the initial /
g-/ indicates it was borrowed from Celtiberian, not Germanic (?). I
can't recall any other evidence showing a direct transition w > g,
especially in the Anlaut.
> > The only possible explanation is to postulate an initial */H/
>
> What do you mean by /H/? I've been using this symbol to denote a PIE
> laryngal, which, in Armenian as elsewhere, is lost initially, after
> changing the vowel. It seems you're using it for something else (?)
Okay, you're right. I probably mean an aspirated */h/ or */x/,
although a laryngal-aspirated sound or some other back consonant is
also possible here.
> > which was lost in all other branches
> > which had a different common ancestor. Consequently, */w/ was lost in
> > Proto-Armenian. And I don't think that Greek <organon> and <oido> fit
> > the theory of being related to their Armenian cognates or they should
> > be <horganon>, <hoido>, etc.
>
> Why? Initial /h-/ in Greek usually comes from /*s-/. Thus oida < *wida
> < PIE *weid- (cf Arm gitem) and orge:, power <*worg^e: (cf Arm gorc).
I mean they should prbly be <kworganon>, <kwoido> or <korganon>,
<koido>, see below. Here, you're keeping to the point that g < w,
while I believe this is hardly possible in the Anlaut: g < *h, that
is.
> (I don't know the Armenian cognate of Gk organon.)
ASFAIK, <organon> = engine (from 'work')
> >
> >> ger < *wer- < *Huper (Eng over)
> >
> > Although */H/ initially preserved before front vowels while */w/ was
> > lost, hence L. <super> and Greek <hyper>.
>
> No, the laryngal *H here was lost in Greek, Latin, and Armenian. The
> Latin and Greek come from *sHuper, with added "s-mobile", a prefix
> which is sometimes added to PIE roots, for uncertain reasons (unknown to
> me, anyway!) English "over", OIr for, Av upairi, Skt upari all come
> from *Huper, without the s-mobile. Since initial /*s-/ is lost early on
> in Armenian, it's presumably impossible to tell whether ger comes from
> *Huper or sHuper.
Okay, but there are no contradictions with what I say.
I will summerize what I'm trying to say below.
The point of this thread is to see/show whether Armenian is different
from the mainstream IE languages, or whether the latter share any
innovations.
So far, we have:
1) E. <work>, Gr. <orga->, L.<opera>, probably also Russ. <vershit'>,
etc, but Armenian <gorts>
2) Faroese <vita>, Sl. <vedat'>, Sanskrit <vedas>, Gr. <eidos, Feidos>
''I saw', 'shape', L. <videre> 'to see', except Welsh <gwybod> 'know',
<gweled> 'see' where /gw/ is preserved, but Armenian <giter> 'I know'.
3) G.<wetter> 'weather', Sl.. <veter>, Lith. <vejas>, L.<ventus>,
'wind', Hindi <vayu>, Alb. <ere>, except Welsh <gwynt>, but Armenian
<holm, kami> 'wind'
Here we observe Armenian behaving differently from the rest by
possibly preserving the initial */h/ from /*hw/, which could have been
an aspirated (or partly laryngal?) consonant, reflected as /k-/,/g-/, /
h-/ in Armenian and as /g-/ in Celtic. Here I assume that /w/ cannot
transform into /g/ directly, at least not in the beginning of the
word.
Therefore,
*<hw-> or *<Hw-> -- > <w> in most IE languages
-- > <gw-> in early Celtic
-- > <kh->, <g-> or <k-> in Armenian
Although one might immediatly object that this is not a pure
innovation, just a loss or rise in strength of an aspirated /h/. But
judging the amount of the mainstream IE languages, it would be
unlikely the loss was so regular in so many dialects, therefore we
might assume there was a common ancestor which did not include
Armenian.
The reason why it's important to set Armenian apart is the following.
IMO, the initial /d/ in *<duwo> or /tr/ in *<treyes> have no direct
connection to <erku>-<erek>, because the direct reconstruction is far
too complex phonologically. A simple one would be:
In Armenian:
*<THeTHhaus> -->*<eTHhau> --> *<erhu> --> <erku>
*<THerese> --> *<THereh> --> <erekh>
But in most PIE dialects:
*<THeTHhaus> --> *<THaus>--> *<daus> or *<duos> or *<duus>
*<THerese> --> *<THerein>--> *<THreis> -->* <treis> or *<treyes>,
Here, /TH/ may denote an interdental or alveolar sibilant.
It's time to ask why do I keep sticking to these TH-proto-forms.
Because, they have direct parallels in Afro-Asiatic! Cf. Akkadian
<shena>, <shalash>, Arabic <thinayn>, <thilathah>, Coptic <shesnawna>,
<shomenti> and many others. These parallels show how the early Indo-
European numerals could have formed.
This little digression into non-IE languages explains what this issue
with the Armenian numerals was all about.
But actually, I wouldn't like to deviate that far right now. I still
wonder if it is possible to show *within* the IE languages that
Armenian is an early branch of PIE.
[...]
John Atkinson
"Darkstar" <darks...@front.ru> wrote...
> John Atkinson wrote:
>> "Darkstar" <darks...@front.ru> wrote...
>> > John Atkinson wrote:
>> >> "Darkstar" <darks...@front.ru> wrote
>> [...]
>> >
>> >> >. Do you have more examples [of *w > g]
>> >>
>> >> gorc < *worgyo- (E work); gitem < weid- (E wit);
>> >
>> > But */w/ is neatly reflected as /v/ in most IE languages.
>>
>> It isn't in Germanic, Italic, Celtic, or Greek, for starters.
>
> See corrections below.
>
>> > Isn't it strange it's so different in Armenian?
>>
>> Why? It's a pretty common shift. A recent example is the western
>> Romance languages which have borrowed words starting with /w/ from
>> Germanic a millenium or so ago, replacing the /w/ with /g/ -- Germ
>> *werra, warD- > Spanish guerra, guardia, etc.
>
> I think going from a bilabial phoneme to a dorsal g/k is going a
> little too far. Besides, originally it probably was <gUerra>/
> <gUardia> as reflected in writing.
I agree. It was w > gw > g. (In Spanish, though not French, the "w" is
still pronounced before a -- as in guardia. And quite likely the same
thing happened in Armenian -- some people claim it did; it's certainly
plausible, though, AFAIK, there is no actual evidence one way or
another, since gw, if it existed, became g well before Armenian was
first written down.
> I would also assume the initial /
> g-/ indicates it was borrowed from Celtiberian, not Germanic (?).
No. These words (which often have to do with military vocabulary) are
widespread in Western Romance, and were probably diffused via Latin
before the main period of Germanic invasions, as a result of Roman
contact with German "confederates". -- but it has to have occurred after
original Latin /w/ > /v/, of course!
I
> can't recall any other evidence showing a direct transition w > g,
> especially in the Anlaut.
>
>> > The only possible explanation is to postulate an initial */H/
>>
>> What do you mean by /H/? I've been using this symbol to denote a PIE
>> laryngal, which, in Armenian as elsewhere, is lost initially, after
>> changing the vowel. It seems you're using it for something else (?)
>
> Okay, you're right. I probably mean an aspirated */h/ or */x/,
> although a laryngal-aspirated sound or some other back consonant is
> also possible here.
The actual pronunciation of the three or four PIE "laryngals" is
unknown; in particular, it may not have involved the larynx. So we're
not in conflict there -- only about whether /H/ actually occured in the
particular words under consideration, and, if it did, whether it was
still there after proto-Armenian separated from proto-Greek, etc.
>> > which was lost in all other branches
>> > which had a different common ancestor. Consequently, */w/ was lost
>> > in
>> > Proto-Armenian. And I don't think that Greek <organon> and <oido>
>> > fit
>> > the theory of being related to their Armenian cognates or they
>> > should
>> > be <horganon>, <hoido>, etc.
>>
>> Why? Initial /h-/ in Greek usually comes from /*s-/. Thus oida <
>> *wida
>> < PIE *weid- (cf Arm gitem) and orge:, power <*worg^e: (cf Arm gorc).
>
> I mean they should prbly be <kworganon>, <kwoido> or <korganon>,
> <koido>, see below. Here, you're keeping to the point that g < w,
> while I believe this is hardly possible in the Anlaut: g < *h, that
> is.
Why is g < *h any more plausible than g < *gw < *w?
>> (I don't know the Armenian cognate of Gk organon.)
> ASFAIK, <organon> = engine (from 'work')
Of course, I knew that -- what I don't know is the _Armenian_ cognate of
Greek <organon>, which you claimed exists. It may well exist, but I
don't know it, which is why I replaced your example with <orge:>, which
does have a clear cognate.
>> >> ger < *wer- < *Huper (Eng over)
>> >
>> > Although */H/ initially preserved before front vowels while */w/
>> > was
>> > lost, hence L. <super> and Greek <hyper>.
>>
>> No, the laryngal *H here was lost in Greek, Latin, and Armenian. The
>> Latin and Greek come from *sHuper, with added "s-mobile", a prefix
>> which is sometimes added to PIE roots, for uncertain reasons (unknown
>> to
>> me, anyway!) English "over", OIr for, Av upairi, Skt upari all come
>> from *Huper, without the s-mobile. Since initial /*s-/ is lost early
>> on
>> in Armenian, it's presumably impossible to tell whether ger comes
>> from
>> *Huper or *sHuper.
>
> Okay, but there are no contradictions with what I say.
??
> I will summerize what I'm trying to say below.
>
> The point of this thread is to see/show whether Armenian is different
> from the mainstream IE languages, or whether the latter share any
> innovations.
>
> So far, we have:
> 1) E. <work>, Gr. <orga->, L.<opera>, probably also Russ. <vershit'>,
> etc, but Armenian <gorts>
> 2) Faroese <vita>, Sl. <vedat'>, Sanskrit <vedas>, Gr. <eidos, Feidos>
> ''I saw', 'shape', L. <videre> 'to see', except Welsh <gwybod> 'know',
> <gweled> 'see' where /gw/ is preserved,
You say "preserved"; this is your _assumption_; others reckon *w > gw
> but Armenian <giter> 'I know'.
> 3) G.<wetter> 'weather', Sl.. <veter>, Lith. <vejas>, L.<ventus>,
> 'wind', Hindi <vayu>, Alb. <ere>, except Welsh <gwynt>, but Armenian
> <holm, kami> 'wind'
Are <holm> and <kami> cognate with all the rest? The others all come
from <*we:-(nt)->, blow.
According to M&A, <holm> comes from *Henh1mos, breath, which also gives
Latin animus, Greek anemos. Seems to me /nm/ > /lm/ is very plausible
(cf Latin <anima> > Spanish <alma>, etc. I admit that this doesn't
explain where the initial <h> in Armenian <holm> comes from!
I don't know <kami>. If it's IE, it would presumably have come from
*gwem-, come, which seems implausible semantically -- also none of the
references I have derive <kami> from *gwem- -- M&A claims *gwem- has no
cognate in Armenian. My guess is that <kami> comes from a non-IE
language.
In any case, as you said yourself with respect to mi/mek, there's no way
Armenian could have <m> in a word cognate with all those other words you
listed in (3) above. This applies to both <holm> and <kami>.
> Here we observe Armenian behaving differently from the rest by
> possibly preserving the initial */h/ from /*hw/, which could have been
> an aspirated (or partly laryngal?) consonant, reflected as /k-/,/g-/,
> /
> h-/ in Armenian
If so, there'd have to be a conditioning factor to determine which of
the three it ended up as. What is that factor?
> and as /g-/ in Celtic. Here I assume that /w/ cannot
> transform into /g/ directly, at least not in the beginning of the
> word.
>
> Therefore,
> *<hw-> or *<Hw-> -- > <w> in most IE languages
> -- > <gw-> in early Celtic
> -- > <kh->, <g-> or <k-> in Armenian
>
> Although one might immediatly object that this is not a pure
> innovation, just a loss or rise in strength of an aspirated /h/. But
> judging the amount of the mainstream IE languages, it would be
> unlikely the loss was so regular in so many dialects, therefore we
> might assume there was a common ancestor which did not include
> Armenian.
>
> The reason why it's important to set Armenian apart is the following.
>
> IMO, the initial /d/ in *<duwo> or /tr/ in *<treyes> have no direct
> connection to <erku>-<erek>
Armenian for "three" is <erek`>, not <erek>. Here <k`> denotes the
aspirated velar stop, which replaced <s> as a plural suffix, as I
pointed out before. This apparently isn't a sound change, it's a
substitution. Reason: /s/ > /k`> doesn't seem to occur anywhere except
in the plural suffix -- elsewhere, /s/ > /0/ (mostly), or remains
unchanged (especialy after n).
Armenian clearly distinguishes aspirated and unaspirated voiceless
stops, and has done so as far back as the written evidence goes. Please
don't use the same symbol for different phonemes, it confuses everyone.
> , because the direct reconstruction is far
> too complex phonologically. A simple one would be:
>
> In Armenian:
> *<THeTHhaus> -->*<eTHhau> --> *<erhu> --> <erku>
> *<THerese> --> *<THereh> --> <erekh>
This time at least you show the aspiration!
Maybe you think this is pedantic, but please don't use <..> for
postulated _sounds_. <...> denoted orthography, a transliteration of
the _written_ language. For all those starred bits, you should use
either /.../ (if they're meant to be phonemes), or [...] if they're
supposed to be actual (postulated) sounds. (Or ".." if you want to be
intentionally vague :-)
> But in most PIE dialects:
> *<THeTHhaus> --> *<THaus>--> *<daus> or *<duos> or *<duus>
> *<THerese> --> *<THerein>--> *<THreis> -->* <treis> or *<treyes>,
>
> Here, /TH/ may denote an interdental or alveolar sibilant.
>
> It's time to ask why do I keep sticking to these TH-proto-forms.
> Because, they have direct parallels in Afro-Asiatic! Cf. Akkadian
> <shena>, <shalash>, Arabic <thinayn>, <thilathah>, Coptic <shesnawna>,
> <shomenti> and many others. These parallels show how the early Indo-
> European numerals could have formed.
You're claiming PIE numbers were borrowed from AA? It's rare for a
language to borrow numbers -- though certainly not unknown -- but are
you really proposing that PIE and PAA were intimate neighbours, so that
this sort of borrowing could take place? The most likely location of
PIE is north of the Black Sea, and the most likely location of PAA is
south of the Mediterranian, somewhere in Africa.
> This little digression into non-IE languages explains what this issue
> with the Armenian numerals was all about.
>
> But actually, I wouldn't like to deviate that far right now. I still
> wonder if it is possible to show *within* the IE languages that
> Armenian is an early branch of PIE.
By "early" do you mean that it split off _before_ the Anatolean branch?
(V unlikely!!) Or merely that the proposed relationship with Greek
after the other branches split off doesn't hold?
John.
phog...@abo.fi
I see. I have no idea of Classical Armenian - my Armenian is entirely
Modern Eastern, and all the textbooks I have had access to are
irritatingly defective in indicating pronunciation.
Darkstar
You're right. My initial comment merely meant that both Avestan and
later Pahlavi were widely used near the Caspian sea as languages of
religious and semi-religious commentaries.
"The use of Pahlavi gained popularity following its adoption as the
language/script of the commentaries (Zend) on the Avesta.[8][4]
Propagated by the priesthood, who were not only considered to be
transmitters of all knowledge but were also instrumental in
government, the use of Pahlavi eventually reached all corners of the
Parthian Arsacid empire." (Wikipedia)
Indeed the borrowing of /mek/ from /e:vak/ seems possible, especially
if we explain the v > m transition. But note that Classical Armenian
seems to have <mi>, which is more distnict.
John Atkinson
> Yusuf B Gursey wrote:
>> "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote:
>> > mb wrote:
>> > > "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote:
>> >
>> > > > Another similar question. How could /me, mek/ develop from
>> > > > *oynos?
>> > > > What are other cases in any world language of /oy/ --> /m/
>> > > > transition?
>> >
>> > > In the case of mek, look at the massive (Indo-)Persianinfluence
>> > > and
>> > > to yek / ek.
>> >
>> > As to the Indo-Iranian examples. Pahlavi (of Zoroaster) indeed had
>> > /
>>
>> Pahlavi is no thte language of Zoroastrian scripture.
>>
>> > e:vak/. But even going from /v/ to /m/ may be a big deal. How often
>> > does this occur within one family and what are other examples of
>> > Indo-
>> > as in <vec> '6'
>
> later Pahlavi were widely used near the Caspian sea as languages of
> religious and semi-religious commentaries.
> Indeed the borrowing of /mek/ from /e:vak/ seems possible, especially
> if we explain the v > m transition. But note that Classical Armenian
> seems to have <mi>, which is more distnict.
My guess (and it's only a guess) is that /mek/ comes from a combination
of Classical <mi> and something similar to your "e:vak", or Indic "eka",
borrowed from some II language as you say. Maybe, at some stage people
started saying "one-one" instead of simply "one".
So there's no need to consider "going from /v/ to /m/", which would
indeed be "a big deal", and quite unlike anything else I've heard of in
Armenian.
I suspect that something like this was what mb was getting at too.
John.
Darkstar
If PIE had a distinctly enunciated *gw or *gv, it would be found in
the other IE languages. The initial *h in *hw was light, so it easily
disappeared in most groups but got stronger in Celtic and Armenian.
The transition *gw < *w in the Anlaut is unlikely because it's hardly
attested in the world phonology, therefore it could have been *hw
right from the start.
> >> (I don't know the Armenian cognate of Gk organon.)
>
> > ASFAIK, <organon> = engine (from 'work')
>
> Of course, I knew that -- what I don't know is the _Armenian_ cognate of
> Greek <organon>, which you claimed exists. It may well exist, but I
> don't know it, which is why I replaced your example with <orge:>, which
> does have a clear cognate.
Okay. Greek is not my strong point.
Japanese "kamikaze" :-) Seriously, with Armenian it's very hard to
tell, because its phonology is very different from the rest. <Kami>
indeed might be from another stock.
> In any case, as you said yourself with respect to mi/mek, there's no way
> Armenian could have <m> in a word cognate with all those other words you
> listed in (3) above. This applies to both <holm> and <kami>.
I disagree here. There's a huge difference between a /ma-/ in the
Anlaut which can be *extremely stable* (cf. for example, the
preservation of the initial /m/ in many Eurasian languages denoting /
water/. From Japenese <mizu> and Middle Korean <mIrh> 'water' to IE
<mare> to Arabic <ma'a>) and a relatively natural, progressive
assimilation in the Auslaut */hwent/ --> */holt/ --> */holn/--> Old
Armenian <holm> --> Modern <hov>. The transition to /m/ is influenced
by the bilabial /o/ which is from the bilabial */w/. Hence, the
existence of the original */w/ is supported by the presence of */o/.
As a result, the process seem quite smooth and natural.
> > Here we observe Armenian behaving differently from the rest by
> > possibly preserving the initial */h/ from /*hw/, which could have been
> > an aspirated (or partly laryngal?) consonant, reflected as /k-/,/g-/,
> > /
> > h-/ in Armenian
>
> If so, there'd have to be a conditioning factor to determine which of
> the three it ended up as. What is that factor?
There can be several different factors at work. Right from the top of
my head,
*/hwe/, /hwo/ -> */gi/, */go/ is regular, but /ho/ may be partly
onomatopoetic. Cf. the many languages with the initial /f/, /h/, /b/, /
v/, /u/ in <blow>, <wind>, etc., like Japanese <fubuki> 'storm',
Korean <param> 'wind', Hindi <heva>, Persian <bad> 'wind', Lithuanian
<pusti> 'to blow', Greek <fuso>, Czech <fukati> etc. In fact, words
denoting 'wind' with an initial /g/ are not so easy to find. But again
the Japanese "kaze".
> > and as /g-/ in Celtic. Here I assume that /w/ cannot
> > transform into /g/ directly, at least not in the beginning of the
> > word.
> >
> > Therefore,
> > *<hw-> or *<Hw-> -- > <w> in most IE languages
> > -- > <gw-> in early Celtic
> > -- > <kh->, <g-> or <k-> in Armenian
> >
> > Although one might immediatly object that this is not a pure
> > innovation, just a loss or rise in strength of an aspirated /h/. But
> > judging the amount of the mainstream IE languages, it would be
> > unlikely the loss was so regular in so many dialects, therefore we
> > might assume there was a common ancestor which did not include
> > Armenian.
> >
> > The reason why it's important to set Armenian apart is the following.
> >
> > IMO, the initial /d/ in *<duwo> or /tr/ in *<treyes> have no direct
> > connection to <erku>-<erek>
>
> Armenian for "three" is <erek`>, not <erek>. Here <k`> denotes the
> aspirated velar stop, which replaced <s> as a plural suffix, as I
> pointed out before. This apparently isn't a sound change, it's a
> substitution. Reason: /s/ > /k`> doesn't seem to occur anywhere except
> in the plural suffix -- elsewhere, /s/ > /0/ (mostly), or remains
> unchanged (especialy after n).
Okay. It's probably should be denoted as /x/ to avoid confusion (?).
The outcome of this paragraph is that /kh/ doesn't come from the /s/
of */treyes/. More reason to believe these words are not directly
cognate.
> Armenian clearly distinguishes aspirated and unaspirated voiceless
> stops, and has done so as far back as the written evidence goes. Please
> don't use the same symbol for different phonemes, it confuses everyone.
Point taken.
> > , because the direct reconstruction is far
> > too complex phonologically. A simple one would be:
> >
> > In Armenian:
> > *<THeTHhaus> -->*<eTHhau> --> *<erhu> --> <erku>
> > *<THerese> --> *<THereh> --> <erekh>
>
> This time at least you show the aspiration!
>
> Maybe you think this is pedantic, but please don't use <..> for
> postulated _sounds_. <...> denoted orthography, a transliteration of
> the _written_ language.
Right again. Was in a hurry.
> For all those starred bits, you should use
> either /.../ (if they're meant to be phonemes), or [...] if they're
> supposed to be actual (postulated) sounds. (Or ".." if you want to be
> intentionally vague :-)
This is what's always confused me. The IPA has [...] for phonemes.
Why /.../ for phonemes, then? What do you mean by 'actual' sounds?
Aren't phonemes actual? Is there a formally accepted standard?
> > But in most PIE dialects:
> > *<THeTHhaus> --> *<THaus>--> *<daus> or *<duos> or *<duus>
> > *<THerese> --> *<THerein>--> *<THreis> -->* <treis> or *<treyes>,
> >
> > Here, /TH/ may denote an interdental or alveolar sibilant.
> >
> > It's time to ask why do I keep sticking to these TH-proto-forms.
> > Because, they have direct parallels in Afro-Asiatic! Cf. Akkadian
> > <shena>, <shalash>, Arabic <thinayn>, <thilathah>, Coptic <shesnawna>,
> > <shomenti> and many others. These parallels show how the early Indo-
> > European numerals could have formed.
>
> You're claiming PIE numbers were borrowed from AA?
No, actually, I'm making vague allusions and further implications to
the Nostratic theory, which is not fully accepted in the west but is
relatively popular in Russia (Illych-Svitych, Starostin, etc).
Initially, my point was to study the Nostratic stuff. Then I noticed
something relevant and very unusual in the Armenian numerals, this is
how I got to asking these questions about Armenian.
> It's rare for a
> language to borrow numbers -- though certainly not unknown --
Absolutely. That's why they're possibly cognate. These are the very
same words, most likely.
> but are
> you really proposing that PIE and PAA were intimate neighbours, so that
> this sort of borrowing could take place?
Not borrowing, possibly cognation. I don't want to go into details
before we finnished discussing Armenian, though.
> The most likely location of
> PIE is north of the Black Sea, and the most likely location of PAA is
> south of the Mediterranian, somewhere in Africa.
Very good point. I believe we could talk about all the complex
geographical issues in a new thread.
> > This little digression into non-IE languages explains what this issue
> > with the Armenian numerals was all about.
> >
> > But actually, I wouldn't like to deviate that far right now. I still
> > wonder if it is possible to show *within* the IE languages that
> > Armenian is an early branch of PIE.
>
> By "early" do you mean that it split off _before_ the Anatolean branch?
> (V unlikely!!)
I'm not sure yet, because Anatolian, Tocharian, Mycenean Greek, and
apparently Etruscan, and other early branches are poorly attested and
reconstructed. Possibly yes, or it could be occuring at roughly the
same time. Further research is required.
> Or merely that the proposed relationship with Greek
> after the other branches split off doesn't hold?
> John.
In fact, Mycenean Greek and other Hellenic languages are also quite
different and emerged early on. This could partly explain the
presumable Hellenic-Armenian relationship. Cf. the difficulties with /
hei:s/ and Myc. Greek <eme>, for example.
mb
> my Armenian is entirely
> Modern Eastern, and all the textbooks I have had access to are
> irritatingly defective in indicating pronunciation.
No need. Reading rules are either regular, or with the few exceptions
listed.
Quadibloc
> What's that stuff about comparing Armenian to the Hellenic group? Are
> there any other theories concerning its origin?
I thought it was well known that Armenian was a close relative of
Farsi, the language of Iran, but I see in this thread that a paper
overthrew this, finding the relationship was apparent and due to
borrowings.
John Savard
Quadibloc
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > I leave it as an exercise for the reader to discover why Zeitschrift
> > fuer verglaeichende Sprachforschung is abbreviated "KZ."
>
> That's a hell of an excersise! Thank you very much! :-) :-)
My guess would be:
1) At one time in the past, Germany was a kingdom instead of a
republic.
2) Many scientific journals have been in continuous publication for a
long time.
3) Hence, the K might stand for Konig- something, removed from the
title decades ago, but kept in the abbreviation for consistency with
old references.
John Savard
Joachim Pense
> Darkstar wrote:
>> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> .
>>> I leave it as an exercise for the reader to discover why Zeitschrift
>>> fuer verglaeichende Sprachforschung is abbreviated "KZ."
>>
Could it be something like "Komparatistische Zeitschrift"?
Joachim
Aidan Kehoe
Ar an seachtú lá déag de mí Márta, scríobh Joachim Pense:
Spoiler: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historische_Sprachforschung (what a
terrible article name, by the way, and ok, the Deppenapostroph doesn’t
really help Wikipedia’s image.)
--
On the quay of the little Black Sea port, where the rescued pair came once
more into contact with civilization, Dobrinton was bitten by a dog which was
assumed to be mad, though it may only have been indiscriminating. (Saki)
John Atkinson
"Darkstar" <darks...@front.ru> wrote ...
I disagree that it's "hardly attested".
> therefore it could have been *hw
> right from the start.
>
[...]
But, it's not unique in this. In Armenian, h's are not infrequently
added to vowel-initial words, leading to doublets like <ogi>, breath, vs
<hogi>, spirit. Do you know whether there's a word <olm>?
>> I don't know <kami>. If it's IE, it would presumably have come from
>> *gwem-, come, which seems implausible semantically -- also none of
>> the
>> references I have derive <kami> from *gwem- -- M&A claims *gwem- has
>> no
>> cognate in Armenian. My guess is that <kami> comes from a non-IE
>> language.
>
> Japanese "kamikaze" :-) Seriously, with Armenian it's very hard to
> tell, because its phonology is very different from the rest.
But the sound change rules, PIE > Armenian, are pretty well defined, and
exceptions are rare, no more common than in other branches of IE. The
fact that the final results are "very different" is immaterial.
*hw or *wh could > k` (cf *sweso:r-, sister > *hweur- > <k`oyr>), but
not k.
*w does > k in the cluster *k^w -- *k^wo:n-t-, dog, > *swund- >
skownd> -- as mentioned before. But I can't see how this could apply
to <kami>.
> <Kami> indeed might be from another stock.
>
>> In any case, as you said yourself with respect to mi/mek, there's no
>> way
>> Armenian could have <m> in a word cognate with all those other words
>> you
>> listed in (3) above. This applies to both <holm> and <kami>.
>
> I disagree here. [...] a relatively natural, progressive
> assimilation in the Auslaut */hwent/ --> */holt/ --> */holn/--> Old
> Armenian <holm> --> Modern <hov>. The transition to /m/ is influenced
> by the bilabial /o/ which is from the bilabial */w/. Hence, the
> existence of the original */w/ is supported by the presence of */o/.
> As a result, the process seem quite smooth and natural.
Doesn't "seem" natural to me. /we/ > /o/ is not unusual, but I don't
think it happens in Armenian -- I know of no examples. What's more,
"the transition to /m/ is influenced
by the bilabial /o/" is obviously wrong, since /o/ isn't bilabial!
What, then, would you do with <p`> and <t`>? Anyway, "x" in IPA (and
Russian!) denotes the voiceless velar fricative, not the voiceless
aspirated velar stop. So to transcribe <k`> as "x" would be much more
confusing!
> The outcome of this paragraph is that /kh/ doesn't come from the /s/
> of */treyes/. More reason to believe these words are not directly
> cognate.
I've just pointed out that "k`" regularly substitutes for "*s" in
plurals. <otk`>, feet, cf Greek <podes>; (-mk`>, 1st person plural
ending, cf Latin <-mus>, etc etc etc.
Whether or not the ending -k` is cognate with *-s (and, as I said, it
quite likely isn't), has nothing to do with whether <ere-> is cognate
with */treye->
>> Armenian clearly distinguishes aspirated and unaspirated voiceless
>> stops, and has done so as far back as the written evidence goes.
>> Please
>> don't use the same symbol for different phonemes, it confuses
>> everyone.
>
> Point taken.
>
>> > , because the direct reconstruction is far
>> > too complex phonologically. A simple one would be:
>> >
>> > In Armenian:
>> > *<THeTHhaus> -->*<eTHhau> --> *<erhu> --> <erku>
>> > *<THerese> --> *<THereh> --> <erekh>
>>
>> This time at least you show the aspiration!
>>
>> Maybe you think this is pedantic, but please don't use <..> for
>> postulated _sounds_. <...> denoted orthography, a transliteration of
>> the _written_ language.
>
> Right again. Was in a hurry.
>
>> For all those starred bits, you should use
>> either /.../ (if they're meant to be phonemes), or [...] if they're
>> supposed to be actual (postulated) sounds. (Or ".." if you want to
>> be
>> intentionally vague :-)
>
> This is what's always confused me. The IPA has [...] for phonemes.
No it doesn't. IPA is a _phonetic_ alphabet, not a _phonemic_ alphabet.
It has nothing to do with phonemes. Though people wanting to discuss
the phonemes of particular languages do find it convenient to "borrow"
IPA symbols to denote them.
> Why /.../ for phonemes, then? What do you mean by 'actual' sounds?
Phones. What comes out of your mouth, as measured instrumentally.
> Aren't phonemes actual?
That's a controversial question. For those that claim they are (or
those, like me, who don't care much, but find the concept useful),
phonemes are what the hearer, a native speaker of the same language,
thinks he hears. One phoneme can corresponds to several different
"actual sounds" (allophones).
> Is there a formally accepted standard?
For particular languages, yes, usually. But a phonemic analysis is
unique to a particular language (or even a particular dialect of a
language), so a "formally accepted standard" that would apply to all
languages is an absurd concept.
I don't want to get involved in yet another discussion of the phoneme
concept -- it's been done to death here before, and others here are much
better qualified than me to deal with it. I advise you to read any
basic linguistics text (or Wikipedia, whose article on the subject is
quite good, IMO).
[...]
John.
Joachim Pense
> Ar an seachtú lá déag de mí Márta, scríobh Joachim Pense:
>
> > Am 17 Mar 2007 13:15:40 -0700 schrieb Quadibloc:
> >
> > > Darkstar wrote:
> > >> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > > .
> > >>> I leave it as an exercise for the reader to discover why Zeitschrift
> > >>> fuer verglaeichende Sprachforschung is abbreviated "KZ."
> > >>
> >
> > Could it be something like "Komparatistische Zeitschrift"?
>
> Spoiler: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historische_Sprachforschung (what a
> terrible article name, by the way, and ok, the Deppenapostroph doesn’t
> really help Wikipedia’s image.)
Ah, like the Crelle Journal.
Joachim
Darkstar
> "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote...
>
> - Show quoted text -
Correction: /mi/ and /mek/ are both found Old Armenian. Hence, modern /
meg/.
The problem is that the 1-2-3 numerals are never borrowed, let alone
mixed. You won't find a single example in other IELs.
Although Russ., for instance, is developing colloquial <raz> from
<odin raz> 'one time' instead of the IE <odin>.
Darkstar
> "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote ...
>
> > John Atkinson wrote:
> >> "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote...
> >> > John Atkinson wrote:
> >> >> "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote...
> >> >> > John Atkinson wrote:
> >> >> >> "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote
For no particular reason? Sometimes, the initial /h/ is acquired
historically as in Armenian <hanal> 'fall' from Old Armenian <enkel>
probably under influence of the velar /k/.
> Do you know whether there's a word <olm>?
No, but I know there's a word <hosel> from <hosil> 'to fly' (< to soar
in the wind?). And it's not <kami>, sorry, but <k'ami>, the same
mistake you've been telling me about. Now with the <k'> there, the
Armenian origin of the word becomes more obvious. Might be West
Armenian, actually.
> >> I don't know <kami>. If it's IE, it would presumably have come from
> >> *gwem-, come, which seems implausible semantically -- also none of
> >> the
> >> references I have derive <kami> from *gwem- -- M&A claims *gwem- has
> >> no
> >> cognate in Armenian. My guess is that <kami> comes from a non-IE
> >> language.
>
> > Japanese "kamikaze" :-) Seriously, with Armenian it's very hard to
> > tell, because its phonology is very different from the rest.
>
> But the sound change rules, PIE > Armenian, are pretty well defined, and
> exceptions are rare, no more common than in other branches of IE. The
> fact that the final results are "very different" is immaterial.
Okay, more proof below.
> *hw or *wh could > k` (cf *sweso:r-, sister > *hweur- > <k`oyr>), but
> not k.
>
> *w does > k in the cluster *k^w -- *k^wo:n-t-, dog, > *swund- >
> skownd> -- as mentioned before. But I can't see how this could apply
> to <kami>.
>
> > <Kami> indeed might be from another stock.
>
> >> In any case, as you said yourself with respect to mi/mek, there's no
> >> way
> >> Armenian could have <m> in a word cognate with all those other words
> >> you
> >> listed in (3) above. This applies to both <holm> and <kami>.
>
> > I disagree here. [...] a relatively natural, progressive
> > assimilation in the Auslaut */hwent/ --> */holt/ --> */holn/--> Old
> > Armenian <holm> --> Modern <hov>. The transition to /m/ is influenced
> > by the bilabial /o/ which is from the bilabial */w/. Hence, the
> > existence of the original */w/ is supported by the presence of */o/.
> > As a result, the process seem quite smooth and natural.
>
> Doesn't "seem" natural to me. /we/ > /o/ is not unusual, but I don't
> think it happens in Armenian -- I know of no examples.
A possible explanation is below.
> What's more,
> "the transition to /m/ is influenced
> by the bilabial /o/" is obviously wrong, since /o/ isn't bilabial!
Well, /o/ is formed by rounding lips, isn't it?
Ok, I see.
> > Aren't phonemes actual?
>
> That's a controversial question. For those that claim they are (or
> those, like me, who don't care much, but find the concept useful),
> phonemes are what the hearer, a native speaker of the same language,
> thinks he hears. One phoneme can corresponds to several different
> "actual sounds" (allophones).
>
> > Is there a formally accepted standard?
>
> For particular languages, yes, usually. But a phonemic analysis is
> unique to a particular language (or even a particular dialect of a
> language), so a "formally accepted standard" that would apply to all
> languages is an absurd concept.
>
> I don't want to get involved in yet another discussion of the phoneme
> concept -- it's been done to death here before, and others here are much
> better qualified than me to deal with it. I advise you to read any
> basic linguistics text (or Wikipedia, whose article on the subject is
> quite good, IMO).
Wiki can be excellent if used carefully.
Okay, back to the main point.
First off, more examples on the *hw-correspondences.
4) Old Arm <havgit>, but Welsh <wy>, pl.<wyau>, Breton <vi>, Irish
<ubh>, Latin <ovum>, Greek <augo, avgho>, Frisian <eike>, Alb <veja,
veze>, Slovak <vajce>, Latv <ola>, Pers <xaya>. Appearantly, from
either */hwavg-/ or */wavg-/.
Again, we have the same correlation (Arm. */h-/ vs. others */w-/, /
v-/.) But this time the Celts have no initial /gw-/.The /gw/ in */
gwavg/ did not survive, due to phonetic complexity, hence possibly */
wevg/ or */wuvg/ > /ubh, wy/
Also note the preservation of the ending /-it/ in Arm, which is not
found in the rest of IELs.
5) Old Armenian /hot/ 'flower', but Lusitan /kwet/, Polnish /kwiat/,
Lithuanian <kvietka>, Welsh <gwellt> 'grass', Frisian <gjers> 'grass',
Hindi <ghas>, Marathi <gevet>, Greek <khortari>
6) Old Arm /kanac'/ 'green', [/delin/ 'yellow'], but Welsh /gwyrd/,
Lat. /verd-/ 'green', /helvus/ 'yellow', Slav. /zelen-/ 'green', /
zholt-/ 'yellow', Lith /zha~lias/ 'green', Alban /gjelber/ 'green', /
verdh/ 'yellow', Snkt. /haris/ 'green', Avest /zairi/ 'yellow'.
"Green" and "yellow" have the same base in IELs, but possibly not in
Armenian.
7) Old Arm. /kin/, but Welsh /gwraig/, Lith /zmona/, Slovenian /
zhena/, Goth /qino/, E 'wife' Alb /gruja/, Persian /zan/, Icelandic /
kona/, Snsk /janis/
8) Arm /erb/ 'when,' /ur/ 'where', /inc'/ 'what' but the IELs with
their classical interrogative *kwo-, *kwe- base.
9) Arm /ord/ 'worm', but Welsh /gallt/, G /wurm/, L /vermis/, Hindi /
kira/, Greek /s-kuliki/, Lith /kirmis/, Sl. /cherv'/, Baluchi /kirm/,
Alb /krimb/
In these two examples the initial */h/ in Armenian must have been lost
early on.
The outcome is that IE *hw/gw behaves predictably in Arm., but changes
into a lot of other things in the mainstream IELs (except in Celtic,
where it's mostly *gw-). This indicates that the transitions in Arm.
ocurred very early, while the mainstream IELs had time to
progressively develop distinct vowels (*hwa, *hwe, *hwi, *hwo) and
strengthen the /hw/-part in different ways (*kv, *gw, *hv, *w, etc),
which finally gave rise to the differences in assimilation of *hw.
This might mean that the emergence of strong /w/ in *hw in the
mainstream IELs was a recent innovation that took place after Armenian
had already branched off. To disprove this conjecture, one could try
to find some examples of /b-/, /p/-, /v-/ that would result from the
transformation of *hw- in Armenian, and thus indicate the presence of
a bilabial phoneme at an early state. But there seem to be none in
Swadesh's 200-word list, which implies that /w/ of *hw never existed
in Arm.! Therefore, this /w/ sound could actually be an *innovation*
in the mainstream IELs...
Therefore, we have
*/hu-, ho-/ --> /k'V-/, /hV-/, /V-/ in Arm
*/hu-, ho-/ --> */hw-/ --> mostly as /gw/ in Celtic, but variously as /
v/, /u/, /o/, /g/, /h/, /k/, /g/, /kw/, /gw/, /hw/ in most IELs.
Or what do you think?
John Atkinson
<phog...@abo.fi> wrote...[...]
>>
>> > What pointed in the "crackpot" direction is your declaring that
>> > there
>> > are no IE correspondences _before_ you get the facts.
>>
>> Let's not get into a debate on whose Dad will beat up whose Dad. I
>> know Armenian is what I'm interested in in the moment.
>> Anyway, I've got all the facts in the dictionary. I know how words in
>> IE languages (particularly numerals) look like. What are other facts
>> relevant to the case?
>
> I told you already: the grammatical structure. I do not know how well
> you are acquainted with non-IE languages, but the grammatical
> structure of Armenian lacks many of the typical grammatical quirks of
> the neighbouring non-IE languages (ergative case, for instance).
Actually, you're wrong about ergativity. Classical Armenian does have
ergative properties, in particular it uses the genitive (rather than the
nominative) for transitive subjects in the compound perfect. This, of
course, is typical of Indo-Iranian, and we know Armenian has lots of
Iranian loans anyway, so there's no need to postulate any relationship
to (say) Georgian, which has a vaguely similar system.
Modern Armenian has returned to using the nominative for all subjects of
finite verbs. I suppose if one wanted to one could see possible Turkic
influence here!
John.
John.
Nikolaj
> "Nikolaj" <nikolaj...@bla.si> wrote..
>> John Atkinson pravi:
>>> Nikolai:
>>
>>>> This is interesting. It seems then that these two roots were reduced
>>>> to inital consonant only in Slovene... s(z) - with (s hišo, z mizo -
>>>> with house, table) and k(h) - towards (k hiši, h kravi - toward the
>>>> house, the cow).
>>>
>>> Yep. Similarly in Russian (and no doubt other Slavic languages),
>>> except when it would result in an unacceptable consonant cluster,
>>> when they become so and ko.
>>
>> In Macedonian it is regularly 'so' and in Serbian/Croatian 's' becomes
>> 'sa' before 's'. Slovene on the other hand, as I have shown, uses 'z'
>> before voiced sounds and pauses and 'h' instead of 'k' before nouns
>> that start with 'k' or 'g'.
>
> Russian (and no doubt other Slavic languages) pronounce 's' as [z]
> before a voiced consonant (before vowels it uses 'so' -- e.g.,
> 'soobraznyi' and 'souchnik' -- and since it's a clitic, I doubt if it
> can ever be followed by a pause -- but I only have a reading knowledge
> of the language, so don't take my word for that!).
I already gave the example for a preposition: Kava s smetano? (Coffee
with cream?) Answer is only: 'Z.' (With.)
As a prefix both can occur it seems. If 'součnik' means schoolmate, then
it would be 'sošolec' in Slovene (don't have a clue what 'soobraznyi'
could mean).
But compare the words for 'union': in Croatian it is 'sa-vez', in
Slovene it is 'z-veza' (Russian 'soyuz'?). 'Veza' means 'connection,
binding' so 'union' is a group of items 'with connection'.
It's just not shown
> in the orthography in Russian, which (unlike Slovene, apparently) mostly
> doesn't spell out allophonic alterations in prefixes. (Exception --
> prefixes ending in /-z/ -- compare <razvitcja> and <razoruzhat'>, but
> <raskajatsja>.)
I would say this is an exception for 'with - s/z', otherwise Slovene
doesn't do that either (always 'od-', and never 'ot-'), not even for
'raz-' (razorožiti; razpustiti - disarm; dissolve, disband, dismiss)
>>> Likewise v/vo. Somewhat similar, o/ob/obo and
>>> ot/oto. But do and po don't shorten.
>>
>> Also no 'vo', 'o' in Slovene. There are 'v', 'ob', 'od'.
phog...@abo.fi
Don't be ridiculous. You can be quite sure they are borrowed. Even in
the IE family there are examples of ordinal numbers borrowed - the
Arabic "avval" ("first") has been adopted by Persian; and the Latin
"second" by English, for instance.
phog...@abo.fi
>
> 4) Old Arm <havgit>, but Welsh <wy>, pl.<wyau>, Breton <vi>, Irish
> <ubh>, Latin <ovum>, Greek <augo, avgho>, Frisian <eike>, Alb <veja,
> veze>, Slovak <vajce>, Latv <ola>, Pers <xaya>. Appearantly, from
> either */hwavg-/ or */wavg-/.
> Again, we have the same correlation (Arm. */h-/ vs. others */w-/, /
> v-/.)
Are you unaware of the fact that "hav" means hen, and that havgit
(modern Eastern havkit') is probably etymologically speaking "hen's
egg" (cf. German Hühnerei, Finnish kananmuna, Swedish hönsägg)?
John Atkinson
"Nikolaj" <nikolaj...@bla.si> wrote...
> John Atkinson pravi:
[...]
>>
>> Russian (and no doubt other Slavic languages) pronounce 's' as [z]
>> before a voiced consonant (before vowels it uses 'so' -- e.g.,
>> 'soobraznyi' and 'souchnik' -- and since it's a clitic, I doubt if it
>> can ever be followed by a pause -- but I only have a reading
>> knowledge of the language, so don't take my word for that!).
>
> I already gave the example for a preposition: Kava s smetano? (Coffee
> with cream?) Answer is only: 'Z.' (With.)
Right. Well, in that case, I suspect a Russian would answer "So."
> As a prefix both can occur it seems. If 'součnik' means schoolmate,
> then it would be 'sošolec' in Slovene (don't have a clue what
> 'soobraznyi' could mean).
obraz = image, form; soobraznyi = conformable, suitable.
> But compare the words for 'union': in Croatian it is 'sa-vez', in
> Slovene it is 'z-veza' (Russian 'soyuz'?). 'Veza' means 'connection,
> binding' so 'union' is a group of items 'with connection'.
AFAIK, yuz (or oyuz) doesn't mean anything at all.
[...]
John.
John Atkinson
> On Mar 18, 3:53 am, "John Atkinson" <johna...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>> "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote ...
>> > John Atkinson wrote:
>> >> "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote...
I don't know whether that's the case or not.
However, Armenian <k`am-> would be regular from PIE *kem-. There are
two homophonous PIE roots of this form that have been proposed: *kem-,
press together, > Eng hamper, Russian kom, and Armenian k`amel; *kem-,
love > Skrt ka:ma.
It would also be regular from *kwem-, swallow > Skrt ca:mati, swallows,
which however > Armenian k`imp, throat.
In NW PIE only, there's also *kem-, hum > Eng hum, Latvian kamines. And
Armenian <k`am-> would also be regular from *swem > English swim and (?)
OIr do-seinn, which is also restricted to the NW.
None of these look too promising as precursors of an Armenian word
meaning "wind"!
> Might be West Armenian, actually.
>
[...]
>> >> cognate in Armenian. My guess is that <kami> comes from a non-IE
>> >> language.
>>
>> > Japanese "kamikaze" :-) Seriously, with Armenian it's very hard to
>> > tell, because its phonology is very different from the rest.
>>
>> But the sound change rules, PIE > Armenian, are pretty well defined,
>> and
>> exceptions are rare, no more common than in other branches of IE.
>> The
>> fact that the final results are "very different" is immaterial.
>
> Okay, more proof below.
>
>> *hw or *wh could > k` (cf *sweso:r-, sister > *hweur- > <k`oyr>), but
>> not k.
[...]
Not in my dialect.
>> with */treye-/
>>
>> >> Armenian clearly distinguishes aspirated and unaspirated voiceless
>> >> stops, and has done so as far back as the written evidence goes.
>> >> Please
>> >> don't use the same symbol for different phonemes, it confuses
>> >> everyone.
>>
>> > Point taken.
>>
>> >> > , because the direct reconstruction is far
>> >> > too complex phonologically. A simple one would be:
>>
>> >> > In Armenian:
>> >> > *<THeTHhaus> -->*<eTHhau> --> *<erhu> --> <erku>
>> >> > *<THerese> --> *<THereh> --> <erekh>
>>
>> >> This time at least you show the aspiration!
>>
>> >> [...]
>
> Okay, back to the main point.
> First off, more examples on the *hw-correspondences.
>
> 4) Old Arm <havgit>, but Welsh <wy>, pl.<wyau>, Breton <vi>, Irish
> <ubh>, Latin <ovum>, Greek <augo, avgho>, Frisian <eike>, Alb <veja,
> veze>, Slovak <vajce>, Latv <ola>, Pers <xaya>. Appearantly, from
> either */hwavg-/ or */wavg-/.
*Ho:wiom > Welsh wy, Latin o:vum, Cl Greek o:(w)eon (> Mod Gk augo), ON
egg (with *w > g), OCS ajIce (= *aje- plus suffix), Pers xaja (<
Av -a:vaya), Armenian ju, all = "egg".
Buck says Armenian "ju"comes from *Ho:wiom like the rest. I would
expect to get <ow> (/u/) in the Classical language (with loss of the
final syllable, as happens in most Armenian words), but that doesn't
explain the "j-" -- though I don't know whether "j" represents "y(es)"
or "j(ust) in his transcription!
Latvian ola (also means pebble) and Lith uola, whetstone, are apparently
cognate with Latin volvere.
I don't know anything about havgit.
> Again, we have the same correlation (Arm. */h-/ vs. others */w-/, /
> v-/.) But this time the Celts have no initial /gw-/.The /gw/ in */
> gwavg/ did not survive, due to phonetic complexity, hence possibly */
> wevg/ or */wuvg/ > /ubh, wy/
I think it's due to the "w" not being initial. *w > gw occurs only
syllable initial in Celtic, I think.
> Also note the preservation of the ending /-it/ in Arm, which is not
> found in the rest of IELs.
>
> 5) Old Armenian /hot/ 'flower', but Lusitan /kwet/, Polnish /kwiat/,
> Lithuanian <kvietka>, Welsh <gwellt> 'grass', Frisian <gjers> 'grass',
> Hindi <ghas>, Marathi <gevet>, Greek <khortari>
*kweit, bright, > all those Balto-Slavic ones.
*wel-, grass > gwellt, OPr woltis, Greek e:lusios, Elysian.
*ghordhos, enclosure > Greek khortos, E yard, Russian gorod, etc
*ghr-, grow > grass, etc
Armenian <hot> means "odour", doesn't it? From <*h3ed-> like Latin
oleo/odor, Greek ozo.
> 6) Old Arm /kanac'/ 'green', [/delin/ 'yellow'], but Welsh /gwyrd/,
> Lat. /verd-/ 'green', /helvus/ 'yellow', Slav. /zelen-/ 'green', /
> zholt-/ 'yellow', Lith /zha~lias/ 'green', Alban /gjelber/ 'green', /
> verdh/ 'yellow', Snkt. /haris/ 'green', Avest /zairi/ 'yellow'.
> "Green" and "yellow" have the same base in IELs, but possibly not in
> Armenian.
Welsh gwyrd and Albanian verdh appear to be loans from Latin verid-; I
don't know where this came from, not PIE(?). PIE apparently had *g^hel-
for yellow, and *k^yeh1- for grue. Neither of these (or any others I
can think of) seem possibilities for those two Armenian words.
> 7) Old Arm. /kin/, but Welsh /gwraig/, Lith /zmona/, Slovenian /
> zhena/, Goth /qino/, E 'wife' Alb /gruja/, Persian /zan/, Icelandic /
> kona/, Snsk /janis/
*gwenH, woman, wife > kin (and the others) by the standard sound shifts.
> 8) Arm /erb/ 'when,' /ur/ 'where', /inc'/ 'what' but the IELs with
> their classical interrogative *kwo-, *kwe- base.
People derive them by dropping the initial kw-, but I don't know why --
L'd expect kw > k`
> 9) Arm /ord/ 'worm', but Welsh /gallt/, G /wurm/, L /vermis/, Hindi /
> kira/, Greek /s-kuliki/, Lith /kirmis/, Sl. /cherv'/, Baluchi /kirm/,
> Alb /krimb/
*wrmis appears to be NW PIE only
*kwrmis > Lith kirmis, Skt krmi- etc, also OCS chrUvI', with a different
suffix.
*(s)kel-, crooked > Greek skuliks
The Welsh for worm is pryf, which is regular from *kwrmi-. I don't know
gallt.
Could Armenian <hot> be cognate with OCS gadU, reptile? No, it doesn't
work, Slavic /g/ can't be cognate with Armenian /h/.
> In these two examples the initial */h/ in Armenian must have been lost
> early on.
>
> The outcome is that IE *hw/gw behaves predictably in Arm., but changes
> into a lot of other things in the mainstream IELs (except in Celtic,
> where it's mostly *gw-). This indicates that the transitions in Arm.
> ocurred very early, while the mainstream IELs had time to
> progressively develop distinct vowels (*hwa, *hwe, *hwi, *hwo) and
> strengthen the /hw/-part in different ways (*kv, *gw, *hv, *w, etc),
> which finally gave rise to the differences in assimilation of *hw.
> This might mean that the emergence of strong /w/ in *hw in the
> mainstream IELs was a recent innovation that took place after Armenian
> had already branched off. To disprove this conjecture, one could try
> to find some examples of /b-/, /p/-, /v-/ that would result from the
> transformation of *hw- in Armenian, and thus indicate the presence of
> a bilabial phoneme at an early state. But there seem to be none in
> Swadesh's 200-word list, which implies that /w/ of *hw never existed
> in Arm.! Therefore, this /w/ sound could actually be an *innovation*
> in the mainstream IELs...
>
> Therefore, we have
> */hu-, ho-/ --> /k'V-/, /hV-/, /V-/ in Arm
> */hu-, ho-/ --> */hw-/ --> mostly as /gw/ in Celtic, but variously as
> /
> v/, /u/, /o/, /g/, /h/, /k/, /g/, /kw/, /gw/, /hw/ in most IELs.
>
> Or what do you think?
>
As you can see, I don't believe in your "IE *hw/gw", so I won't comment
on what you think follows from it.
Thoughts:
(1) Your sound-changes are too arbitrary, have too many exceptions. In
reality, a given sound always evolves the same way in the same
environment.
(2) You tend to assume that words in all IE languages with the same
meaning come from the same original form.
(3) More than half of the words in Armenian don't come directly down
from PIE, but were borrowed from other languages. Is this the case with
any of your examples?
J.
Keith GOERINGER
> But compare the words for 'union': in Croatian it is 'sa-vez', in
> Slovene it is 'z-veza' (Russian 'soyuz'?). 'Veza' means 'connection,
> binding' so 'union' is a group of items 'with connection'.
I think we have a doublet here in Russian. I see <svjaz'>, showing the
prothetic /v/, or <sojuz>, showing a prothetic /j/ -- both semantically
similar. (And both going back to a historical nasal vowel in the root.)
Cheers,
Keith
Brian M. Scott
<john...@bigpond.com> wrote in sci.lang:
> "Darkstar" <darks...@front.ru> wrote ...
[...]
>> 4) Old Arm <havgit>, but Welsh <wy>, pl.<wyau>, Breton <vi>,
>> Irish <ubh>, Latin <ovum>, Greek <augo, avgho>, Frisian
>> <eike>, Alb <veja, veze>, Slovak <vajce>, Latv <ola>, Pers
>> <xaya>. Appearantly, from either */hwavg-/ or */wavg-/.
> *Ho:wiom > Welsh wy, Latin o:vum, Cl Greek o:(w)eon (> Mod Gk
> augo), ON egg (with *w > g), OCS ajIce (= *aje- plus suffix),
> Pers xaja (< Av -a:vaya), Armenian ju, all = "egg".
[...]
>> Again, we have the same correlation (Arm. */h-/ vs. others */w-/, /
>> v-/.) But this time the Celts have no initial /gw-/.The /gw/ in */
>> gwavg/ did not survive, due to phonetic complexity, hence possibly */
>> wevg/ or */wuvg/ > /ubh, wy/
> I think it's due to the "w" not being initial. *w > gw occurs only
> syllable initial in Celtic, I think.
That's my recollection. Matasovic gives PIE *h2o:wyo- > PCelt.
*a:wyo-, whence OW <uí>, MW <wy>, MBret. <uy>, OCorn. <uy>,
MCorn. <oy>; he mentions as IE cognates Lat. <o:uum>, Arm. <ju>,
OHG <ei>. He thinks that OIr <og> 'egg' probably doesn't belong
here.
[...]
>> 6) Old Arm /kanac'/ 'green', [/delin/ 'yellow'], but Welsh /gwyrd/,
>> Lat. /verd-/ 'green', /helvus/ 'yellow', Slav. /zelen-/ 'green', /
>> zholt-/ 'yellow', Lith /zha~lias/ 'green', Alban /gjelber/ 'green', /
>> verdh/ 'yellow', Snkt. /haris/ 'green', Avest /zairi/ 'yellow'.
>> "Green" and "yellow" have the same base in IELs, but possibly not in
>> Armenian.
> Welsh gwyrd and Albanian verdh appear to be loans from Latin verid-; I
> don't know where this came from, not PIE(?).
Pokorny puts it with *weis- 'to sprout, to grow', but others
apparently don't agree: <virid> and <viridian> are both in AHD,
but neither is referred to a PIE root.
> PIE apparently had *g^hel- for yellow, and *k^yeh1- for grue.
Matasovic makes it PIE *g^Hel-wo- 'yellow' > PCelt. *gelwo-
'yellow, white'. Don't know *k^yeh1-; the Celtic grue word (OIr
<glas>, OW <glas>, PCelt. *glasto-) can be derived from
*gHl-sto-, but Matasovic doesn't find this convincing.
[...]
>> 9) Arm /ord/ 'worm', but Welsh /gallt/, G /wurm/, L /vermis/, Hindi /
>> kira/, Greek /s-kuliki/, Lith /kirmis/, Sl. /cherv'/, Baluchi /kirm/,
>> Alb /krimb/
> *wrmis appears to be NW PIE only
> *kwrmis > Lith kirmis, Skt krmi- etc, also OCS chrUvI', with a different
> suffix.
> *(s)kel-, crooked > Greek skuliks
> The Welsh for worm is pryf, which is regular from *kwrmi-. I don't know
> gallt.
And OIr is <cruim>; Matasovic has *kWrmi- > PCelt. *kWrimi-.
[...]
Brian
Dušan Vukotić
I have one question for everyone. What is the relation among Slavic
word 'veza-nje', AS 'bindan', Skt. bandhanam, bandh बन्ध and Greek
σφίγγω sphingô)? :-)
DV
Darkstar
No. That's interesting, thanks! But then we still have *<kit> for
'egg', which even makes it look slightly better, because now there's
no initial /h/, and the above correspondences are more regular.
Darkstar
> "Nikolaj" <nikolaj.kor...@bla.si> wrote...
> > John Atkinson pravi:
> [...]
>
> >> Russian (and no doubt other Slavic languages) pronounce 's' as [z]
> >> before a voiced consonant (before vowels it uses 'so' -- e.g.,
> >> 'soobraznyi' and 'souchnik' -- and since it's a clitic, I doubt if it
> >> can ever be followed by a pause -- but I only have a reading
> >> knowledge of the language, so don't take my word for that!).
>
> > I already gave the example for a preposition: Kava s smetano? (Coffee
> > with cream?) Answer is only: 'Z.' (With.)
>
> Right. Well, in that case, I suspect a Russian would answer "So."
They would probably answer with a phrase /sosmetAnoy/ (here 'sour
cream'), also /stobOy/ 'with you', therefore "so" is not detachable
and functions as a prefix. In other special cases strong 's' is
acceptable ("Ss ili bez?" - "With or without?")
[...]
phog...@abo.fi
Darkstar wrote:
> On Mar 19, 1:39 pm, phogl...@abo.fi wrote:
> > On 19 maalis, 03:50, "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > > 4) Old Arm <havgit>, but Welsh <wy>, pl.<wyau>, Breton <vi>, Irish
> > > <ubh>, Latin <ovum>, Greek <augo, avgho>, Frisian <eike>, Alb <veja,
> > > veze>, Slovak <vajce>, Latv <ola>, Pers <xaya>. Appearantly, from
> > > either */hwavg-/ or */wavg-/.
> > > Again, we have the same correlation (Arm. */h-/ vs. others */w-/, /
> > > v-/.)
> >
> > Are you unaware of the fact that "hav" means hen, and that havgit
> > (modern Eastern havkit') is probably etymologically speaking "hen's
> > egg" (cf. German Hühnerei, Finnish kananmuna, Swedish hönsägg)?
>
> No. That's interesting, thanks!
Look, I have learnt the damn language for less than a year, and even I
have a better idea of it than you. Shouldn't you take the trouble of
learning it yourself before delving deep into the mysteries of
etymology?
Richard Wordingham
> The problem is that the 1-2-3 numerals are never borrowed, let alone
> mixed. You won't find a single example in other IELs.
> Although Russ., for instance, is developing colloquial <raz> from
> <odin raz> 'one time' instead of the IE <odin>.
These cardinals should be robust, though of course the whole number
system (or 2 and above) can be replaced, as has happened in much of
East Asia. The general rule is that if one number is replaced by a
loan word, so are all the others. Replacements by collectives can
occur - Russian _sorok_ '40' is an interesting case of suppletion.
Could English _two_ be replaced by any of Romance _pair_, _couple_ and
_brace_?
There is a curious case in Thai telephone numbers. The inherited word
_sOng_ for 'two' (albeit ultimately derived from Chinese) is replaced
by _tho:_ (from Pali) in telephone numbers.
Richard.
Darkstar
>
> - Show quoted text -
Good for you. I've never learned it all. It's the first time I got
interested in it. Besides, I've tried to warn everyone, good materials
are hard to get where I live, hence some probs.
PS: Some of my messages dissapear after posting. Does it happen to
anyone else?
Darkstar
Please don't use words like "nonsense", "ridiculous". They provide
emotions, not logical argumentation, therefore can easily be ignored.
But if I see facts, I will agree with you.
> Even in
> the IE family there are examples of ordinal numbers borrowed - the
> Arabic "avval" ("first") has been adopted by Persian; and the Latin
> "second" by English, for instance.- Hide quoted text -
>
That's a fact. But these are ordinal numbers. Cf. Slavic <vtory>,
<utory>, <drugi> 'second', 'other'. Here, they are formed "on the
fly" (<drugi> from <drug> 'friend') and don't even go back to the PIE,
at least not directly, that is, they're late coinwords. Most languages
don't have any specific ordinal numbers, binding them to the cardinal
(<zwei>, <zweite>).
I was talking about *the first 1-2-3 cardinals*. And yes, I'm pretty
sure, because I've been checking these numerals throughout many
Eurasian languages, though I could've missed something, that's why I'm
asking other researches. Generally, IE numerals are extremely regular.
On the other hand, some languages like Munda do borrow 5-10 from I-I
and Drav., but that's a different story, because there's massive
cultural and linguistic influence in other aspects, and 1-2-3 are
still native. Thai is often said to "borrow" 1-10 numerals from
Chinese, but that's a mere conjecture, because they're a perfectly the
same in other Thai languages and similar to others in the region (cf /
sam, san/ 'three'), so if it's true they were borrowed very long ago.
Darkstar
> On Mar 19, 1:15 am, "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote:
>
> > The problem is that the 1-2-3 numerals are never borrowed, let alone
> > mixed. You won't find a single example in other IELs.
> > Although Russ., for instance, is developing colloquial <raz> from
> > <odin raz> 'one time' instead of the IE <odin>.
>
> These cardinals should be robust, though of course the whole number
> system (or 2 and above) can be replaced, as has happened in much of
> East Asia. The general rule is that if one number is replaced by a
> loan word, so are all the others. Replacements by collectives can
> occur - Russian _sorok_ '40' is an interesting case of suppletion.
I agree. "1-2-3" are especially stable, that's why they're important.
"5-10" are slightly less so. As to other numerals, they may be
replaced or reformed, because they depend on the basic ones and move
along as the language develops, so they are not to be used for long-
and middle-range comparison.
Some languages tend to re-create 4-10 numbers from scratch, e.g.
5=twothree. This system seems to be present in Korean, for example.
Hence, tul=2, set=3, tasot=5
> Could English _two_ be replaced by any of Romance _pair_, _couple_ and
> _brace_?
>
> There is a curious case in Thai telephone numbers. The inherited word
> _sOng_ for 'two' (albeit ultimately derived from Chinese) is replaced
> by _tho:_ (from Pali) in telephone numbers.
> Richard.
As I've just mentioned, there's probably no convincing proof that Thai
borrowed any numerals from Chinese. Most Thai numerals integrate
perfectly well into the Tai-Kadai numerical system.
Darkstar
If it's dialectical, then it was not <k'ami> originally, but something
else (<k'ani>, <hami>, <k'alni> etc).
> Russian kom, and Armenian k`amel; *kem-, > love > Skrt ka:ma.
Can't remember any such thing in Russian.
> It would also be regular from *kwem-, swallow > Skrt ca:mati, swallows,
> which however > Armenian k`imp, throat.
>
> In NW PIE only, there's also *kem-, hum > Eng hum, Latvian kamines. And
> Armenian <k`am-> would also be regular from *swem > English swim and (?)
> OIr do-seinn, which is also restricted to the NW.
Any kind of *sw, *kw, *gw parallels in the main IELs would go along
with my argumentation, so it's the same. By saying that it was proven
earlier that /k'/ goes back to */sw/ in some way, you're just
providing examples to my word list, because it's the presence of */w/
that matters here.
That's what I thought, also. Obviously, in English /o/ is much less
rounded than in most world languages and frequently changes to /a/
(though still there's some rounding involved, esp. in classic RP and
southeast Br. dialects).
Got the Arm. dictionary installed, learning the alphabet. There are
two words: <cki> and <cow>. The first one looks like *<kit>, the
other one must be <tsow> (from <ju>). Maybe phogland could help with
the pronunciation.
> Latvian ola (also means pebble) and Lith uola, whetstone, are apparently
> cognate with Latin volvere.
>
> I don't know anything about havgit.
Phogland provided a wonderful explanation for <havgit>, hence <ju>
might not be cognate. Since we disagree on the details, it's better to
discard this example, there're 10 more. Appearantly, "egg" is a
difficult example, and IE cognates have not been generally established
(?).
> > Again, we have the same correlation (Arm. */h-/ vs. others */w-/, /
> > v-/.) But this time the Celts have no initial /gw-/.The /gw/ in */
> > gwavg/ did not survive, due to phonetic complexity, hence possibly */
> > wevg/ or */wuvg/ > /ubh, wy/
>
> I think it's due to the "w" not being initial. *w > gw occurs only
> syllable initial in Celtic, I think.
Possibly, but the generally accepted proto-form still contains *w.
> > Also note the preservation of the ending /-it/ in Arm, which is not
> > found in the rest of IELs.
>
> > 5) Old Armenian /hot/ 'flower', but Lusitan /kwet/, Polnish /kwiat/,
> > Lithuanian <kvietka>, Welsh <gwellt> 'grass', Frisian <gjers> 'grass',
> > Hindi <ghas>, Marathi <gevet>, Greek <khortari>
>
> *kweit, bright, > all those Balto-Slavic ones.
> *wel-, grass > gwellt, OPr woltis, Greek e:lusios, Elysian.
> *ghordhos, enclosure > Greek khortos, E yard, Russian gorod, etc
> *ghr-, grow > grass, etc
No, Russian <gorod> is akin to E. <yard>, <garden>. Also <gorodit'>
"to put posts as in circle". Also <zherd'> 'pole' with the Slavic /
zh/. Also the Greek part, and Phrygian cognates. That's a famous
etymology in Slavic literature. Probably, nothing to do with flowers/
grass.
> Armenian <hot> means "odour", doesn't it? From <*h3ed-> like Latin
> oleo/odor, Greek ozo.
Yes, 'smell' is "hot". You seem to be right. But it could be
viceversa: 'smell' is from 'flower', because there are other words for
"smell" in Arm. 'Flower' in Modern Arm is also <calik> ('l' with a
crossbar).
> > 6) Old Arm /kanac'/ 'green', [/delin/ 'yellow'], but Welsh /gwyrd/,
> > Lat. /verd-/ 'green', /helvus/ 'yellow', Slav. /zelen-/ 'green', /
> > zholt-/ 'yellow', Lith /zha~lias/ 'green', Alban /gjelber/ 'green', /
> > verdh/ 'yellow', Snkt. /haris/ 'green', Avest /zairi/ 'yellow'.
> > "Green" and "yellow" have the same base in IELs, but possibly not in
> > Armenian.
>
> Welsh gwyrd and Albanian verdh appear to be loans from Latin verid-; I
> don't know where this came from, not PIE(?). PIE apparently had *g^hel-
> for yellow, and *k^yeh1- for grue. Neither of these (or any others I
> can think of) seem possibilities for those two Armenian words.
Not Welsh, they're probably Italo-Celtic.
But I would accept anything that's generally accepted within the main
IE.
> > 7) Old Arm. /kin/, but Welsh /gwraig/, Lith /zmona/, Slovenian /
> > zhena/, Goth /qino/, E 'wife' Alb /gruja/, Persian /zan/, Icelandic /
> > kona/, Snsk /janis/
>
> *gwenH, woman, wife > kin (and the others) by the standard sound shifts.
Why not /bin/ or /vin/?
> > 8) Arm /erb/ 'when,' /ur/ 'where', /inc'/ 'what' but the IELs with
> > their classical interrogative *kwo-, *kwe- base.
>
> People derive them by dropping the initial kw-, but I don't know why --
> L'd expect kw > k`
>
> > 9) Arm /ord/ 'worm', but Welsh /gallt/, G /wurm/, L /vermis/, Hindi /
> > kira/, Greek /s-kuliki/, Lith /kirmis/, Sl. /cherv'/, Baluchi /kirm/,
> > Alb /krimb/
>
> *wrmis appears to be NW PIE only
> *kwrmis > Lith kirmis, Skt krmi- etc, also OCS chrUvI', with a different
> suffix.
> *(s)kel-, crooked > Greek skuliks
> The Welsh for worm is pryf, which is regular from *kwrmi-. I don't know
> gallt.
/gwallt/ 'woods', my mistake. But the classical studies boil down to
the presence of *w in the protoform, so it's the same to me.
> Could Armenian <hot> be cognate with OCS gadU, reptile? No, it doesn't
> work, Slavic /g/ can't be cognate with Armenian /h/.
<hot> is flower, not reptile.
Anyway, many good counter-examples/corrections, I'm always impressed
by your knowledge.
You've tried to disprove some etymologies, but there are over 10 of
them, and none give rise to /p/, /b/, /v/ or other bilabials in
Armenian. That's what I mean.
> Thoughts:
> (1) Your sound-changes are too arbitrary, have too many exceptions. In
> reality, a given sound always evolves the same way in the same
> environment.
> (2) You tend to assume that words in all IE languages with the same
> meaning come from the same original form.
> (3) More than half of the words in Armenian don't come directly down
> from PIE, but were borrowed from other languages. Is this the case with
> any of your examples?
>
> J.
Swadesh-type words are supposed to be original. The above examples
exhibit the typical Armenian phonology, hence they just might be
original, and even if there's a couple of errors/loanwords, it's not
crucial.
Again, to disprove this list, one has to either present bilabial
cognates or explain what exactly happened to Armenian *w in PIE's *gw/
kw/Hw/sw, and why it's regularly lost in Armenian.
Of course, one could say: it's just lost, period. Therefore, of
course, just one quick-and-dirty list of correspondences does not
provide enough proof. But it could be the first sign of
inconsistencies. Many sources claim that Armenian has "borrowed" its
words without providing any details. But how often do we get examples
of extensive borrowing in the main word stock? Isn't it more simple to
assume that Arm is somehow separate from the rest of IELs, so its
lexicon has changed considerably?
Trond Engen
> "Darkstar" <darks...@front.ru> wrote ...
>
> [...]
>
>>>> John Atkinson wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> "Darkstar" <darkstar...@front.ru> wrote...
>>>>>
>>>>>> 3)wetter> 'weather', Sl.. <veter>, Lith. <vejas>, L.<ventus>,
>>>>>> 'wi G.<nd', Hindi <vayu>, Alb. <ere>, except Welsh <gwynt>, but
>>>>>> Armenian <holm, kami> 'wind'
>>>>>
>>>>> Are <holm> and <kami> cognate with all the rest? The others all come
>>>>> from <*we:-(nt)->, blow.
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> And it's not <kami>, sorry, but <k'ami>, the same mistake you've been
>> telling me about. Now with the <k'> there, the Armenian origin of the
>> word becomes more obvious.
>
> I don't know whether that's the case or not.
>
> However, Armenian <k`am-> would be regular from PIE *kem-. There are
> two homophonous PIE roots of this form that have been proposed: *kem-,
> press together, > Eng hamper, Russian kom, and Armenian k`amel; *kem-,
> love > Skrt ka:ma.
>
> It would also be regular from *kwem-, swallow > Skrt ca:mati, swallows,
> which however > Armenian k`imp, throat.
>
> In NW PIE only, there's also *kem-, hum > Eng hum, Latvian kamines. And
> Armenian <k`am-> would also be regular from *swem > English swim and (?)
> OIr do-seinn, which is also restricted to the NW.
>
> None of these look too promising as precursors of an Armenian word
> meaning "wind"!
I'll bring in Bjorvand and Lindeman again (as it's the only book I've got):
Norw. <vind>, Eng. <wind>, etc. , are derived from an IE root */H2weH1-/
"blow". The initial */H2/ is apparently due to Greek <áe:si>, the */H1/
is still obscure to me. Could the Arm. word belong here with k' from
s-mobile?
The root */swem-/ "swim" is -- tentatively -- seen as an s-mobile
version of a root */wem-/wam-/ "move like a wave, move around etc."
found in most old and modern Gmc. languages. */wem-/ is unexplained.
My own thoughts:
There are several words from the */swem-/-root with little or no
swimming involved. One of them is 'sound' "strait", another (form the
causative) MHG. <schwemmen> "wash, water", Sw. <svämma> id. <svämma
över> "flood". This might suggest that the word originally meant
something like "stream, flow". Could it be an extended root */(s)we-m-/?
I'm not too good at this, so there are problems. Where did the long */e/
go in my extended root?
--
Trond Engen
- on deep water, waiting for the storm