From Maj-Britt.MosegaardHansen at manchester.ac.uk Fri Apr 4 15:18:04 2008 From: Maj-Britt.MosegaardHansen at manchester.ac.uk (Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen) Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 16:18:04 +0100 Subject: Book announcement Message-ID: Generator Microsoft Word 11 (filtered medium) Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen (The University of Manchester) Particles at the Semantics / Pragmatics Interface:  Synchronic and Diachronic Issues.  A Study with Special Reference to the French Phasa Adverbs.  (Current Research in the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface, vol. 19).  Oxford:  Elsevier (14 December 2007)  Hardcover:  251 pp. ISBN: 978-0080552934 (Pricing:  GBP83.00, USD150.00, EUR120.00) The central aim of this study is to elucidate the nature of the semantics / pragmatics distinction in both synchrony and diachrony.   The author proposes a definition of semantics and pragmatics that is orthogonal to the question of truth-conditionality, and discusses the status of various types of meaning with respect to this definition.  A corollary aim of the study is to propose an account of how and why erstwhile pragmatically-determined elements of meaning may, in the course of time, become semanticized.    The nature, paths, and mechanisms of diachronic sense changes of the relevant type, as well as the motivations for them, are discussed in some detail.  The author combines insights from different sources, prominently frame-based semantics, historical pragmatics, and Peircean semiotics, to arrive at a model of linguistic meaning that is both synchronically and diachronically dynamic, hence capable of integrating structure and usage. As a case study, the synchronic uses and diachronic evolution of the exceptionally polyfunctional French phasal adverbs déjà (' already' ), encore (' still/yet' ), toujours (' still' ), and enfin (' finally' ) are analyzed in some detail, with particular attention being paid to the semantic vs pragmatic nature of the various uses of these items. The book will be of interest to lexical semanticists, pragmaticians, historical linguists, functional/cognitive linguists, discourse analysts, and semioticians. To order, contact: Turpin Distribution Services Ltd UK & Rest of World Customer Services Pegasus Drive, Stratton Business Park, Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, SG18 8TQ, UK Tel: +44 (0) 1767 604 951 Fax: +44 (0) 1767 601640 US (incl. Canada & Latin America) Customer Services The Bleachery, 143 West Street, New Milford, Connecticut, CT 06776, USA USA toll free: 800 456 6323 Tel.: +1 860 350 0041 Fax: +1 860 350 0039 E-mail custserv at turpin-distribution.com ____________________________________________ Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen Professor of French language and linguistics School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures The University of Manchester Oxford Road Manchester M13 9PL Tel.: +44 (0)161 306-1733 Fax: +44 (0)161 275-3031 Web: http://www.llc.manchester.ac.uk Editor-in-Chief of Revue Romane Associate Editor of Studies in Pragmatics -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Tue Apr 8 06:15:01 2008 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2008 02:15:01 -0400 Subject: Differentiating velar versus labial Dravidian voice derivations Message-ID: Hopefully someone on the list will know whether anyone has observed this before, or if I can plant my flag here. Dravidian has for me been one of the hardest families to understand from the perspective of root analysis phonosemantically. This started to change after a near exhaustive examination of materials from Santali (Munda) over the past few months. Picking up a copy this past week of Burrow and Emeneau's 2nd ed. of A Dravidian Etymological Dictionary, looking for anything similar to the Santali materials, I began noticing that derived stems seemed to have similar semantics. After compiling all the Tamil -kk-, -ngk-, and -k- derivatives, specifically from the subset of shape (as listed) (C)VCV(N)C(C)u (comb. form in -i), it was clear that a large majority of derivations appeared to encode the notion of beating (or being beaten) into submission, literally or figuratively, and socially or materially. The labial sets, which I'm still compiling, have the opposite sense of throwing off unwanted burdens, freeing oneself, and so on. Why others may not have noticed this before is a mystery to me (for instance Krishnamurti in his 1997 piece on these suffixes), but I can speculate that people were looking for GRAMMATICAL, rather than what might be more lexical (or even expressive) senses in the system. On a more abstract level, the semantic differences between the labial and velar positions could be thought of as marking CONTROL differences (as for instance seen in Salishan voice suffixes). The various acute-featured voice forms (established dentals, sandhi-affected retroflexes and alveolars, and also palatals (but are SOME of these perhaps original??) seem more to have a linear-hierarchical sense to them, but I am far from finishing work on these. These semantic differences may also have something to say about why the graves were used (according to Krishnamurti), in the protolanguage, for nonpast, and the acutes for past. The graves connote unbalanced forces between participants (one winning), and noncooperation (even WITH acquiescence as with velars- giving in is not the same as joining in), while the acutes seem much more about creating continuity and sharing of responsibility. I won't be sure until more of the system is analyzed (and for more languages in the family as well). But there may be something of a split between negative vs. positive reinforcement, and irrealis vs. realis senses, which would then go towards tense interpretations. Santali data changed the way I was looking at the Dravidian materials- as I've posted ad nauseum around the WWW, Santali has a great deal of phonosemantic transparency, especially for expressive adverbs, verbs, adjectives, etc. What IS really interesting here is that the Dravidian derivational suffixes appear to share largely the same types of senses as do, in many cases, the initial consonants in Santali forms. Is it possible that many Santali initials are originally prefixes? Going through the dictionary one can collect many forms that differ in initial but contain the same second or third consonant (where the second may also be nasalized, etc.)- for instance many different forms for 'splash' that have C1VbVr, etc. If so, do the differences in morpheme order go back to morphosyntactic typology, constituent order preferences particularly, and their effects (much as one sees for instance, according to Haiman, different preferences for alliteration versus rhyming). And if there is positional differentiation semantically within derived Dravidian stems (as there definitely seems to be in Santali, just as with Bantu, Japanese, and Korean ideophones), then the root-initials may convey more spatial/pathway information that is not necessarily vital to meaning, and can be omitted. If people are interested in discussing this I'd be happy to provide the list with examples from DEDR, or reference numbers if they want to look things up on their own, or online. Finally, if anyone knows the current contact information for Professor Krishnamurti (assuming he's still active), please let me know. Thanks. Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk Tue Apr 8 14:32:18 2008 From: Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk (Wright, Roger) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2008 15:32:18 +0100 Subject: Differentiating velar versus labial Dravidian voicederivations Message-ID: These are very much the kind of data which appealed to the late Yakov Malkiel - RW ________________________________ From: histling-l-bounces at mailman.rice.edu on behalf of jess tauber Sent: Tue 4/8/2008 7:15 AM To: histling-l at mailman.rice.edu Subject: [Histling-l] Differentiating velar versus labial Dravidian voicederivations Hopefully someone on the list will know whether anyone has observed this before, or if I can plant my flag here. Dravidian has for me been one of the hardest families to understand from the perspective of root analysis phonosemantically. This started to change after a near exhaustive examination of materials from Santali (Munda) over the past few months. Picking up a copy this past week of Burrow and Emeneau's 2nd ed. of A Dravidian Etymological Dictionary, looking for anything similar to the Santali materials, I began noticing that derived stems seemed to have similar semantics. After compiling all the Tamil -kk-, -ngk-, and -k- derivatives, specifically from the subset of shape (as listed) (C)VCV(N)C(C)u (comb. form in -i), it was clear that a large majority of derivations appeared to encode the notion of beating (or being beaten) into submission, literally or figuratively, and socially or materially. The labial sets, which I'm still compiling, have the opposite sense of throwing off unwanted burdens, freeing oneself, and so on. Why others may not have noticed this before is a mystery to me (for instance Krishnamurti in his 1997 piece on these suffixes), but I can speculate that people were looking for GRAMMATICAL, rather than what might be more lexical (or even expressive) senses in the system. On a more abstract level, the semantic differences between the labial and velar positions could be thought of as marking CONTROL differences (as for instance seen in Salishan voice suffixes). The various acute-featured voice forms (established dentals, sandhi-affected retroflexes and alveolars, and also palatals (but are SOME of these perhaps original??) seem more to have a linear-hierarchical sense to them, but I am far from finishing work on these. These semantic differences may also have something to say about why the graves were used (according to Krishnamurti), in the protolanguage, for nonpast, and the acutes for past. The graves connote unbalanced forces between participants (one winning), and noncooperation (even WITH acquiescence as with velars- giving in is not the same as joining in), while the acutes seem much more about creating continuity and sharing of responsibility. I won't be sure until more of the system is analyzed (and for more languages in the family as well). But there may be something of a split between negative vs. positive reinforcement, and irrealis vs. realis senses, which would then go towards tense interpretations. Santali data changed the way I was looking at the Dravidian materials- as I've posted ad nauseum around the WWW, Santali has a great deal of phonosemantic transparency, especially for expressive adverbs, verbs, adjectives, etc. What IS really interesting here is that the Dravidian derivational suffixes appear to share largely the same types of senses as do, in many cases, the initial consonants in Santali forms. Is it possible that many Santali initials are originally prefixes? Going through the dictionary one can collect many forms that differ in initial but contain the same second or third consonant (where the second may also be nasalized, etc.)- for instance many different forms for 'splash' that have C1VbVr, etc. If so, do the differences in morpheme order go back to morphosyntactic typology, constituent order preferences particularly, and their effects (much as one sees for instance, according to Haiman, different preferences for alliteration versus rhyming). And if there is positional differentiation semantically within derived Dravidian stems (as there definitely seems to be in Santali, just as with Bantu, Japanese, and Korean ideophones), then the root-initials may convey more spatial/pathway information that is not necessarily vital to meaning, and can be omitted. If people are interested in discussing this I'd be happy to provide the list with examples from DEDR, or reference numbers if they want to look things up on their own, or online. Finally, if anyone knows the current contact information for Professor Krishnamurti (assuming he's still active), please let me know. Thanks. Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From peter.e.hook at gmail.com Tue Apr 8 18:56:27 2008 From: peter.e.hook at gmail.com (Peter Hook) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2008 13:56:27 -0500 Subject: Differentiating velar versus labial Dravidian voice derivations In-Reply-To: <24132605.1207635301492.JavaMail.root@elwamui-wigeon.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: Hi Jess, Maybe an argument could be made for the analysis of some rhyming stems in Hindi into some kind of phonaesthetic root (incorporating a sonicizer?) plus a *velar* mobilizing suffix: *ph-aT-ak-naa *'smack, dash (X onto Y)', *c-aT-ak-naa *'snap, crackle, pop; get angry', *kh-aT-ak-naa *'rattle; rankle', *jh-aT-ak-naa* 'jerk, jolt; shake off', *uc-ak-naa* 'be jerked up; spring up', *ch-aT-ak-naa *'slip (from Z's grasp)', *s-aT-ak-naa *'slip away, vanish; scoot over; thrash', *aT-ak-naa *'catch (on X); be checked', *m-aT-ak-naa *'make flirtatious gestures' *l-aT-ak-naa *'dangle, swing'. But the more examples one includes, the diluter the semantics! All the best, Peter PS: Could you let me know the Haiman reference? ("...according to Haiman, different preferences for alliteration versus rhyming...") Thanks. On 4/8/08, jess tauber wrote: > > Hopefully someone on the list will know whether anyone has observed this > before, or if I can plant my flag here. > > Dravidian has for me been one of the hardest families to understand from > the perspective of root analysis phonosemantically. This started to change > after a near exhaustive examination of materials from Santali (Munda) over > the past few months. > > Picking up a copy this past week of Burrow and Emeneau's 2nd ed. of A > Dravidian Etymological Dictionary, looking for anything similar to the > Santali materials, I began noticing that derived stems seemed to have > similar semantics. After compiling all the Tamil -kk-, -ngk-, and -k- > derivatives, specifically from the subset of shape (as listed) > (C)VCV(N)C(C)u (comb. form in -i), it was clear that a large majority of > derivations appeared to encode the notion of beating (or being beaten) into > submission, literally or figuratively, and socially or materially. > > The labial sets, which I'm still compiling, have the opposite sense of > throwing off unwanted burdens, freeing oneself, and so on. Why others may > not have noticed this before is a mystery to me (for instance Krishnamurti > in his 1997 piece on these suffixes), but I can speculate that people were > looking for GRAMMATICAL, rather than what might be more lexical (or even > expressive) senses in the system. On a more abstract level, the semantic > differences between the labial and velar positions could be thought of as > marking CONTROL differences (as for instance seen in Salishan voice > suffixes). > > The various acute-featured voice forms (established dentals, > sandhi-affected retroflexes and alveolars, and also palatals (but are SOME > of these perhaps original??) seem more to have a linear-hierarchical sense > to them, but I am far from finishing work on these. > > These semantic differences may also have something to say about why the > graves were used (according to Krishnamurti), in the protolanguage, for > nonpast, and the acutes for past. The graves connote unbalanced forces > between participants (one winning), and noncooperation (even WITH > acquiescence as with velars- giving in is not the same as joining in), while > the acutes seem much more about creating continuity and sharing of > responsibility. I won't be sure until more of the system is analyzed (and > for more languages in the family as well). But there may be something of a > split between negative vs. positive reinforcement, and irrealis vs. realis > senses, which would then go towards tense interpretations. > > Santali data changed the way I was looking at the Dravidian materials- as > I've posted ad nauseum around the WWW, Santali has a great deal of > phonosemantic transparency, especially for expressive adverbs, verbs, > adjectives, etc. > > What IS really interesting here is that the Dravidian derivational > suffixes appear to share largely the same types of senses as do, in many > cases, the initial consonants in Santali forms. Is it possible that many > Santali initials are originally prefixes? Going through the dictionary one > can collect many forms that differ in initial but contain the same second or > third consonant (where the second may also be nasalized, etc.)- for instance > many different forms for 'splash' that have C1VbVr, etc. > > If so, do the differences in morpheme order go back to morphosyntactic > typology, constituent order preferences particularly, and their effects > (much as one sees for instance, according to Haiman, different preferences > for alliteration versus rhyming). > > And if there is positional differentiation semantically within derived > Dravidian stems (as there definitely seems to be in Santali, just as with > Bantu, Japanese, and Korean ideophones), then the root-initials may convey > more spatial/pathway information that is not necessarily vital to meaning, > and can be omitted. > > If people are interested in discussing this I'd be happy to provide the > list with examples from DEDR, or reference numbers if they want to look > things up on their own, or online. > > Finally, if anyone knows the current contact information for Professor > Krishnamurti (assuming he's still active), please let me know. Thanks. > > Jess Tauber > phonosemantics at earthlink.net > > _______________________________________________ > Histling-l mailing list > Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu > https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Fri Apr 11 01:59:04 2008 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 21:59:04 -0400 Subject: Differentiating velar versus labial Dravidian voice derivations Message-ID: I knew Prof. Malkiel in passing- he was a fixture in the old Berkeley Linguistics departmental library/reading room- and we had a number of discussions that had an impact on the way I viewed language (particularly his notion of 'drift'. As for Indic materials, I plan on getting to them as soon as time permits- one can only spin so many pie plates without some ending up on the floor, as all of you know all too well I expect. An inventory of derived stems from DEDR Tamil entries is nearing completion since last I posted. I'm hoping to see whether root size and makeup, or intervening derivational material, affects the interpretation of the voice elements. Sound symbolism is often positionally sensitive (odd versus even, for example, with opposing features of meaning). I'll post up the info on labial and velar derived forms this weekend for all to see. As for roots themselves, I'm starting to recognize 'old friends' from Indic and Santali, which appears to have borrowed massively (but from whom, familiwise??). Homonymy of Tamil roots/stems in DEDR seems extreme to me- is this sort of thing normal elsewhere, or does it imply severe losses of oppositions (such as obstruent voicing) that could have created such a system? It doesn't seem that derivation helps disambiguate all that much, so maybe that's not what it's for here. Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Fri Apr 11 02:12:51 2008 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 22:12:51 -0400 Subject: Maya glyphs Message-ID: Boy am I not keeping up... I just caught the PBS/Nova special about Mayan epigraphy and translation, and learned for the first time about the choices that the makers of these messages had for different syllables. Then like a flash, out of the blue comes one of those 'aha' moments that may or may not have lasting import. As all of you know by now I keep beating my dead hobby horse of sound symbolism. Mayan languages are rather rich in sound symbolism, from bucketloads of expressive verbs all the way down to partial analytical transparency for many many verb roots, even nonexpressive ones. I have good dictionaries of a number of different languages in the family (such as Laughlin's Tzotzil set), and had in past years worked out the phonosemantic patterning (imperfect as that patterning is), which tended to block out groups of roots with related form/meaning partial structure, for initials, vowels, finals. After seeing the show, it occurs to me that perhaps the glyphmakers might not have been randomly assorting the syllabics with the various choices (as the show implied, they liked 'surprise' or some such). Instead, given the blocking into form/meaning groupings I'm claiming (those of you who've noticed this sort of thing PLEASE chime in), perhaps a) the form of the glyph-partial chosen matched one particular sound symbolic subset that matched the word, and/or b) choice of glyph might create a secondary message to overlay over the first one. In spirit this might be something (assuming it is valid, which I'm not- too much of a piker here) like in modern Chinese where you get 'means like' attached to 'sounds like' (the 'phonetic')- but in Mayan you would get this in the self-same element. Anyway, just a thought. Comments welcome. Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From scat at cfl.rr.com Sun Apr 13 04:13:10 2008 From: scat at cfl.rr.com (Scott) Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2008 00:13:10 -0400 Subject: Conferences? In-Reply-To: <80EED0E0-A7D8-4031-B4C1-EEF27B2230A1@wisc.edu> Message-ID: Thanks! No others spoke for Romance. There are numerous Romance congresses going on but they are in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the UK. _____ From: Joseph Salmons [mailto:jsalmons at wisc.edu] Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2008 6:01 PM To: Scott Subject: Re: [Histling-l] Conferences? The biggest conference specifically for historical is probably the International Conference on HIstorical Linguistics, held every two years. It was in Madison in 2005 and Montreal in 2007, but won't be back in North America until probably 2013. I'll let others speak to Romance, but in English (and Germanic) there are good opportunities: The SHEL conference (Studies in the History of the English Language) will be coming up in Banff, Canada in May 2009. In Germanic generally but with a heavy emphasis on historical, the main annual conference is GLAC (see here: http://mki.wisc.edu/GLAC/GLAC14.htm). GLAC will meet with SHEL in Banff, in fact. The amount of historical linguistics at the Linguistic Society of America seems (to me and a few others at least) to have picked up in recent years. Joe On Mar 23, 2008, at 4:45 PM, Scott wrote: Are there no conferences in the US on historical linguistics or have I just missed the notice(s)? I am particularly interested in English and Romance languages? Scott Catledge Professor Emeritus _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l Editor, Diachronica 818 Van Hise 1220 Linden Dr. University of Wisconsin Madison, WI 53706 joseph-salmons.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From A.v.Kemenade at let.ru.nl Thu Apr 17 15:43:11 2008 From: A.v.Kemenade at let.ru.nl (Ans van Kemenade) Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:43:11 +0200 Subject: 2 PhD positions, grant-funded, RU Nijmegen, Centre for Language Studies Message-ID: PhD positions English Language (fulltime) at the Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands Project 1: Syntactic innovation in early Modern English: the importance of the subject as unmarked theme (reference number 23.13.08) Project 2: Syntactic innovation in early Modern English: the position of focus (reference number 23.14.08) Deadline: 26-04-2008 Description: These two PhD positions are part of a research project funded by the Dutch organization for Scientific research (NWO), granted to PI’s Bettelou Los and Ans van Kemenade. The title of the project is Syntax and Information Structure: Discourse Options after the Loss of Verb-Second. It investigates the changes in informational status of the first constituent in the early Modern English period (ca. 1500-1700). Its hypothesis is that the loss of the verb-second rule in late Middle English compromised the options for the structuring of information in the clause, which led to the emergence of new syntactic constructions. The first PhD position will focus on the rise of new passive constructions (passive ECM, prepositional passives) while the second PhD position will investigate the rise of cleft sentences and new ways to express contrastive focus. The full project description can be found at http://www.ru.nl/engels/wie_wat_waar/medewerkers/persoonlijk/los/ Requirements: * An MA degree in English Language, in Linguistics or in a related field * Preferably a specialization in historical linguistics, with affinity with and some experience in corpus-based quantitative research. The Organization The Faculty of Letters of the Radboud University in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, has an international reputation for excellence in research and teaching and educates some 2800 students, offering a range of courses in the humanities. The PhD candidates will participate in the Research Institute CLS (Centre for Language Studies: www.ru.nl/cls). Conditions of Employment * The position is fulltime * The salary will start at Euro 2,000 a month before taxes * The contract will initially be for 1.5 years, and will be extended with a further two years after review For more information, please contact: Dr. B.Los Prof. Dr. A.M.C. van Kemenade Tel.: (+31) 24 3612842 Tel: (+31) 24 3611422 E-mail: HYPERLINK "mailto:B.Los at let.ru.nl"B.Los at let.ru.nl E-mail: HYPERLINK "mailto:a.vankemenade at let.ru.nl"a.vankemenade at let.ru.nl A detailed description of the project can be found on http://www.ru.nl/engels/wie_wat_waar/medewerkers/persoonlijk/los/. How to apply Please send your letter of application and curriculum vitae by post to: Radboud Universiteit, Faculteit der Letteren Afdeling PZ, P. Stunnenberg, P.O. Box 9103, 6500 HD Nijmegen, The Netherlands or by email to: vacatures at let.ru.nl. Please quote reference number. No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 269.23.0/1382 - Release Date: 16-4-2008 17:34 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From haspelmath at eva.mpg.de Tue Apr 22 12:43:25 2008 From: haspelmath at eva.mpg.de (Martin Haspelmath) Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:43:25 +0200 Subject: fellowship in linguistics at MPI-EVA Leipzig Message-ID: Doctoral fellowship in linguistics Postdoctoral fellowship in linguistics The Department of Linguistics of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig) seeks candidates for a two-year doctoral fellowship in linguistics (with the possibility of two 6-month extensions) and/or a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in linguistics (also with the possibility of two 6-month extensions). The candidates should be able to make contributions to the department's areas of research. The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology studies human diversity and human origins in a multidisciplinary perspective. The contribution of linguistics to this goal lies in the study of the history and prehistory of languages (and peoples) around the world (especially non-European languages), as well as the current diversity of human languages (linguistic fieldwork on little-described and endangered languages and language typology). The Department of Linguistics collaborates with the Department of Evolutionary Genetics and the Junior research Group on Comparative Population Linguistics to compare the evidence from linguistics and genetics for the prehistory of human populations. The largest recent and current collaborative projects of the Department of Linguistics are the World Atlas of Language Structures (http://wals.info/) and Loanword Typology. More information on these and other projects is available on the institute's website (see below). Doctoral fellows should already have an MA in Linguistics or an equivalent qualification, and be either registered or qualified to register in a recognized doctoral program at a university or equivalent degree-awarding institution. Doctoral fellows have the possibility of obtaining their doctoral degree through the University of Leipzig (http:/www.uni-leipzig.de). Postdoctoral fellows are expected to come with a flexible research agenda that fits into the department's current foci. They should be ready to contribute to collaborative projects, and they will have the opportunity to propose collaborative projects themselves. Regular participation in the department's talks, seminars and workshops is expected. Except for approved absences (e.g. fieldwork, conferences, vacation), the place of work is Leipzig. The fellowships are available from 01 October 2008, but a later starting date may be negotiated. Postdoctoral fellows must have their PhD in hand before the starting date. There are no teaching obligations, but the opportunity for teaching in the linguistics program of the University of Leipzig exists. Good knowledge of English is required. Applicants are requested to send a C.V., statement of research interests, two letters of recommendation, and a sample of written work on a relevant topic to: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Personnel Administration Prof. Dr. Bernard Comrie - Doctoral/Postdoctoral fellow position Deutscher Platz 6 D-04103 Leipzig, Germany or by e-mail to: comrie at eva.mpg.de (in which case supplementary materials available only in hard copy should be sent ot the above mailing address). e-mail: comrie at eva.mpg.de fax: +49 341 35 50 333 institute web site: http://www.eva.mpg.de Deadline for receipt of applications: 17 May 2008 _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk Wed Apr 23 16:39:32 2008 From: Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk (Wright, Roger) Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:39:32 +0100 Subject: LVLT8 Message-ID: Cari colleghi, The Acts of the 8th International Conference on Late and Vulgar Latin have now been published. You, and/or your college library, will probably be interested in acquiring the volume, so I here attach the flyer for ordering it, plus the contents index. The price is not exorbitant. Please forward the flyers to any other colleague or library who are likely to be interested in the volume - Many thanks, Roger Wright -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: LVLT8flyer.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 152853 bytes Desc: LVLT8flyer.pdf URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: LVLT8castlist.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 76354 bytes Desc: LVLT8castlist.pdf URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From sashavovin at gmail.com Fri Apr 25 04:53:15 2008 From: sashavovin at gmail.com (Alexander Vovin) Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:53:15 +0900 Subject: query: whales and dolphins vs. pigs and lambs Message-ID: Dear all, Does anyone know about any possible semantic shifts between 'doplhin' (or 'whale') to 'lamb' (or 'pig') or vice versa? A friend told me that he vaguely remembers that some language calls whales 'pigs of the sea', but he could not recollect which one. I will be grateful for any information. Thank you, Best wishes, Sasha -- ============ Alexander Vovin Visiting Professor, International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto & Professor of East Asian Languages University of Hawaii at Manoa _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From peter.e.hook at gmail.com Fri Apr 25 05:27:22 2008 From: peter.e.hook at gmail.com (Peter Hook) Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:27:22 -0500 Subject: query: whales and dolphins vs. pigs and lambs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi Sasha, According to Google there are a number of candidates (in English) for "pig of the sea", among them the dolphin and the dugong. All the best, Peter On 4/24/08, Alexander Vovin wrote: > > Dear all, > > Does anyone know about any possible semantic shifts between > 'doplhin' (or 'whale') to 'lamb' (or 'pig') or vice versa? A friend > told me that he vaguely remembers that some language calls whales > 'pigs of the sea', but he could not recollect which one. > I will be grateful for any information. Thank you, > > Best wishes, > > Sasha > > -- > ============ > Alexander Vovin > Visiting Professor, International Research Center for Japanese Studies, > Kyoto & > Professor of East Asian Languages > University of Hawaii at Manoa > _______________________________________________ > Histling-l mailing list > Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu > https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From chris_cleirigh at hotmail.com Fri Apr 25 05:58:46 2008 From: chris_cleirigh at hotmail.com (=?iso-8859-1?Q?ChRIS_CL=C9iRIGh?=) Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:58:46 +1000 Subject: query: whales and dolphins vs. pigs and lambs In-Reply-To: <8f9c3f9f0804242227m348e500re0f0b947be7d42a6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Irish for 'porpoise' is 'muc mhara' which is literally 'pig of the sea'. cheers, chris ________________________________ > Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:27:22 -0500 > From: peter.e.hook at gmail.com > To: sashavovin at gmail.com > Subject: Re: [Histling-l] query: whales and dolphins vs. pigs and lambs > CC: histling-l at mailman.rice.edu > > Hi Sasha, > > According to Google there are a number of candidates (in English) for "pig of the sea", among them the dolphin and the dugong. > > All the best, Peter > > > > On 4/24/08, Alexander Vovin wrote: > Dear all, > > Does anyone know about any possible semantic shifts between > 'doplhin' (or 'whale') to 'lamb' (or 'pig') or vice versa? A friend > told me that he vaguely remembers that some language calls whales > 'pigs of the sea', but he could not recollect which one. > I will be grateful for any information. Thank you, > > Best wishes, > > Sasha > > -- > ============ > Alexander Vovin > Visiting Professor, International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto & > Professor of East Asian Languages > University of Hawaii at Manoa > _______________________________________________ > Histling-l mailing list > Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu > https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l _________________________________________________________________ You dream job is up for grabs. Grab it. http://mycareer.com.au/?s_cid=596065 _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From johncharles.smith at stcatz.ox.ac.uk Fri Apr 25 07:27:02 2008 From: johncharles.smith at stcatz.ox.ac.uk (John Charles Smith) Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:27:02 +0100 Subject: query: whales and dolphins vs. pigs and lambs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From paoram at unipv.it Fri Apr 25 08:55:22 2008 From: paoram at unipv.it (Paolo Ramat) Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:55:22 +0200 Subject: query: whales and dolphins vs. pigs and lambs Message-ID: It Ital. we call 'bue marino' ("sea ox") the Dugong dugong, but I never heard of a 'porco marino' ("sea pig"). Best, Paolo @@@@@@@@@@@@@ Prof. Paolo Ramat Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori (IUSS) Responsabile della classe di Scienze Umane V.le Lungo Ticino Sforza 56, 27100 Pavia - Italia Tel. +39 0382 375811 Fax +39 0382 375899 ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Charles Smith" To: "Alexander Vovin" Cc: Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 9:27 AM Subject: Re: [Histling-l] query: whales and dolphins vs. pigs and lambs > Dear Sasha, > > French marsouin 'porpoise' (and so a type of dolphin) appears to have been > borrowed in the eleventh century from Old Norse marsvin, literally 'sea > pig'. > Various Germanic languages, at various stages of their existence, have > called > a porpoise a 'sea pig' (compare German Meerschwein, Danish marsvin), > although, > in a bizarre twist, this word can mean 'guinea pig' in many of these > languages, a > meaning which sometimes replaces the sense of 'porpoise' and sometimes > exists > alongside it. English porpoise itself comes from Old French por[c]peis, > por[c]pois > 'pig fish'. > > In Pliny, we find the expression porculus marinus 'little sea pig', but it > is not > clear what it refers to (some people have claimed he means a porpoise). > See > Alfred C. Andrews, 'Greek and Latin mouse-fishes and pig-fishes', in > Transactions > and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 79 (1948), pp. > 232-253. > > Don't know if any of this helps. > > Best wishes, > > JC > -- > John Charles Smith > Official Fellow and Tutor, St Catherine's College, Oxford, OX1 3UJ, UK > Deputy Director, Research Centre for Romance Linguistics, University of > Oxford > tel. +44 1865 271700 (College) / 271748 (direct) / 271768 (fax) > > _______________________________________________ > Histling-l mailing list > Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu > https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From histling-l-bounces at MAILMAN.RICE.EDU Fri Apr 25 10:00:45 2008 From: histling-l-bounces at MAILMAN.RICE.EDU (histling-l-bounces at MAILMAN.RICE.EDU) Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 11:00:45 +0100 Subject: query: whales and dolphins vs. pigs and lambs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: There are a large number of terms for whales in the Historical Thesaurus of English http://libra.englang.arts.gla.ac.uk/historicalthesaurus/ Some of these relate to pigs - sea-pig, hogback, pork-fish. Best wishes Christian Kay On 25 Apr 2008 at 13:53, Alexander Vovin wrote: Date sent: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:53:15 +0900 From: "Alexander Vovin" To: histling-l at mailman.rice.edu Subject: [Histling-l] query: whales and dolphins vs. pigs and lambs > Dear all, > > Does anyone know about any possible semantic shifts between > 'doplhin' (or 'whale') to 'lamb' (or 'pig') or vice versa? A friend > told me that he vaguely remembers that some language calls whales > 'pigs of the sea', but he could not recollect which one. > I will be grateful for any information. Thank you, > > Best wishes, > > Sasha > > -- > ============ > Alexander Vovin > Visiting Professor, International Research Center for Japanese > Studies, Kyoto & Professor of East Asian Languages University of > Hawaii at Manoa _______________________________________________ > Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu > https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l > -- Professor Christian Janet Kay Department of English Language University of Glasgow Glasgow G12 8QQ UK +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ http://libra.englang.arts.gla.ac.uk/historicalthesaurus/ http://www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk/ http://www.glasgow.ac.uk/englishlanguage/staff/christianjkay/ Phone 0141 330 4150 Fax 0141 330 3533 email c.kay at englang.arts.gla.ac.uk The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401 _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From sashavovin at gmail.com Mon Apr 28 09:56:16 2008 From: sashavovin at gmail.com (Alexander Vovin) Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:56:16 +0900 Subject: Summary: whales and dolphins vs. pigs and lambs Message-ID: Dear all, Many thanks for everyone who responded to my query about pigs/lambs vs. whales/dolphins (in chronological order): Peter Hook, Chris Cleirigh, Roger Lass, John Charles Smith, Shigeru Tsuchida, Paolo Ramat, Ivan Iguartua, Christian Kay, Frank Seifert, Mair Parry, and Vit Bubenik. If I may offer a summary, It looks like that whales, dolphins, dugongs, porpoises etc. can be named 'pig of the sea', 'water pig, 'pig fish'. 'sea-ox' and sea animal' also do occur, although much more rare. However, it seems that there are no direct semantic shifts like 'pig' > 'dolphin', or what is even more important to me 'lamb' > 'dolphin.' For those, who might be interested, the original query was triggered by the following problem: after my recent talk at the Kyoto University, where I suggested that Proto-Ryukyuan *peto 'dolphin' (with seemingly no apparent attestations on the Japanese side of the Japonic family and as far as I am aware without any possible external parallels in surrounding language families) should be probably treated as Proto-Japonic word for 'dolphin' since Old Japanese (OJ) (etc.) iruka 'dolphin' is rather transparent loan from Ainu, my friend Bjarke Frellesvig suggested the possibility that *peto might be connected to OJ pi1tuzi 'lamb' (Modern Japanese hitsuji). Phonetically and morphologically it is plausible, because Proto-Japonic *e and *o raised to OJ i and u respectively in most cases, and because there are dialect data (Yaeyama phitsI, pitsi 'lamb') indicating that -zi is a suffix. However, semantics seemed somewhat suspicious (although 'pig of the sea' lurked in my mind), and this basically was confirmed by responses that included no references to lambs. There is an additional problem: Yaeyama forms indicate Proto-Ryukyuan *petu 'lamb', not *peto. So, the etymology is probably still possible, but, unfortunately for the possibility to strengthen the status of Proto-Ryukyuan *peto 'dolphin' at the Proto-Japonic level, it is not strong at all. Thank you all again, Best wishes, Sasha ============ Alexander Vovin Visiting Professor, International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto & Professor of East Asian Languages University of Hawaii at Manoa On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 1:53 PM, Alexander Vovin wrote: > Dear all, > > Does anyone know about any possible semantic shifts between > 'doplhin' (or 'whale') to 'lamb' (or 'pig') or vice versa? A friend > told me that he vaguely remembers that some language calls whales > 'pigs of the sea', but he could not recollect which one. > I will be grateful for any information. Thank you, > > Best wishes, > > Sasha > > -- > ============ > Alexander Vovin > Visiting Professor, International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto & > Professor of East Asian Languages > University of Hawaii at Manoa > -- _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From Maj-Britt.MosegaardHansen at manchester.ac.uk Fri Apr 4 15:18:04 2008 From: Maj-Britt.MosegaardHansen at manchester.ac.uk (Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen) Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 16:18:04 +0100 Subject: Book announcement Message-ID: Generator Microsoft Word 11 (filtered medium) Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen (The University of Manchester) Particles at the Semantics / Pragmatics Interface:? Synchronic and Diachronic Issues. ?A Study with Special Reference to the French Phasa Adverbs.? (Current Research in the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface, vol. 19). ?Oxford:? Elsevier (14 December 2007)? Hardcover:? 251 pp. ISBN: 978-0080552934 (Pricing:? GBP83.00, USD150.00, EUR120.00) The central aim of this study is to elucidate the nature of the semantics / pragmatics distinction in both synchrony and diachrony.?? The author proposes a definition of semantics and pragmatics that is orthogonal to the question of truth-conditionality, and discusses the status of various types of meaning with respect to this definition.? A corollary aim of the study is to propose an account of how and why erstwhile pragmatically-determined elements of meaning may, in the course of time, become semanticized.??? The nature, paths, and mechanisms of diachronic sense changes of the relevant type, as well as the motivations for them, are discussed in some detail.? The author combines insights from different sources, prominently frame-based semantics, historical pragmatics, and Peircean semiotics, to arrive at a model of linguistic meaning that is both synchronically and diachronically dynamic, hence capable of integrating structure and usage. As a case study, the synchronic uses and diachronic evolution of the exceptionally polyfunctional French phasal adverbs d?j? (' already' ), encore (' still/yet' ), toujours (' still' ), and enfin (' finally' ) are analyzed in some detail, with particular attention being paid to the semantic vs pragmatic nature of the various uses of these items. The book will be of interest to lexical semanticists, pragmaticians, historical linguists, functional/cognitive linguists, discourse analysts, and semioticians. To order, contact: Turpin Distribution Services Ltd UK & Rest of World Customer Services Pegasus Drive, Stratton Business Park, Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, SG18 8TQ, UK Tel: +44 (0) 1767 604 951 Fax: +44 (0) 1767 601640 US (incl. Canada & Latin America) Customer Services The Bleachery, 143 West Street, New Milford, Connecticut, CT 06776, USA USA toll free: 800 456 6323 Tel.: +1 860 350 0041 Fax: +1 860 350 0039 E-mail custserv at turpin-distribution.com ____________________________________________ Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen Professor of French language and linguistics School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures The University of Manchester Oxford Road Manchester M13 9PL Tel.: +44 (0)161 306-1733 Fax: +44 (0)161 275-3031 Web: http://www.llc.manchester.ac.uk Editor-in-Chief of Revue Romane Associate Editor of Studies in Pragmatics -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Tue Apr 8 06:15:01 2008 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2008 02:15:01 -0400 Subject: Differentiating velar versus labial Dravidian voice derivations Message-ID: Hopefully someone on the list will know whether anyone has observed this before, or if I can plant my flag here. Dravidian has for me been one of the hardest families to understand from the perspective of root analysis phonosemantically. This started to change after a near exhaustive examination of materials from Santali (Munda) over the past few months. Picking up a copy this past week of Burrow and Emeneau's 2nd ed. of A Dravidian Etymological Dictionary, looking for anything similar to the Santali materials, I began noticing that derived stems seemed to have similar semantics. After compiling all the Tamil -kk-, -ngk-, and -k- derivatives, specifically from the subset of shape (as listed) (C)VCV(N)C(C)u (comb. form in -i), it was clear that a large majority of derivations appeared to encode the notion of beating (or being beaten) into submission, literally or figuratively, and socially or materially. The labial sets, which I'm still compiling, have the opposite sense of throwing off unwanted burdens, freeing oneself, and so on. Why others may not have noticed this before is a mystery to me (for instance Krishnamurti in his 1997 piece on these suffixes), but I can speculate that people were looking for GRAMMATICAL, rather than what might be more lexical (or even expressive) senses in the system. On a more abstract level, the semantic differences between the labial and velar positions could be thought of as marking CONTROL differences (as for instance seen in Salishan voice suffixes). The various acute-featured voice forms (established dentals, sandhi-affected retroflexes and alveolars, and also palatals (but are SOME of these perhaps original??) seem more to have a linear-hierarchical sense to them, but I am far from finishing work on these. These semantic differences may also have something to say about why the graves were used (according to Krishnamurti), in the protolanguage, for nonpast, and the acutes for past. The graves connote unbalanced forces between participants (one winning), and noncooperation (even WITH acquiescence as with velars- giving in is not the same as joining in), while the acutes seem much more about creating continuity and sharing of responsibility. I won't be sure until more of the system is analyzed (and for more languages in the family as well). But there may be something of a split between negative vs. positive reinforcement, and irrealis vs. realis senses, which would then go towards tense interpretations. Santali data changed the way I was looking at the Dravidian materials- as I've posted ad nauseum around the WWW, Santali has a great deal of phonosemantic transparency, especially for expressive adverbs, verbs, adjectives, etc. What IS really interesting here is that the Dravidian derivational suffixes appear to share largely the same types of senses as do, in many cases, the initial consonants in Santali forms. Is it possible that many Santali initials are originally prefixes? Going through the dictionary one can collect many forms that differ in initial but contain the same second or third consonant (where the second may also be nasalized, etc.)- for instance many different forms for 'splash' that have C1VbVr, etc. If so, do the differences in morpheme order go back to morphosyntactic typology, constituent order preferences particularly, and their effects (much as one sees for instance, according to Haiman, different preferences for alliteration versus rhyming). And if there is positional differentiation semantically within derived Dravidian stems (as there definitely seems to be in Santali, just as with Bantu, Japanese, and Korean ideophones), then the root-initials may convey more spatial/pathway information that is not necessarily vital to meaning, and can be omitted. If people are interested in discussing this I'd be happy to provide the list with examples from DEDR, or reference numbers if they want to look things up on their own, or online. Finally, if anyone knows the current contact information for Professor Krishnamurti (assuming he's still active), please let me know. Thanks. Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk Tue Apr 8 14:32:18 2008 From: Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk (Wright, Roger) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2008 15:32:18 +0100 Subject: Differentiating velar versus labial Dravidian voicederivations Message-ID: These are very much the kind of data which appealed to the late Yakov Malkiel - RW ________________________________ From: histling-l-bounces at mailman.rice.edu on behalf of jess tauber Sent: Tue 4/8/2008 7:15 AM To: histling-l at mailman.rice.edu Subject: [Histling-l] Differentiating velar versus labial Dravidian voicederivations Hopefully someone on the list will know whether anyone has observed this before, or if I can plant my flag here. Dravidian has for me been one of the hardest families to understand from the perspective of root analysis phonosemantically. This started to change after a near exhaustive examination of materials from Santali (Munda) over the past few months. Picking up a copy this past week of Burrow and Emeneau's 2nd ed. of A Dravidian Etymological Dictionary, looking for anything similar to the Santali materials, I began noticing that derived stems seemed to have similar semantics. After compiling all the Tamil -kk-, -ngk-, and -k- derivatives, specifically from the subset of shape (as listed) (C)VCV(N)C(C)u (comb. form in -i), it was clear that a large majority of derivations appeared to encode the notion of beating (or being beaten) into submission, literally or figuratively, and socially or materially. The labial sets, which I'm still compiling, have the opposite sense of throwing off unwanted burdens, freeing oneself, and so on. Why others may not have noticed this before is a mystery to me (for instance Krishnamurti in his 1997 piece on these suffixes), but I can speculate that people were looking for GRAMMATICAL, rather than what might be more lexical (or even expressive) senses in the system. On a more abstract level, the semantic differences between the labial and velar positions could be thought of as marking CONTROL differences (as for instance seen in Salishan voice suffixes). The various acute-featured voice forms (established dentals, sandhi-affected retroflexes and alveolars, and also palatals (but are SOME of these perhaps original??) seem more to have a linear-hierarchical sense to them, but I am far from finishing work on these. These semantic differences may also have something to say about why the graves were used (according to Krishnamurti), in the protolanguage, for nonpast, and the acutes for past. The graves connote unbalanced forces between participants (one winning), and noncooperation (even WITH acquiescence as with velars- giving in is not the same as joining in), while the acutes seem much more about creating continuity and sharing of responsibility. I won't be sure until more of the system is analyzed (and for more languages in the family as well). But there may be something of a split between negative vs. positive reinforcement, and irrealis vs. realis senses, which would then go towards tense interpretations. Santali data changed the way I was looking at the Dravidian materials- as I've posted ad nauseum around the WWW, Santali has a great deal of phonosemantic transparency, especially for expressive adverbs, verbs, adjectives, etc. What IS really interesting here is that the Dravidian derivational suffixes appear to share largely the same types of senses as do, in many cases, the initial consonants in Santali forms. Is it possible that many Santali initials are originally prefixes? Going through the dictionary one can collect many forms that differ in initial but contain the same second or third consonant (where the second may also be nasalized, etc.)- for instance many different forms for 'splash' that have C1VbVr, etc. If so, do the differences in morpheme order go back to morphosyntactic typology, constituent order preferences particularly, and their effects (much as one sees for instance, according to Haiman, different preferences for alliteration versus rhyming). And if there is positional differentiation semantically within derived Dravidian stems (as there definitely seems to be in Santali, just as with Bantu, Japanese, and Korean ideophones), then the root-initials may convey more spatial/pathway information that is not necessarily vital to meaning, and can be omitted. If people are interested in discussing this I'd be happy to provide the list with examples from DEDR, or reference numbers if they want to look things up on their own, or online. Finally, if anyone knows the current contact information for Professor Krishnamurti (assuming he's still active), please let me know. Thanks. Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From peter.e.hook at gmail.com Tue Apr 8 18:56:27 2008 From: peter.e.hook at gmail.com (Peter Hook) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2008 13:56:27 -0500 Subject: Differentiating velar versus labial Dravidian voice derivations In-Reply-To: <24132605.1207635301492.JavaMail.root@elwamui-wigeon.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: Hi Jess, Maybe an argument could be made for the analysis of some rhyming stems in Hindi into some kind of phonaesthetic root (incorporating a sonicizer?) plus a *velar* mobilizing suffix: *ph-aT-ak-naa *'smack, dash (X onto Y)', *c-aT-ak-naa *'snap, crackle, pop; get angry', *kh-aT-ak-naa *'rattle; rankle', *jh-aT-ak-naa* 'jerk, jolt; shake off', *uc-ak-naa* 'be jerked up; spring up', *ch-aT-ak-naa *'slip (from Z's grasp)', *s-aT-ak-naa *'slip away, vanish; scoot over; thrash', *aT-ak-naa *'catch (on X); be checked', *m-aT-ak-naa *'make flirtatious gestures' *l-aT-ak-naa *'dangle, swing'. But the more examples one includes, the diluter the semantics! All the best, Peter PS: Could you let me know the Haiman reference? ("...according to Haiman, different preferences for alliteration versus rhyming...") Thanks. On 4/8/08, jess tauber wrote: > > Hopefully someone on the list will know whether anyone has observed this > before, or if I can plant my flag here. > > Dravidian has for me been one of the hardest families to understand from > the perspective of root analysis phonosemantically. This started to change > after a near exhaustive examination of materials from Santali (Munda) over > the past few months. > > Picking up a copy this past week of Burrow and Emeneau's 2nd ed. of A > Dravidian Etymological Dictionary, looking for anything similar to the > Santali materials, I began noticing that derived stems seemed to have > similar semantics. After compiling all the Tamil -kk-, -ngk-, and -k- > derivatives, specifically from the subset of shape (as listed) > (C)VCV(N)C(C)u (comb. form in -i), it was clear that a large majority of > derivations appeared to encode the notion of beating (or being beaten) into > submission, literally or figuratively, and socially or materially. > > The labial sets, which I'm still compiling, have the opposite sense of > throwing off unwanted burdens, freeing oneself, and so on. Why others may > not have noticed this before is a mystery to me (for instance Krishnamurti > in his 1997 piece on these suffixes), but I can speculate that people were > looking for GRAMMATICAL, rather than what might be more lexical (or even > expressive) senses in the system. On a more abstract level, the semantic > differences between the labial and velar positions could be thought of as > marking CONTROL differences (as for instance seen in Salishan voice > suffixes). > > The various acute-featured voice forms (established dentals, > sandhi-affected retroflexes and alveolars, and also palatals (but are SOME > of these perhaps original??) seem more to have a linear-hierarchical sense > to them, but I am far from finishing work on these. > > These semantic differences may also have something to say about why the > graves were used (according to Krishnamurti), in the protolanguage, for > nonpast, and the acutes for past. The graves connote unbalanced forces > between participants (one winning), and noncooperation (even WITH > acquiescence as with velars- giving in is not the same as joining in), while > the acutes seem much more about creating continuity and sharing of > responsibility. I won't be sure until more of the system is analyzed (and > for more languages in the family as well). But there may be something of a > split between negative vs. positive reinforcement, and irrealis vs. realis > senses, which would then go towards tense interpretations. > > Santali data changed the way I was looking at the Dravidian materials- as > I've posted ad nauseum around the WWW, Santali has a great deal of > phonosemantic transparency, especially for expressive adverbs, verbs, > adjectives, etc. > > What IS really interesting here is that the Dravidian derivational > suffixes appear to share largely the same types of senses as do, in many > cases, the initial consonants in Santali forms. Is it possible that many > Santali initials are originally prefixes? Going through the dictionary one > can collect many forms that differ in initial but contain the same second or > third consonant (where the second may also be nasalized, etc.)- for instance > many different forms for 'splash' that have C1VbVr, etc. > > If so, do the differences in morpheme order go back to morphosyntactic > typology, constituent order preferences particularly, and their effects > (much as one sees for instance, according to Haiman, different preferences > for alliteration versus rhyming). > > And if there is positional differentiation semantically within derived > Dravidian stems (as there definitely seems to be in Santali, just as with > Bantu, Japanese, and Korean ideophones), then the root-initials may convey > more spatial/pathway information that is not necessarily vital to meaning, > and can be omitted. > > If people are interested in discussing this I'd be happy to provide the > list with examples from DEDR, or reference numbers if they want to look > things up on their own, or online. > > Finally, if anyone knows the current contact information for Professor > Krishnamurti (assuming he's still active), please let me know. Thanks. > > Jess Tauber > phonosemantics at earthlink.net > > _______________________________________________ > Histling-l mailing list > Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu > https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Fri Apr 11 01:59:04 2008 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 21:59:04 -0400 Subject: Differentiating velar versus labial Dravidian voice derivations Message-ID: I knew Prof. Malkiel in passing- he was a fixture in the old Berkeley Linguistics departmental library/reading room- and we had a number of discussions that had an impact on the way I viewed language (particularly his notion of 'drift'. As for Indic materials, I plan on getting to them as soon as time permits- one can only spin so many pie plates without some ending up on the floor, as all of you know all too well I expect. An inventory of derived stems from DEDR Tamil entries is nearing completion since last I posted. I'm hoping to see whether root size and makeup, or intervening derivational material, affects the interpretation of the voice elements. Sound symbolism is often positionally sensitive (odd versus even, for example, with opposing features of meaning). I'll post up the info on labial and velar derived forms this weekend for all to see. As for roots themselves, I'm starting to recognize 'old friends' from Indic and Santali, which appears to have borrowed massively (but from whom, familiwise??). Homonymy of Tamil roots/stems in DEDR seems extreme to me- is this sort of thing normal elsewhere, or does it imply severe losses of oppositions (such as obstruent voicing) that could have created such a system? It doesn't seem that derivation helps disambiguate all that much, so maybe that's not what it's for here. Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From phonosemantics at earthlink.net Fri Apr 11 02:12:51 2008 From: phonosemantics at earthlink.net (jess tauber) Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 22:12:51 -0400 Subject: Maya glyphs Message-ID: Boy am I not keeping up... I just caught the PBS/Nova special about Mayan epigraphy and translation, and learned for the first time about the choices that the makers of these messages had for different syllables. Then like a flash, out of the blue comes one of those 'aha' moments that may or may not have lasting import. As all of you know by now I keep beating my dead hobby horse of sound symbolism. Mayan languages are rather rich in sound symbolism, from bucketloads of expressive verbs all the way down to partial analytical transparency for many many verb roots, even nonexpressive ones. I have good dictionaries of a number of different languages in the family (such as Laughlin's Tzotzil set), and had in past years worked out the phonosemantic patterning (imperfect as that patterning is), which tended to block out groups of roots with related form/meaning partial structure, for initials, vowels, finals. After seeing the show, it occurs to me that perhaps the glyphmakers might not have been randomly assorting the syllabics with the various choices (as the show implied, they liked 'surprise' or some such). Instead, given the blocking into form/meaning groupings I'm claiming (those of you who've noticed this sort of thing PLEASE chime in), perhaps a) the form of the glyph-partial chosen matched one particular sound symbolic subset that matched the word, and/or b) choice of glyph might create a secondary message to overlay over the first one. In spirit this might be something (assuming it is valid, which I'm not- too much of a piker here) like in modern Chinese where you get 'means like' attached to 'sounds like' (the 'phonetic')- but in Mayan you would get this in the self-same element. Anyway, just a thought. Comments welcome. Jess Tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From scat at cfl.rr.com Sun Apr 13 04:13:10 2008 From: scat at cfl.rr.com (Scott) Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2008 00:13:10 -0400 Subject: Conferences? In-Reply-To: <80EED0E0-A7D8-4031-B4C1-EEF27B2230A1@wisc.edu> Message-ID: Thanks! No others spoke for Romance. There are numerous Romance congresses going on but they are in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the UK. _____ From: Joseph Salmons [mailto:jsalmons at wisc.edu] Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2008 6:01 PM To: Scott Subject: Re: [Histling-l] Conferences? The biggest conference specifically for historical is probably the International Conference on HIstorical Linguistics, held every two years. It was in Madison in 2005 and Montreal in 2007, but won't be back in North America until probably 2013. I'll let others speak to Romance, but in English (and Germanic) there are good opportunities: The SHEL conference (Studies in the History of the English Language) will be coming up in Banff, Canada in May 2009. In Germanic generally but with a heavy emphasis on historical, the main annual conference is GLAC (see here: http://mki.wisc.edu/GLAC/GLAC14.htm). GLAC will meet with SHEL in Banff, in fact. The amount of historical linguistics at the Linguistic Society of America seems (to me and a few others at least) to have picked up in recent years. Joe On Mar 23, 2008, at 4:45 PM, Scott wrote: Are there no conferences in the US on historical linguistics or have I just missed the notice(s)? I am particularly interested in English and Romance languages? Scott Catledge Professor Emeritus _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l Editor, Diachronica 818 Van Hise 1220 Linden Dr. University of Wisconsin Madison, WI 53706 joseph-salmons.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From A.v.Kemenade at let.ru.nl Thu Apr 17 15:43:11 2008 From: A.v.Kemenade at let.ru.nl (Ans van Kemenade) Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:43:11 +0200 Subject: 2 PhD positions, grant-funded, RU Nijmegen, Centre for Language Studies Message-ID: PhD positions English Language (fulltime) at the Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands Project 1: Syntactic innovation in early Modern English: the importance of the subject as unmarked theme (reference number 23.13.08) Project 2: Syntactic innovation in early Modern English: the position of focus (reference number 23.14.08) Deadline: 26-04-2008 Description: These two PhD positions are part of a research project funded by the Dutch organization for Scientific research (NWO), granted to PI?s Bettelou Los and Ans van Kemenade. The title of the project is Syntax and Information Structure: Discourse Options after the Loss of Verb-Second. It investigates the changes in informational status of the first constituent in the early Modern English period (ca. 1500-1700). Its hypothesis is that the loss of the verb-second rule in late Middle English compromised the options for the structuring of information in the clause, which led to the emergence of new syntactic constructions. The first PhD position will focus on the rise of new passive constructions (passive ECM, prepositional passives) while the second PhD position will investigate the rise of cleft sentences and new ways to express contrastive focus. The full project description can be found at http://www.ru.nl/engels/wie_wat_waar/medewerkers/persoonlijk/los/ Requirements: * An MA degree in English Language, in Linguistics or in a related field * Preferably a specialization in historical linguistics, with affinity with and some experience in corpus-based quantitative research. The Organization The Faculty of Letters of the Radboud University in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, has an international reputation for excellence in research and teaching and educates some 2800 students, offering a range of courses in the humanities. The PhD candidates will participate in the Research Institute CLS (Centre for Language Studies: www.ru.nl/cls). Conditions of Employment * The position is fulltime * The salary will start at Euro 2,000 a month before taxes * The contract will initially be for 1.5 years, and will be extended with a further two years after review For more information, please contact: Dr. B.Los Prof. Dr. A.M.C. van Kemenade Tel.: (+31) 24 3612842 Tel: (+31) 24 3611422 E-mail: HYPERLINK "mailto:B.Los at let.ru.nl"B.Los at let.ru.nl E-mail: HYPERLINK "mailto:a.vankemenade at let.ru.nl"a.vankemenade at let.ru.nl A detailed description of the project can be found on http://www.ru.nl/engels/wie_wat_waar/medewerkers/persoonlijk/los/. How to apply Please send your letter of application and curriculum vitae by post to: Radboud Universiteit, Faculteit der Letteren Afdeling PZ, P. Stunnenberg, P.O. Box 9103, 6500 HD Nijmegen, The Netherlands or by email to: vacatures at let.ru.nl. Please quote reference number. No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 269.23.0/1382 - Release Date: 16-4-2008 17:34 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From haspelmath at eva.mpg.de Tue Apr 22 12:43:25 2008 From: haspelmath at eva.mpg.de (Martin Haspelmath) Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:43:25 +0200 Subject: fellowship in linguistics at MPI-EVA Leipzig Message-ID: Doctoral fellowship in linguistics Postdoctoral fellowship in linguistics The Department of Linguistics of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig) seeks candidates for a two-year doctoral fellowship in linguistics (with the possibility of two 6-month extensions) and/or a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in linguistics (also with the possibility of two 6-month extensions). The candidates should be able to make contributions to the department's areas of research. The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology studies human diversity and human origins in a multidisciplinary perspective. The contribution of linguistics to this goal lies in the study of the history and prehistory of languages (and peoples) around the world (especially non-European languages), as well as the current diversity of human languages (linguistic fieldwork on little-described and endangered languages and language typology). The Department of Linguistics collaborates with the Department of Evolutionary Genetics and the Junior research Group on Comparative Population Linguistics to compare the evidence from linguistics and genetics for the prehistory of human populations. The largest recent and current collaborative projects of the Department of Linguistics are the World Atlas of Language Structures (http://wals.info/) and Loanword Typology. More information on these and other projects is available on the institute's website (see below). Doctoral fellows should already have an MA in Linguistics or an equivalent qualification, and be either registered or qualified to register in a recognized doctoral program at a university or equivalent degree-awarding institution. Doctoral fellows have the possibility of obtaining their doctoral degree through the University of Leipzig (http:/www.uni-leipzig.de). Postdoctoral fellows are expected to come with a flexible research agenda that fits into the department's current foci. They should be ready to contribute to collaborative projects, and they will have the opportunity to propose collaborative projects themselves. Regular participation in the department's talks, seminars and workshops is expected. Except for approved absences (e.g. fieldwork, conferences, vacation), the place of work is Leipzig. The fellowships are available from 01 October 2008, but a later starting date may be negotiated. Postdoctoral fellows must have their PhD in hand before the starting date. There are no teaching obligations, but the opportunity for teaching in the linguistics program of the University of Leipzig exists. Good knowledge of English is required. Applicants are requested to send a C.V., statement of research interests, two letters of recommendation, and a sample of written work on a relevant topic to: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Personnel Administration Prof. Dr. Bernard Comrie - Doctoral/Postdoctoral fellow position Deutscher Platz 6 D-04103 Leipzig, Germany or by e-mail to: comrie at eva.mpg.de (in which case supplementary materials available only in hard copy should be sent ot the above mailing address). e-mail: comrie at eva.mpg.de fax: +49 341 35 50 333 institute web site: http://www.eva.mpg.de Deadline for receipt of applications: 17 May 2008 _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk Wed Apr 23 16:39:32 2008 From: Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk (Wright, Roger) Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:39:32 +0100 Subject: LVLT8 Message-ID: Cari colleghi, The Acts of the 8th International Conference on Late and Vulgar Latin have now been published. You, and/or your college library, will probably be interested in acquiring the volume, so I here attach the flyer for ordering it, plus the contents index. The price is not exorbitant. Please forward the flyers to any other colleague or library who are likely to be interested in the volume - Many thanks, Roger Wright -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: LVLT8flyer.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 152853 bytes Desc: LVLT8flyer.pdf URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: LVLT8castlist.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 76354 bytes Desc: LVLT8castlist.pdf URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From sashavovin at gmail.com Fri Apr 25 04:53:15 2008 From: sashavovin at gmail.com (Alexander Vovin) Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:53:15 +0900 Subject: query: whales and dolphins vs. pigs and lambs Message-ID: Dear all, Does anyone know about any possible semantic shifts between 'doplhin' (or 'whale') to 'lamb' (or 'pig') or vice versa? A friend told me that he vaguely remembers that some language calls whales 'pigs of the sea', but he could not recollect which one. I will be grateful for any information. Thank you, Best wishes, Sasha -- ============ Alexander Vovin Visiting Professor, International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto & Professor of East Asian Languages University of Hawaii at Manoa _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From peter.e.hook at gmail.com Fri Apr 25 05:27:22 2008 From: peter.e.hook at gmail.com (Peter Hook) Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:27:22 -0500 Subject: query: whales and dolphins vs. pigs and lambs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi Sasha, According to Google there are a number of candidates (in English) for "pig of the sea", among them the dolphin and the dugong. All the best, Peter On 4/24/08, Alexander Vovin wrote: > > Dear all, > > Does anyone know about any possible semantic shifts between > 'doplhin' (or 'whale') to 'lamb' (or 'pig') or vice versa? A friend > told me that he vaguely remembers that some language calls whales > 'pigs of the sea', but he could not recollect which one. > I will be grateful for any information. Thank you, > > Best wishes, > > Sasha > > -- > ============ > Alexander Vovin > Visiting Professor, International Research Center for Japanese Studies, > Kyoto & > Professor of East Asian Languages > University of Hawaii at Manoa > _______________________________________________ > Histling-l mailing list > Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu > https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From chris_cleirigh at hotmail.com Fri Apr 25 05:58:46 2008 From: chris_cleirigh at hotmail.com (=?iso-8859-1?Q?ChRIS_CL=C9iRIGh?=) Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:58:46 +1000 Subject: query: whales and dolphins vs. pigs and lambs In-Reply-To: <8f9c3f9f0804242227m348e500re0f0b947be7d42a6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Irish for 'porpoise' is 'muc mhara' which is literally 'pig of the sea'. cheers, chris ________________________________ > Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:27:22 -0500 > From: peter.e.hook at gmail.com > To: sashavovin at gmail.com > Subject: Re: [Histling-l] query: whales and dolphins vs. pigs and lambs > CC: histling-l at mailman.rice.edu > > Hi Sasha, > > According to Google there are a number of candidates (in English) for "pig of the sea", among them the dolphin and the dugong. > > All the best, Peter > > > > On 4/24/08, Alexander Vovin wrote: > Dear all, > > Does anyone know about any possible semantic shifts between > 'doplhin' (or 'whale') to 'lamb' (or 'pig') or vice versa? A friend > told me that he vaguely remembers that some language calls whales > 'pigs of the sea', but he could not recollect which one. > I will be grateful for any information. Thank you, > > Best wishes, > > Sasha > > -- > ============ > Alexander Vovin > Visiting Professor, International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto & > Professor of East Asian Languages > University of Hawaii at Manoa > _______________________________________________ > Histling-l mailing list > Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu > https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l _________________________________________________________________ You dream job is up for grabs. Grab it. http://mycareer.com.au/?s_cid=596065 _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From johncharles.smith at stcatz.ox.ac.uk Fri Apr 25 07:27:02 2008 From: johncharles.smith at stcatz.ox.ac.uk (John Charles Smith) Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:27:02 +0100 Subject: query: whales and dolphins vs. pigs and lambs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From paoram at unipv.it Fri Apr 25 08:55:22 2008 From: paoram at unipv.it (Paolo Ramat) Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:55:22 +0200 Subject: query: whales and dolphins vs. pigs and lambs Message-ID: It Ital. we call 'bue marino' ("sea ox") the Dugong dugong, but I never heard of a 'porco marino' ("sea pig"). Best, Paolo @@@@@@@@@@@@@ Prof. Paolo Ramat Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori (IUSS) Responsabile della classe di Scienze Umane V.le Lungo Ticino Sforza 56, 27100 Pavia - Italia Tel. +39 0382 375811 Fax +39 0382 375899 ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Charles Smith" To: "Alexander Vovin" Cc: Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 9:27 AM Subject: Re: [Histling-l] query: whales and dolphins vs. pigs and lambs > Dear Sasha, > > French marsouin 'porpoise' (and so a type of dolphin) appears to have been > borrowed in the eleventh century from Old Norse marsvin, literally 'sea > pig'. > Various Germanic languages, at various stages of their existence, have > called > a porpoise a 'sea pig' (compare German Meerschwein, Danish marsvin), > although, > in a bizarre twist, this word can mean 'guinea pig' in many of these > languages, a > meaning which sometimes replaces the sense of 'porpoise' and sometimes > exists > alongside it. English porpoise itself comes from Old French por[c]peis, > por[c]pois > 'pig fish'. > > In Pliny, we find the expression porculus marinus 'little sea pig', but it > is not > clear what it refers to (some people have claimed he means a porpoise). > See > Alfred C. Andrews, 'Greek and Latin mouse-fishes and pig-fishes', in > Transactions > and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 79 (1948), pp. > 232-253. > > Don't know if any of this helps. > > Best wishes, > > JC > -- > John Charles Smith > Official Fellow and Tutor, St Catherine's College, Oxford, OX1 3UJ, UK > Deputy Director, Research Centre for Romance Linguistics, University of > Oxford > tel. +44 1865 271700 (College) / 271748 (direct) / 271768 (fax) > > _______________________________________________ > Histling-l mailing list > Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu > https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From histling-l-bounces at MAILMAN.RICE.EDU Fri Apr 25 10:00:45 2008 From: histling-l-bounces at MAILMAN.RICE.EDU (histling-l-bounces at MAILMAN.RICE.EDU) Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 11:00:45 +0100 Subject: query: whales and dolphins vs. pigs and lambs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: There are a large number of terms for whales in the Historical Thesaurus of English http://libra.englang.arts.gla.ac.uk/historicalthesaurus/ Some of these relate to pigs - sea-pig, hogback, pork-fish. Best wishes Christian Kay On 25 Apr 2008 at 13:53, Alexander Vovin wrote: Date sent: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:53:15 +0900 From: "Alexander Vovin" To: histling-l at mailman.rice.edu Subject: [Histling-l] query: whales and dolphins vs. pigs and lambs > Dear all, > > Does anyone know about any possible semantic shifts between > 'doplhin' (or 'whale') to 'lamb' (or 'pig') or vice versa? A friend > told me that he vaguely remembers that some language calls whales > 'pigs of the sea', but he could not recollect which one. > I will be grateful for any information. Thank you, > > Best wishes, > > Sasha > > -- > ============ > Alexander Vovin > Visiting Professor, International Research Center for Japanese > Studies, Kyoto & Professor of East Asian Languages University of > Hawaii at Manoa _______________________________________________ > Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu > https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l > -- Professor Christian Janet Kay Department of English Language University of Glasgow Glasgow G12 8QQ UK +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ http://libra.englang.arts.gla.ac.uk/historicalthesaurus/ http://www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk/ http://www.glasgow.ac.uk/englishlanguage/staff/christianjkay/ Phone 0141 330 4150 Fax 0141 330 3533 email c.kay at englang.arts.gla.ac.uk The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401 _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From sashavovin at gmail.com Mon Apr 28 09:56:16 2008 From: sashavovin at gmail.com (Alexander Vovin) Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:56:16 +0900 Subject: Summary: whales and dolphins vs. pigs and lambs Message-ID: Dear all, Many thanks for everyone who responded to my query about pigs/lambs vs. whales/dolphins (in chronological order): Peter Hook, Chris Cleirigh, Roger Lass, John Charles Smith, Shigeru Tsuchida, Paolo Ramat, Ivan Iguartua, Christian Kay, Frank Seifert, Mair Parry, and Vit Bubenik. If I may offer a summary, It looks like that whales, dolphins, dugongs, porpoises etc. can be named 'pig of the sea', 'water pig, 'pig fish'. 'sea-ox' and sea animal' also do occur, although much more rare. However, it seems that there are no direct semantic shifts like 'pig' > 'dolphin', or what is even more important to me 'lamb' > 'dolphin.' For those, who might be interested, the original query was triggered by the following problem: after my recent talk at the Kyoto University, where I suggested that Proto-Ryukyuan *peto 'dolphin' (with seemingly no apparent attestations on the Japanese side of the Japonic family and as far as I am aware without any possible external parallels in surrounding language families) should be probably treated as Proto-Japonic word for 'dolphin' since Old Japanese (OJ) (etc.) iruka 'dolphin' is rather transparent loan from Ainu, my friend Bjarke Frellesvig suggested the possibility that *peto might be connected to OJ pi1tuzi 'lamb' (Modern Japanese hitsuji). Phonetically and morphologically it is plausible, because Proto-Japonic *e and *o raised to OJ i and u respectively in most cases, and because there are dialect data (Yaeyama phitsI, pitsi 'lamb') indicating that -zi is a suffix. However, semantics seemed somewhat suspicious (although 'pig of the sea' lurked in my mind), and this basically was confirmed by responses that included no references to lambs. There is an additional problem: Yaeyama forms indicate Proto-Ryukyuan *petu 'lamb', not *peto. So, the etymology is probably still possible, but, unfortunately for the possibility to strengthen the status of Proto-Ryukyuan *peto 'dolphin' at the Proto-Japonic level, it is not strong at all. Thank you all again, Best wishes, Sasha ============ Alexander Vovin Visiting Professor, International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto & Professor of East Asian Languages University of Hawaii at Manoa On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 1:53 PM, Alexander Vovin wrote: > Dear all, > > Does anyone know about any possible semantic shifts between > 'doplhin' (or 'whale') to 'lamb' (or 'pig') or vice versa? A friend > told me that he vaguely remembers that some language calls whales > 'pigs of the sea', but he could not recollect which one. > I will be grateful for any information. Thank you, > > Best wishes, > > Sasha > > -- > ============ > Alexander Vovin > Visiting Professor, International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto & > Professor of East Asian Languages > University of Hawaii at Manoa > -- _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l