From stampe at HAWAII.EDU  Tue Apr  1 20:38:32 1997
From: stampe at HAWAII.EDU (David Stampe)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 1997 10:38:32 -1000
Subject: On the general acceptance of Austric
Message-ID: <TUE.1.APR.1997.103832.1000.STAMPE@HAWAII.EDU>

It is unquestionably honest, but I think that Sasha Vovin's impression
of the acceptance of the Austric hypothesis is wrong for Austroasiatic
scholars.  [The hypothesis, first argued by Pater Wilhelm Schmidt,
relates Austroasiatic (Munda, Mon-Khmer, Nicobarese) to Austronesian.]
At a conference in Honolulu a few years ago, Laurie Reid presented
morphological evidence for Austric.  Invited comparative Mon-Khmer
scholars (Gerard Diffloth) and comparative Munda scholars (Norman Zide,
Patricia Donegan, and myself) found Reid's paper well argued and well
worth hearing, but not compelling.  His paper and other conference
papers have now appeared in Oceanic Linguistics.  The discussants'
remarks were not solicited for publication, and since one discussant on
the AN side (Blust) has separately published a favorable response, the
lack of any published negative response might be mistaken for a
positive response.  But with the exception of L.V. Hayes, who has
separately published lexical arguments for Austric, I know of no
comparative AA scholar who regards the relationship of AA and AN as
established.
 
On the other hand, we shouldn't stop looking.  Reid's conference was
the first that brought Munda and Mon-Khmer scholars together in a
decade, and the first time in nearly three decades to bring us together
with scholars of AN and other groups, and it was stimulating to discuss
common traits and problems in these languages, related or not.
 
David Stampe <stampe at hawaii.edu>
Dept. of Linguistics, Univ. of Hawai`i/Manoa, Honolulu HI 96822


From reid at hawaii.edu  Wed Apr  2 21:55:45 1997
From: reid at hawaii.edu (Lawrence A. Reid)
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 1997 16:55:45 EST
Subject: On the general acceptance of Austric
Message-ID: <WED.2.APR.1997.165545.EST.REID@HAWAII.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
It would have been good if we could have had alternative explanations for
the comparative evidence that I (and others before and after me) have
produced for the Austric hypothesis in print, or at least in a form that we
could carefully look at and evaluate.  I think that David Stampe's inclusion
of Gerard Diffloth as among the scholars present at the CAMAC conference as
among those who do not endorse a genetic relationship between AA and An
languages is perhaps misleading.  Although not wildly enthusiastic about the
strength of the lexical evidence that has been accrued to date, he makes it
clear in his published paper in Oceanic Linguistics 33 (1994), that what
there is is convincing, and that he finds other explanations for the
morphological evidence for the relationship such as coincidence or borrowing
to be unacceptable.
But perhaps Gerard has changed his mind since then.  One An scholar who is
not convinced is Stan Starosta, who is presently trying to develop a
substratal account which will hold water.
 
Laurie Reid
 
At 10:38 AM 4/1/97 -1000, you wrote:
>It is unquestionably honest, but I think that Sasha Vovin's impression
>of the acceptance of the Austric hypothesis is wrong for Austroasiatic
>scholars.  [The hypothesis, first argued by Pater Wilhelm Schmidt,
>relates Austroasiatic (Munda, Mon-Khmer, Nicobarese) to Austronesian.]
>At a conference in Honolulu a few years ago, Laurie Reid presented
>morphological evidence for Austric.  Invited comparative Mon-Khmer
>scholars (Gerard Diffloth) and comparative Munda scholars (Norman Zide,
>Patricia Donegan, and myself) found Reid's paper well argued and well
>worth hearing, but not compelling.  His paper and other conference
>papers have now appeared in Oceanic Linguistics.  The discussants'
>remarks were not solicited for publication, and since one discussant on
>the AN side (Blust) has separately published a favorable response, the
>lack of any published negative response might be mistaken for a
>positive response.  But with the exception of L.V. Hayes, who has
>separately published lexical arguments for Austric, I know of no
>comparative AA scholar who regards the relationship of AA and AN as
>established.
>
>On the other hand, we shouldn't stop looking.  Reid's conference was
>the first that brought Munda and Mon-Khmer scholars together in a
>decade, and the first time in nearly three decades to bring us together
>with scholars of AN and other groups, and it was stimulating to discuss
>common traits and problems in these languages, related or not.
>
>David Stampe <stampe at hawaii.edu>
>Dept. of Linguistics, Univ. of Hawai`i/Manoa, Honolulu HI 96822
>
-----------------------------------
Lawrence A. Reid
Professor of Linguistics
 
Department of Linguistics            Office: (808) 956-3223
University of Hawaii                 Home:   (808) 396-8302
Moore Hall 569                       FAX:    (808) 956-9166
1890 East-West Road                  E-mail: reid at hawaii.edu
Honolulu, HI 96822
 
-----------------------------------


From jer at cphling.dk  Wed Apr  2 14:12:28 1997
From: jer at cphling.dk (Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen)
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 1997 09:12:28 EST
Subject: solid tradition & winds of fashion
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.89.9703221223.A25864-0100000@firefly.prairienet.org>
Message-ID: <WED.2.APR.1997.091228.EST.JER@CPHLING.DK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
A big hand to Steven Schaufele for a precise formulation of what I meant:
IE and General Linguistics need each other - there is no progress in *our*
getting imperialistic to make up for the opposite wrongdoing.
 
Sincerely,
Jens E.R.


From vovin at hawaii.edu  Thu Apr  3 02:20:15 1997
From: vovin at hawaii.edu (Alexander Vovin)
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 1997 21:20:15 EST
Subject: On the general acceptance of Austric
In-Reply-To: <97Apr2.114223hwt.586820(4)@relay1.Hawaii.Edu>
Message-ID: <WED.2.APR.1997.212015.EST.VOVIN@HAWAII.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I have the same impression that Laurie Reid: as far as I know from Gerard
Diffloth's publications, in particular from the article in Oceanic
lingustics 1994 that Laurie has already mentioned, he is is a mild
supporter of Austric rather than an adversary. Cf. e.g. the following
passage from the same article by Gerard Diffloth (italics are mine):
 
"Ironically, it is the relative poverty of shared vocabulary between
Austroasiatic and Austronesian, combined with *evident agreement in the
morphology*, that argues for *a genetic, and against a contact
relationship* between the two families, provided we allow for a great time
depth in order to avoid the obvious paradox". (p. 312)
 
    It does not sound like an outright rejection.
 
    I am aware that most Munda specialists are sceptical about Austric and
Austroasiatic itself, however as it seems there is no unity here either.
Reading the recent "Munda-jin no nookoo bunka to shokuji bunka: minzoku
gengogaku teki koosatsu (Farming culture and food culture of Munda: an
ethnolinguistic study)" by Toshiki Osada (Kyoto: Kokusai nihon bunka
kekkyuu sentaa, 1995) I was under a definite impression that its author
supports Austroasiatic.
    Besides, let us suppose that Munda languages are not related to
Austronesian or rest of the Austroasiatic (If I remember correctly, this
was the point David Stampe was making at CAMAC 1993 -- if I am wrong
please correct me). But this hardly affects Austric or even Austroasiatic
itself: Munda specialists would just remove one of the lower nodes. In
addition, as far as I can tell, Munda materials in the post-Shafer and
post-Pinnow research were not quite the main materials on which the
demonstration of Austric was based (again, please correct me if I am
missing something here), but the evidence stands predominantly on
Mon-Khmer, and now, thanks to Laurie, also on Nicobarese.
 
Sincerely,
 
Alexander Vovin
vovin at hawaii.edu
 
On Wed, 2 Apr 1997, Lawrence A. Reid wrote:
 
>[...]   I think that David Stampe's inclusion
> of Gerard Diffloth as among the scholars present at the CAMAC conference as
> among those who do not endorse a genetic relationship between AA and An
> languages is perhaps misleading.  Although not wildly enthusiastic about the
> strength of the lexical evidence that has been accrued to date, he makes it
> clear in his published paper in Oceanic Linguistics 33 (1994), that what
> there is is convincing, and that he finds other explanations for the
> morphological evidence for the relationship such as coincidence or borrowing
> to be unacceptable.
[...]>
> Laurie Reid


From mcv at pi.net  Thu Apr  3 17:58:42 1997
From: mcv at pi.net (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 12:58:42 EST
Subject: On the general acceptance of Austric
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.95q.970402230034.11504D-100000@uhunix2>
Message-ID: <THU.3.APR.1997.125842.EST.MCV@PI.NET>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Alexander Vovin <vovin at hawaii.edu> wrote:
 
>Common numerals do not necessarily indicate genetic relationship.
>Japanese, e.g., borrowed numerals from Chinese:
 
I know.  But it invariably indicates very intimate connections between
the two peoples, languages and cultures.  My question was: how do the
Mundologists account for that?  Where and when were Munda and
Mon-Khmer supposed to have been in initimate contact with each other?
SE Asia?  The Neolithic?  Did Proto-Munda borrow the numerals from
Mon-Khmer, or viceversa?  
 
A hypothesis of large-scale or systematic borrowing (and that of the
number system certainly counts as such) needs to be proved and
explained, just as much as a hypothesis of genetic relationship.
 
==
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal                     ~ ~
Amsterdam                   _____________  ~ ~
mcv at pi.net                 |_____________|||
 
========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig


From vovin at hawaii.edu  Thu Apr  3 17:58:21 1997
From: vovin at hawaii.edu (Alexander Vovin)
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 12:58:21 EST
Subject: On the general acceptance of Austric
In-Reply-To: <33586acf.82468225@mailhost.pi.net>
Message-ID: <THU.3.APR.1997.125821.EST.VOVIN@HAWAII.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Common numerals do not necessarily indicate genetic relationship.
Japanese, e.g., borrowed numerals from Chinese:
 
       Japanese            Middle Chinese (transcription simplified)
1        iti                   ?it
2        ni                    ~ni
3        san                    sam
4        si                     s"i
5        go                     ngo
6        roku                   luk
7.       siti                   chit
8        hati                   pat
9.       kyuu/ku                kju
10.      zyuu                   sip
 
    Native numerals in modern Japanese are used only for concrete count.
 
Alexander Vovin
 
 
On Wed, 2 Apr 1997, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:
 
> I don't know anything about Munda or Austroasiatic, but I wonder how
> the Munda specialists account for the numerals, if there is no genetic
> connection?
>
>    Mun.d.a:ri:  Santali    Mon      Khmer
> 1  mi'd         mit_       moa      mu at y
> 2  baria        bar        ba:      pii
> 3  apia         pe         pei      b at y
> 4  upunia       pon        pon      bu at n
> 5  mon.r.ea     mo~r.e~    msaun    pram
> 6  turuia       turui      tarao:   pram-mu at y
> 7  ea           eae        thapoh   pram-pii
> 8  i'rilia      iral.      tec^am   pram-b at y
> 9  area         are        tec^it   pram-bu at n
> 10 gelea        gel        c^oh     dOp
>
>
> ==
> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal                     ~ ~
> Amsterdam                   _____________  ~ ~
> mcv at pi.net                 |_____________|||
>
> ========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig
>


From mcv at pi.net  Thu Apr  3 17:58:02 1997
From: mcv at pi.net (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 12:58:02 EST
Subject: On the general acceptance of Austric
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.95q.970402140044.15153C-100000@uhunix2>
Message-ID: <THU.3.APR.1997.125802.EST.MCV@PI.NET>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Alexander Vovin <vovin at hawaii.edu> wrote:
 
>    I am aware that most Munda specialists are sceptical about Austric and
>Austroasiatic itself [..]
 
I don't know anything about Munda or Austroasiatic, but I wonder how
the Munda specialists account for the numerals, if there is no genetic
connection?
 
   Mun.d.a:ri:  Santali    Mon      Khmer
1  mi'd         mit_       moa      mu at y
2  baria        bar        ba:      pii
3  apia         pe         pei      b at y
4  upunia       pon        pon      bu at n
5  mon.r.ea     mo~r.e~    msaun    pram
6  turuia       turui      tarao:   pram-mu at y
7  ea           eae        thapoh   pram-pii
8  i'rilia      iral.      tec^am   pram-b at y
9  area         are        tec^it   pram-bu at n
10 gelea        gel        c^oh     dOp
 
 
==
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal                     ~ ~
Amsterdam                   _____________  ~ ~
mcv at pi.net                 |_____________|||
 
========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig


From Izzy at telaviv.ndsoft.com  Thu Apr  3 17:57:32 1997
From: Izzy at telaviv.ndsoft.com (Izzy (Israel) Cohen (req-telaviv))
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 12:57:32 EST
Subject: Nostratic: the state of the question
Message-ID: <THU.3.APR.1997.125732.EST.IZZY@TELAVIV.NDSOFT.COM>

forwarded by Israel Cohen
izzy at telaviv.ndsoft.com
 ----------
From: mcv at pi.net
To: nostratic at mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu
Subject: Nostratic: the state of the question
Date: Thursday, 3 April 1997 12:52AM
 
This message was sent using a character set not supported on the
Internet
Mail Connector. The message text has been placed into the attachment:
ATT00018.txt. To view, double-click on the attachment. If the text isn't
displayed correctly, save the attachment to disk, and then use a viewer
that can display the original character set.
 
 
 
-------------- next part --------------
Rick Mc Callister's question on "Indo-Uralic" and Kevin Tuite's
question on the possible implications for the Nostratic theory of the
suggested reconstruction of PIE as a Klimovian "jazyk aktivnogo
stroja", raise a couple of interesting questions.
 
What is the current state of Nostratic linguistics?  Where is there
still work to be done, which questions need to be settled, and what,
if anything, is required to "prove" the validity of the Nostratic
hypothesis?
 
I will discuss a number of issues separately, although all is
intertwined in practice: no lexical cognates can be generally
accepted, as long as no consensus exists on the phonology of
Nostratic.  Nostratic will not be accepted as a unit, as long as there
is no clarity on the question of which languages belong in it and
which don't.
 
1. LEXICON
 
This is the area where most work has been done.  Allan Bomhard's 601
etymologies in "The Nostratic Macrofamily" and the 378 published
etymologies of Illich-Svitych, despite differences in the treatment if
sound correspondences, have 139 roots in common, if I have not
miscounted.  That constitutes a solid basis for further work, and
should give us a degree of confidence in the validity of the Nostratic
hypothesis.  What are the odds that the reconstructed proto-languages
of the AA, IE, Kartvelian, Dravidian, Uralic and Altaic families
should share 139 basic vocabulary roots, with regular sound
correspondences, *exclusively* due to borrowing or chance resemblance?
 
2. PHONOLOGY
 
The biggest problem remains the interpretation of the PN stop system.
Illich-Svitych had reconstructed PN *t' *t *d =3D> PIE *t *d *dh.  Allan
Bomhard, following the "glottalic theory" of Gamqrelidze et al. for
PIE, reconstructs PN *t' *t *d =3D> PIE *d *t *dh (/t'/, /t/, /d/)
instead.  The most curious fact about all of this is that results
could be obtained using both correspondence sets.  As a matter of
fact, back in 1911, Hermann Moeller had obtained a sizeable amount of
IE ~ Semitic cognates using yet another set of sound correspondences.
 
Are the critics right that at this level of long range comparison, a
number of "cognates" (i.e. chance resemblances) can be found, no
matter what set of sound correspondences one uses?  I don't think so.
In the first place, Illich-Svitych and Bomhard have not done "mass
comparison".  Their work is based mainly on reconstructed proto-forms
for the families involved, and the choice of possible words is no
greater than what one has in IE linguistics (which is not to say that
one cannot dip into a family and pick a word that is present in one
language only, just as, say, Pokorny can dip into Greek and use an
obscure dialect word from Hesyochios (sp?)).  In my view, the body of
solid etymologies that are common to both "systems" cannot be
dismissed by pointing to these apparent irregularities in the stop
system.  If so, Indo-European should have been dismissed because of
the irregularities in Grimm's law (solved by Verner) or cases like
Lat. <habere> ~ E. "to have" (to be solved), and many others like it
(I wish I had a list of them).
 
We know at least that PIE had dissimilated roots that contained more
than one glottalic.  Similar assimilations and dissimilations will
have occurred in other branches of Nostratic, even at the
proto-language level itself (e.g. I am convinced that Bomhard's #92
*tap, and #134 *t'ab, both "warm, hot" are in fact the same word, but
until some Nostratic Verner comes along to prove the fact, it remains
an act of faith -- or common sense -- as in the case of <habere> ~
<hebban>).
 
 
3. GRAMMAR
 
Too little is known about Nostratic grammar.  In Historical
Linguistics, lexicon is nice, but morphology is nicer. =20
 
John Kerns' chapter on Grammar in "The Nostratic Macrofamily", while
concentrating on "Northern Nostratic" (Eurasiatic), gives a fair view
of nominal and pronominal morphology (genitive *-n, locative *-nV,
accusative *-m, an ablative involving a dental, etc.), but the absence
of any kind of verbal morphology is disappointing.
 
I myself recently suggested here that a case can be made for
reconstructing the the Nostratic stative verb paradigm (*-kV, *-tkV,
*-V, *-wenV, *-tkwenV, (?)), based on Ancient Egyptian, Berber,
Semitic, Indo-European and Elamite, with possible traces of the same
paradigm in at least Uralic (Ugric), and the Kartvelian 2pl.p.p.
*tkwen as additional supporting evidence.  There is a problem with the
correspondence PAA *k ~ PIE *H, wich neither Illich-Svitych nor
Bomhard envisages, but then neither system is concerned with
Auslautgesetze.  As far as I know, no proposal had been previously
made to reconstruct this, or any other bit of Nostratic verbal
morphology (but I may be wrong).  In any case, I would have loved to
hear some comments...
 
 
4. MEMBERSHIP AND SUBGROUPING
 
One of the most important questions is: which languages belong in
Nostratic?  Illich-Svitych's publications made use of materials from
AA, Kartvelian, IE, Dravidian, Uralic and Altaic (incl. Korean).
Bomhard/Kerns' book uses AA, Kartvelian, IE, Elamo-Dravidian,
Uralic-Yukaghir, Altaic and Sumerian, with occasional references to
Etruscan.  In the Grammar section, Kerns uses Korean and Japanese
examples, while in the preliminary chapters Chukchi-Kamchtakan, Gilyak
and Eskimo-Aleut are explicitly mentioned as members of Nostratic
(which is also in accordance with Dologopol'skij's and Greenberg's
views).
 
[I have just seen Allan's reply.  A question to Allan: compared with
the tree on p. 36 of the "Nostratic Macrofamily", would your current
views be accurately described by the following diagram?
 
          Nostratic
             |
     ________|_______
    |                |
Afrasiatic   ________|________
            |                 |
       Elamo-Dravidian  ______|_______
                       |              |
                  Kartvelian      Eurasiatic
 
(i.e. Kartvelian and Elamo-Dravidian "switch places", and Sumerian
moves to a level above Nostratic?)]
 
Greenberg's definition of Eurasiatic not only includes Nivkh, but also
Ainu, which in view of recent discussion (here or on HISTLING?) would
appear to be controversial.
 
Controversial also remains the position of Sumerian, mainly due to our
imperfect knowledge of both the phonology and the semantics of the
Sumerian lexicon.  I will simply note that the Sumerian sound
correspondences on pp. 125-131 correspond almost exactly with the ones
I independently derived last year from a comparison of IE and
Sumerian.
 
The position of Basque, which I recently tried to link with Nostratic
on this very forum, is of course controversial as well.
 
In "Postscript 1991" to the Classification of the World's Languages,
Ruhlen quotes Starostin's views that Afro-Asiatic should be considered
coordinate to, not included in Nostratic, and his assertion that
Elamo-Dravidian is the most divergent branch of Nostratic.  Coupled
with Greenberg's views on Eurasiatic [and Allan's comments here], this
seems to indicate some kind of preliminary consensus on the
subgrouping of Nostratic [something like the tree I drew above].
Since Uralic, Altaic and "Chukchi-Eskimo" are beyond my level of
expertise, I cannot judge whether IE is indeed closer to those
languages than it is to AA, Kartvelian or Dravidian (again, not my
specialisms).  I see enough parallels between IE and AA, however
(sound system, the stative verb endings which I outlined above), to
consider the possibility that IE might actually have close ties both
ways and act like a kind of "bridge" between South (AA, Kartv, Drav)
and North (EA, CK, Alt), like Uralic probably does from the other
side.  Which sort of answers Rick's question.
 
Another issue discussed by Starostin in the same article quoted by
Ruhlen (1989 "Nostratic and Sino-Caucasian", in Shevoroshkin
"Explorations in Language Macrofamilies") is the relationship of
Nostratic as a whole with other macrofamilies.  Unfortunately, I have
not read Starostin's article, but while studying John Bengtson's
materials on Basque and Caucasian, which the author was kind enough to
send me, I could not help but notice some striking parallels between
Proto-North-(East-)Caucasian and Nostratic (*Hwir-i "lake, pond"
[*Haw-, *Hw-er- "rain"]; *tl'a:npV "lip" [PAA *tlip-at- "lip", etc.];
*tl_w-irV "horn" [*tlir- "highest point/rank"]; *dzwhari: "star" [PSem
*?iTtar-, PIE *ster- etc.]; *X~wejrV "dog" [PIE *k(u)on- "dog", PU
*ku"jna" "wolf"]; *swerho "old" [*dzwer- "old" or *syiny- "old" ?];
*s'u"no "year" [*syiny- "old, year" if this is not a loan from
Semitic]; *=3Da":sA "to sit" [*?asy- "to sit"]; *s_e:HmV "vein, muscle"
[*sin- "sinew, tendon, vein"]; *b~ak'V "(palm of the) hand" [PIE
*bha:ghu- "elbow, lower arm"]; *?iman "to stay" [*man- "to stay"], to
quote the most obvious ones).
 
The above suggest some kind of relationship between Nostratic (however
defined) and (Macro-)Caucasian (however defined).  One area which I
for one would very much like to see investigated would be that of
possible relations of Nostratic with the African language groups
(Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Kordofanian, Macro-Khoisan).  Which brings me to:
 
 
5 PREHISTORIC FRAMEWORK
 
Another issue that is closely intertwined with the others.
Determining linguistically which languages are part of Nostratic could
shed some light on interpreting the archaeological data.  Conversely,
knowing the archaeological data can guide our thoughts on linguistic
relationships and time depths.
 
It is funny that Allan has just said: "Afrasian stands apart as an
extremely ancient, independent branch -- it was the first branch of
Nostratic to separate from the rest of the Nostratic speech
community", as this is the exact opposite of how I would put it.
I would regard the speakers of Afro-Asiatic as the "stay behinds",
while the rest of Nostratic wandered out into North Africa, the Near
East and Europe.  The linguist effect (at least as it affects AA
versus the rest) is of course the same.
 
Suffice it to quote something that I wrote some time ago on the
Basque-L, in the course of a speculative discussion on
historico-linguistic matters with Miguel Aguirre Martinez, who is also
Spanish and also lives in the Netherlands...
 
[I wrote on the BASQUE-L:]
 
In my view, the history of Homo displays a remarkably stable pattern=20
from its inception in Africa more than a million years ago to about=20
10,000 years BP.  Africa, and in particular the upper Nile valley=20
(Sudan) has acted as a population "pump", injecting new populations=20
into the rest of the world at regular intervals.  We cannot trace=20
every single episode, but some of the major ones are clear:
 
1,000,000 BP: expansion of Homo Erectus (Lower Paleolithic).
Java man and Peking man show that Erectus migrated from Africa to=20
Asia early on. =20
 
150,000 BP: expansion of Homo Sapiens (Middle Paleolithic).
This is where I would put "Proto-World".  This stage marks the origin=20
of the Neanderthal populations of North Africa, the Near East, Europe=20
and Central Asia.  I haven't got much information on the physical=20
characteristics of the populations of India, SE Asia and China in=20
this period ("Solo man"?), but at the risk of not being politically=20
correct, I'd suggest a link with the modern "Australoid" populations=20
(Vedda, Negrito, Papuan and Australian).  This simply means that=20
Neanderthal man was fully a member of our own species, as is=20
the current palaeoanthropological consensus. =20
 
50,000 BP: expansion of "H.S.Sapiens" (Upper Paleolithic).
This is in fact the expansion of the Aurignacian culture, which=20
developed in Africa and the Near East 50 or 60,000 years ago, and=20
subsequently spread to Europe (40,000 BP), Central Asia, and=20
presumably India as well.  In SE Asia and Europe, the Aurignacian=20
penetration was only partial, and we have several cultures that seem=20
to continue Middle Paleolithic traditions (pebble-tool cultures in SE=20
Asia and China, the Lower Perigordian (Ch=D7telperronian) in Western=20
Europe, the Uluzzian in Italy and the Szeletian in Eastern Europe.
Linguistically, Austric, Macro-Caucasian, Sino-Tibetan, Na-Dene and=20
the various Amerind groups may be traced back to this wave.
 
30,000 BP: Gravettian.
The Gravettian absorbed the Aurignacian, Chatelperronian, Uluzzian,=20
and Szeletian cultures in North Africa, the Near East and Europe.
Apart from the post-glacial expansions into Siberia [and the Neolithic
expansions], there is a perfect geographical match with the
"Nostratic" macro-family.
 
15,000 BP?: Afro-Asiatic.
Sometime between the Gravettian expansion and the Neolithic,=20
the Egyptian, Berber-Chadic and Semitic populations must have=20
expanded from the Sudan to Northern Africa and the Near East=20
(Palestine), leaving Cushitic and Omotic in the Sudanese homeland.
 
By the time of the Neolithic, the stage was set for yet another=20
African wave, as Nilo-Saharans had pushed the Omotians-Cushites out=20
of the Sudan (Nubia).  However, the Neolithic population explosion in=20
Egypt and the Near East effectively blocked the way for any new=20
migrations out of Africa, and with the modern advance of Arabic=20
southwards into the Sudan, the pattern seems to have been partially=20
reversed, for the first time in human history.
 
[end quote]
 
I must repeat that the above is highly speculative.
 
But what it suggests in linguistical terms is a kind of "onion like"
structure of the Nostratic macrofamily, with Omotic at the core [and
that's where possible links with African families would be most
interesting to examine], Cushitic and Beja the inner ring, then
"Northern Afrasiatic" (Ancient Egyptian, Semitic, Berber-Chadic).  The
next layer(s) would be Basque [N.Africa=3D>W.Europe], Etruscan and IE
[S.Europe], Eurasiatic [E.Europe=3D>Siberia], Kartvelian, Elamo-
Dravidian and Sumerian [N.East].  Then, no longer "Nostratic", but
distantly related, come the layers consisting of Caucasian/Yeniseian/
Sino-Tibetan [C.Asia], Burushaski and Nahali [S.Asia], "Austric"
[SE.Asia], with Na-Dene and the various Amerind groups as offshoots of
these groups into the New World.
 
=3D=3D
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal                     ~ ~
Amsterdam                   _____________  ~ ~
mcv at pi.net                 |_____________|||
 
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig

From n-zide at uchicago.edu  Fri Apr  4 13:44:39 1997
From: n-zide at uchicago.edu (Norman Zide)
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 1997 08:44:39 EST
Subject: No subject
Message-ID: <FRI.4.APR.1997.084439.EST.NZIDE@UCHICAGO.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
  Regarding Vovin's reference to Mundalogists who question the
Munda-Mon-Khmer relationship, who are these people ? I agree with Sasha -
who doesn't ? - that the numbers (along with much else) imply genetic
relationship. His examples (Kherwarian/North Munda as compared with Khmer)
could be better chosen. I think it is clear that the numbers 1,2,3,4 and 10
are cognate in Munda and MK  (see the Austroasiatic number systems issue of
Linguistics (1976), in most ways not superseded, and, for Munda, N. Zide's
Studies in the Munda Numerals (1978). A messier and more interesting
historical development of number words, in Gorum (a South Munda language) -
partly discussed in Zide, 1978 - was described in a paper (unpublished) by
Zide given at the 1995 Manchester historical linguistics meetings.
Coincidentally - surprisingly to me - a paper with similar data (strange
semantic extensions of simple number words within the number series) on a
Tibeto-Burman language of Nepal was presented by Werner Winter at the same
meeting.
    As to Austric, I agree with Vovin's and Laurie Reid's description of
the state of opinion on  A. I am not competent to deal with 'the Austric
question', but I do agree with Stampe that Reid's paper - in particular his
use of the Nicobarese data - is not convincing.


From mcv at pi.net  Fri Apr  4 17:46:51 1997
From: mcv at pi.net (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 1997 12:46:51 EST
Subject: Munda numerals
In-Reply-To: <199704040346.VAA01295@woodlawn.uchicago.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.4.APR.1997.124651.EST.MCV@PI.NET>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Norman Zide <n-zide at uchicago.edu> wrote:
 
>  Regarding Vovin's reference to Mundalogists who question the
>Munda-Mon-Khmer relationship, who are these people ? I agree with Sasha -
>who doesn't ? - that the numbers (along with much else) imply genetic
>relationship. His examples (Kherwarian/North Munda as compared with Khmer)
>could be better chosen. 
 
Sasha ne vinovat.  The examples were mine, and as I said, I know
nothing about either Munda or Mon-Khmer.  I just happen to have
Campbell's "Compendium of the World's Languages", where only Mundari
and Santali are represented...
 
 
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at pi.net
Amsterdam


From manaster at umich.edu  Fri Apr  4 17:44:58 1997
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 1997 12:44:58 EST
Subject: On the general acceptance of Austric
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.95q.970402230034.11504D-100000@uhunix2>
Message-ID: <FRI.4.APR.1997.124458.EST.>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
See the forthcoming paper by Manaster and Ramer and Sidwell
in WZKM "Numerals and the Altaic question" (the title may
be something else when it comes out in the fall).


From vovin at hawaii.edu  Fri Apr  4 23:13:03 1997
From: vovin at hawaii.edu (Alexander Vovin)
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 1997 18:13:03 EST
Subject: your mail
In-Reply-To: <199704040346.VAA01295@woodlawn.uchicago.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.4.APR.1997.181303.EST.VOVIN@HAWAII.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
 
On Fri, 4 Apr 1997, Norman Zide wrote:
 
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>   Regarding Vovin's reference to Mundalogists who question the
> Munda-Mon-Khmer relationship, who are these people ? I agree with Sasha -
> who doesn't ? - that the numbers (along with much else) imply genetic
> relationship. His examples (Kherwarian/North Munda as compared with Khmer)
> could be better chosen.
 
I believe that there is some confusion: Sasha Vovin is the one person
(me), Miguel Vidal is another. I trust that both Zide and Vidal
misunderstood my message on numerals in the sense that I deny
Munda-Mon-Khmer genetic relationship. I don't, but I can't see how
numerals alone can be used as a proof of genetic relationship -- that was
the essence of my reply to Vidal. As for Mundologists who doubt the
Munda-Mon-Khmer, it seems to me that David Stampe expressed doubts in his
recent posting not only about re Austric, but about Austroasiatic in
general, referring not only to himself, but also to Zide and Donegan. If I
misunderstood him, I offer my sincere apologies, since it turns out that
Zide does not doubt AA.
 
Sincerely,
 
Alexander (Sasha) Vovin


From fcosws at prairienet.org  Sun Apr  6 21:52:57 1997
From: fcosws at prairienet.org (Steven Schaufele)
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 1997 17:52:57 EDT
Subject: ref search on various glossogenetic affiliations in Africa
Message-ID: <SUN.6.APR.1997.175257.EDT.FCOSWS@PRAIRIENET.ORG>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Dear Colleagues,
 
Recent browsing in some general texts has made me aware that there are
or have been recently some questions raised about certain putative
affiliations amongst certain languages on the African continent.  Not
being an Africanist, this is in no way an area i am particularly
knowledgeable about, but i have hopes someday of teaching a seminar in
which students are called upon to examine critically the literature
arguing pro & con certain hypotheses in the field of historical
linguistics, and i would therefore like some references to good
discussions in the literature on the following topics:
 
1. There is presumably no question that all the so-called `Cushitic'
languages are members of the Afro-Asiatic family.  But do they constitute
a well-defined sub-family, or are they merely a `miscellaneous' category?
 
2. Are the so-called `Nilo-Saharan' languages a well-defined glosso-
genetic family or merely a geographically-defined group?
 
3. Ditto the `Khoisan' languages.
 
Thanks for any suggestions wrt literature on these issues.  If there is
sufficient interest, i'll post a summary on HISTLING.
 
Best,
Steven
---------------------
Dr. Steven Schaufele
712 West Washington
Urbana, IL  61801
217-344-8240
fcosws at prairienet.org
http://www.prairienet.org/~fcosws/homepage.html
 
**** O syntagmata linguarum liberemini humanarum! ***
*** Nihil vestris privari nisi obicibus potestis! ***


From stampe at hawaii.edu  Tue Apr  8 11:09:04 1997
From: stampe at hawaii.edu (David Stampe)
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 07:09:04 EDT
Subject: On the general acceptance of Austric
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.95q.970404125018.22487C-100000@uhunix2> (message from
 Alexander Vovin on Fri, 4 Apr 1997 13:13:03 -1000)
Message-ID: <TUE.8.APR.1997.070904.EDT.STAMPE@HAWAII.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Summary: Austroasiatic yes, Austric not yet.
 
No one I know doubts the Munda--Mon-Khmer relationship (Austroasiatic).
A sizable percentage of their respective proto vocabularies is cognate,
and Donegan and I have showed how the polysynthetic structure of Munda
evolved from (and preserved much evidence of) the analytic structure of
proto-Austroasiatic (which remains in Mon-Khmer) [1].  In the century
since Schmidt published evidence for Aa, new data on Munda and MK have
considerably strengthened the case.
 
This is NOT so for Schmidt's hypothesis that Austroasiatic and Austro-
nesian are related (the Austric hypothesis): as we have learned more
about the languages and their histories, resemblances have had to be
discarded, and although new ones have appeared, after a century the
strength of the case for Austric has not increased.  We now have far
better documentation of South Munda, which, despite its distance, has
more cognates with Mon-Khmer than North Munda does.  But resemblances
between Aa and An cluster in South MK languages, which have had close
contacts with An languages since proto-Aa times.  According to the
Austric hypothesis, Munda and MK are equidistant from An.  But if only
MK resembles An, that is a problem for the Austric hypothesis.
 
For example, it once seemed impressive that Munda and Nicobarese, the
extreme ends of Aa, have suffixes, like An.  But if the suffixes are
not even similar between Munda and Nicobarese, much less between Munda
and An, they are not evidence for Austric.
 
Even the one resemblance that everyone agrees is most striking -- that
both Munda and An infix VC- prefixes in C-initial roots -- probably has
a functional basis: it keeps the prefix from forming a closed syllable
which could attract the accent away from the root [1]; Sora (S. Munda)
uses such pre/infixes as @n- 'nominalizer' or @r- 'instrumentalizer,
locativizer' productively in deverbal derivation, but VC- prefixes are
NOT infixed where they represent inflectional categories that naturally
take the accent, e.g. @r- 'reciprocal' or @d- 'negative' (which takes
the form @dn- before V-initial verbs, as if to insure that it does take
the accent).  Although a functional basis does not mean that infixation
could not have had a common origin in Aa and An, it weakens a case that
from the beginning has rested on similar morphological processes rather
than on cognate morphemes.
 
David <stampe at hawaii.edu>
 
 
[1] Patricia Donegan and David Stampe.  1983.  Rhythm and the holistic
organization of language structure.  In: John F. Richardson, Mitchell
Marks, and Amy Chukerman, eds.  Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.
337-351.


From Izzy at telaviv.ndsoft.com  Tue Apr  8 11:18:40 1997
From: Izzy at telaviv.ndsoft.com (Izzy (Israel) Cohen (req-telaviv))
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 07:18:40 EDT
Subject: Language Conferences/Seminars web site
Message-ID: <TUE.8.APR.1997.071840.EDT.IZZY@TELAVIV.NDSOFT.COM>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Appologies for multiple postings:
 
The language conference list located on the WWW at URL
 
http://www.clark.net/pub/royfc/confer.html
 
has been updated with over 80 new conferences and
about 2 dozen other changes since the February
1997 edition.
 
Conference Schedule
 for Linguists, Translators, Interpreters and Teachers of Languages.
 
(Clicking on the applicable link will provide
 additional conference information).
 
1997
1998
1999
2000 - 2003!
 
Quarterly events for which the exact date is not known.
Annual events for which the exact date is not known.
Biennial events for which the exact date is not known.
A special "continuing" event.
Your chance to publish your scholarly work on language.
Links for linguists I've run across while searching for conferences.
I've even found some job opportunities for linguists.
Past schedules will remain on the list for several months after the
date of the function for those who may wish to plan for next year.
 
For maintenance convenience, this list
is divided into several pages. They are:
     confer.html The conference list home page.
     confer7.html for conferences in 1997.
     confer8.html for conferences in 1998 and beyond.
     conf_pub.html for miscellaneously scheduled conferences
        and other links for linguists.
     confer_x.html for past conference schedules.
     con_links.html for useful conference-related links.
 
    Searching for Conferences
 
Conferences are listed chronologically.
No attempt has been made at this time to
provide a means to search the list for a
particular type of conference. Perhaps this
capability will be available in the future.
One may, of course, search the list using
the "find" or "search" function of the WWW
browser being used.
 
I have moved the links where one may search for
additional conferences to its own page because the
number is growing so large and beginning to clutter
this page even more. There also are links to other
related sites which Linguists, Translators, Inter-
preters and Teachers of Languages should find of value.
 
As all information pasted to the list is cut from the
original source (hypertexted with each schedule) I cannot
be held responsible for errors. Check the provided source,
first. Otherwise, please send corrections, additions, and
updates to royfcoch at clark.net (Roy F. Cochrun)
 
Return to Roy's Russian Resource home page
 
Last update 5 April 1997.
* * * *
 
Information forwarded by:
Israel Cohen
izzy at atelaviv.ndsoft.com


From Egidio.Marsico at mrash.fr  Mon Apr 14 14:46:52 1997
From: Egidio.Marsico at mrash.fr (Egidio Marsico)
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 10:46:52 EDT
Subject: IN SEARCH OF PROTO-LANGUAGES
Message-ID: <MON.14.APR.1997.104652.EDT.EGIDIO.MARSICO@MRASH.FR>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Dear Histling  Colleagues,
 
Jean-Marie Hombert and I are putting together a data base on
Proto-languages. We are trying to regroup in this data base as many
reconstructed proto systems as possible. We are aiming at a
"representative" sample of proto-systems corresponding to different
time-depths (right now our data base contains 60 proto-systems).
For language families we are not familiar with, it is  sometimes difficult
to evaluate the quality of the sources (and sometimes difficult to find the
relevant sources).
 
If you are familiar with one (or several) language families and
corresponding proto-phonological systems, we would greatly appreciate if
you could send us what you consider to be the best bibliographical
reference (or references if there are competing reconstructions ) for the
reconstructed proto-system(s) of  this (these) language family.
Thank you very much.
Egidio Marsico


From jharvey at ucla.edu  Tue Apr 15 15:18:39 1997
From: jharvey at ucla.edu (Jasmin Harvey)
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 11:18:39 EDT
Subject: GLAC-3 Conference Announcement
Message-ID: <TUE.15.APR.1997.111839.EDT.JHARVEY@UCLA.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
*This message is being cross-posted to HistLing, IndoEuropean, Lowlands-L,
and the Old Norse Net -- with apologies to those receiving repeated messages *
 
        The Third Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference
     (The Conference of the Society of Germanic Philology)
                     April 25 - 27, 1997
              University of California, Los Angeles
 
     Plenary Speakers:
 * Wolfgang Dressler, University of Vienna
 * Paul Kiparsky, Stanford University
 * Jan-Wouter Zwart, University of Groningen
 
A complete and current program of the Conference, including registration
info and lecture locations, titles and chairs, is posted on our website at
the address below:
 
http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/germanic/glac-3/default.htm
 
Questions may be sent to this e-mail address or to glac3 at humnet.ucla.edu.
 
Jasmin Harvey
Germanic linguistics,
UCLA Dept of Germanic Languages
jharvey at ucla.edu


From jsalmons at facstaff.wisc.edu  Thu Apr 17 00:29:20 1997
From: jsalmons at facstaff.wisc.edu (Joseph C. Salmons)
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 20:29:20 EDT
Subject: TOC: American J. of Germanic Linguistics, 8.2
Message-ID: <WED.16.APR.1997.202920.EDT.JSALMONS@FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Vol. 8.2 of the American Journal of Germanic Linguistics (journal of the
Society for Germanic Philology) is now available. New members joining now
will receive 8.2, plus 9.1 (currently in press) and 9.2 (fall). New
institutional subscribers will receive a complete set of back issues,
1.1-8.2, plus volume 9.
  8.2 contains:
 
ARTICLES
John R. te Velde: Coordination and antisymmetry theory
Neil G. Jacobs: On the investigation of 1920s Vienna Jewish speech
Amanda Pounder: Inflection and the paradigm in German nouns
W. A. Benware: Processual change and phonetic analogy: ENHG <s> > <sch>
 
DISCUSSION NOTE
Joseph B. Voyles: Response to Penzl's "Zum Beweismaterial . . ."
 
REVIEW ARTICLE
E. Koenig and J. van der Auwera, eds., The Germanic languages, rev. by
        Wayne Harbert
 
REVIEWS
W. J. Jones, Sprachhelden und Sprachverderber, rev. by Klaus-Peter Wegera
C. Russ, The German language today, rev. by Ulrich Ammon
R. Bloomer, System-congruity and the participles of  Modern German and
        Modern English, rev. by David Fertig
T. Swan et al., eds., Language change and language structure, rev. by
        Mark Louden
H. Haider et al., eds., Studies in comparative Germanic syntax, rev. by
        Beatrice Santorini
 
Index to volume 8
 
  Dues for personal memberships are $30.00 per calendar year, sustaining
membership $50.00. Institutional subscriptions are $43.00 per calendar
year. Dues for student memberships (with proof of status) and emeriti are
$15.00 per year.
  Applications for membership, subscriptions, etc. should be directed to
the Secretary of the Society: Prof. Robert B. Howell, Department of German,
University of Wisconsin, 818 Van Hise Hall, Madison, WI  53706, USA.
  Manuscripts for publication should be submitted in four (4) copies to the
chair of the editorial committee, Prof. Paul T. Roberge, Department of
Germanic Languages, CB# 3160 438 Dey Hall, University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3160, USA (Email: ptr at email.unc.edu.) Books for review
and reviews should be sent to the review editor, Prof. Sarah M. B. Fagan,
Department of German, University of Iowa, 528 Phillips Hall, Iowa City, IA
52242, USA (Email: sfagan at blue.weeg.uiowa.edu).
  Visit our site on the Web: http://www.cohums.ohio-state.edu/german/sgp/.


From mfceprh at fs1.art.man.ac.uk  Sat Apr 19 13:07:36 1997
From: mfceprh at fs1.art.man.ac.uk (Richard Hogg)
Date: Sat, 19 Apr 1997 09:07:36 EDT
Subject: Job notice
Message-ID: <SAT.19.APR.1997.090736.EDT.>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Nigel Vincent and I have two 6-year research posts in Romance and
Germanic linguistics which are currently being advertised in the U.K.
 
If anyone wants further information (or knows of a recently completed
PhD who might be interested), further information can be found on my
web page:
http://www.art.man.ac.uk/english/staff/rmh/home.htm
 
Richard Hogg
***************************************************************************
Richard M. Hogg                               Tel:    +44 (0)161-275-3164
Dept of English & American Studies     Fax:    +44 (0)161-275-3256
University of Manchester            e-mail: r.m.hogg at man.ac.uk
Oxford Road                              home:   +44 (0)161-941-1931
Manchester M13 9PL                  web:
 http://www.art.man.english/staff/rmh/home.htm
***************************************************************************


From russo at inrete.it  Mon Apr 28 13:37:24 1997
From: russo at inrete.it (Sonia Cristofaro)
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997 09:37:24 EDT
Subject: TOC: Archivio Glottologico Italiano
Message-ID: <MON.28.APR.1997.093724.EDT.RUSSO@INRETE.IT>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
This is to inform that volume LXXXI, 1996 of 'Archivio Glottologico
Italiano' is now available.
 
 
Archivio Glottologico Italiano LXXXI, 1996
 
A. Nocentini, Tipologia e genesi dell'articolo nelle lingue
indoeuropee
 
S. Luraghi, Processi di grammaticalizzazione in ittita
 
M. Sala Gallini, Lo statuto del clitico nella dislocazione a destra:
pronome vero o marca flessionale?
 
F. Fanciullo, Tra fonologia e morfologia: vicende di un suffisso
greco-romanzo nell'Italia meridionale
 
Reviews
Historical Linguistics 1993. Selected Papers from the 11 International
Conference on Historical Linguistics, Los Angeles, 16-20 August 1993,
Edited by H. Andersen. (E. Roma)
 
V. Formentin, Flessione bicasuale del pronome relativo in antichi
testi italiani centro-meridionali
 
F. Vicario, Per la definizione della categoria dei verbi analitici in
friulano
 
P. Cuzzolin, Fortune (e sfortune) delle lingue celtiche. A proposito
di due recenti pubblicazioni
 
Reviews
V.R. Giustiniani, Adam von Rottweil, Deutsch-Italienischer
Sprachfuehrer. (R. Ambrosini) Langues indo-europeennes sous l
adirection de F. Bader. (A. Parenti)


From stampe at HAWAII.EDU  Tue Apr  1 20:38:32 1997
From: stampe at HAWAII.EDU (David Stampe)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 1997 10:38:32 -1000
Subject: On the general acceptance of Austric
Message-ID: <TUE.1.APR.1997.103832.1000.STAMPE@HAWAII.EDU>

It is unquestionably honest, but I think that Sasha Vovin's impression
of the acceptance of the Austric hypothesis is wrong for Austroasiatic
scholars.  [The hypothesis, first argued by Pater Wilhelm Schmidt,
relates Austroasiatic (Munda, Mon-Khmer, Nicobarese) to Austronesian.]
At a conference in Honolulu a few years ago, Laurie Reid presented
morphological evidence for Austric.  Invited comparative Mon-Khmer
scholars (Gerard Diffloth) and comparative Munda scholars (Norman Zide,
Patricia Donegan, and myself) found Reid's paper well argued and well
worth hearing, but not compelling.  His paper and other conference
papers have now appeared in Oceanic Linguistics.  The discussants'
remarks were not solicited for publication, and since one discussant on
the AN side (Blust) has separately published a favorable response, the
lack of any published negative response might be mistaken for a
positive response.  But with the exception of L.V. Hayes, who has
separately published lexical arguments for Austric, I know of no
comparative AA scholar who regards the relationship of AA and AN as
established.
 
On the other hand, we shouldn't stop looking.  Reid's conference was
the first that brought Munda and Mon-Khmer scholars together in a
decade, and the first time in nearly three decades to bring us together
with scholars of AN and other groups, and it was stimulating to discuss
common traits and problems in these languages, related or not.
 
David Stampe <stampe at hawaii.edu>
Dept. of Linguistics, Univ. of Hawai`i/Manoa, Honolulu HI 96822


From reid at hawaii.edu  Wed Apr  2 21:55:45 1997
From: reid at hawaii.edu (Lawrence A. Reid)
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 1997 16:55:45 EST
Subject: On the general acceptance of Austric
Message-ID: <WED.2.APR.1997.165545.EST.REID@HAWAII.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
It would have been good if we could have had alternative explanations for
the comparative evidence that I (and others before and after me) have
produced for the Austric hypothesis in print, or at least in a form that we
could carefully look at and evaluate.  I think that David Stampe's inclusion
of Gerard Diffloth as among the scholars present at the CAMAC conference as
among those who do not endorse a genetic relationship between AA and An
languages is perhaps misleading.  Although not wildly enthusiastic about the
strength of the lexical evidence that has been accrued to date, he makes it
clear in his published paper in Oceanic Linguistics 33 (1994), that what
there is is convincing, and that he finds other explanations for the
morphological evidence for the relationship such as coincidence or borrowing
to be unacceptable.
But perhaps Gerard has changed his mind since then.  One An scholar who is
not convinced is Stan Starosta, who is presently trying to develop a
substratal account which will hold water.
 
Laurie Reid
 
At 10:38 AM 4/1/97 -1000, you wrote:
>It is unquestionably honest, but I think that Sasha Vovin's impression
>of the acceptance of the Austric hypothesis is wrong for Austroasiatic
>scholars.  [The hypothesis, first argued by Pater Wilhelm Schmidt,
>relates Austroasiatic (Munda, Mon-Khmer, Nicobarese) to Austronesian.]
>At a conference in Honolulu a few years ago, Laurie Reid presented
>morphological evidence for Austric.  Invited comparative Mon-Khmer
>scholars (Gerard Diffloth) and comparative Munda scholars (Norman Zide,
>Patricia Donegan, and myself) found Reid's paper well argued and well
>worth hearing, but not compelling.  His paper and other conference
>papers have now appeared in Oceanic Linguistics.  The discussants'
>remarks were not solicited for publication, and since one discussant on
>the AN side (Blust) has separately published a favorable response, the
>lack of any published negative response might be mistaken for a
>positive response.  But with the exception of L.V. Hayes, who has
>separately published lexical arguments for Austric, I know of no
>comparative AA scholar who regards the relationship of AA and AN as
>established.
>
>On the other hand, we shouldn't stop looking.  Reid's conference was
>the first that brought Munda and Mon-Khmer scholars together in a
>decade, and the first time in nearly three decades to bring us together
>with scholars of AN and other groups, and it was stimulating to discuss
>common traits and problems in these languages, related or not.
>
>David Stampe <stampe at hawaii.edu>
>Dept. of Linguistics, Univ. of Hawai`i/Manoa, Honolulu HI 96822
>
-----------------------------------
Lawrence A. Reid
Professor of Linguistics
 
Department of Linguistics            Office: (808) 956-3223
University of Hawaii                 Home:   (808) 396-8302
Moore Hall 569                       FAX:    (808) 956-9166
1890 East-West Road                  E-mail: reid at hawaii.edu
Honolulu, HI 96822
 
-----------------------------------


From jer at cphling.dk  Wed Apr  2 14:12:28 1997
From: jer at cphling.dk (Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen)
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 1997 09:12:28 EST
Subject: solid tradition & winds of fashion
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.89.9703221223.A25864-0100000@firefly.prairienet.org>
Message-ID: <WED.2.APR.1997.091228.EST.JER@CPHLING.DK>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
A big hand to Steven Schaufele for a precise formulation of what I meant:
IE and General Linguistics need each other - there is no progress in *our*
getting imperialistic to make up for the opposite wrongdoing.
 
Sincerely,
Jens E.R.


From vovin at hawaii.edu  Thu Apr  3 02:20:15 1997
From: vovin at hawaii.edu (Alexander Vovin)
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 1997 21:20:15 EST
Subject: On the general acceptance of Austric
In-Reply-To: <97Apr2.114223hwt.586820(4)@relay1.Hawaii.Edu>
Message-ID: <WED.2.APR.1997.212015.EST.VOVIN@HAWAII.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I have the same impression that Laurie Reid: as far as I know from Gerard
Diffloth's publications, in particular from the article in Oceanic
lingustics 1994 that Laurie has already mentioned, he is is a mild
supporter of Austric rather than an adversary. Cf. e.g. the following
passage from the same article by Gerard Diffloth (italics are mine):
 
"Ironically, it is the relative poverty of shared vocabulary between
Austroasiatic and Austronesian, combined with *evident agreement in the
morphology*, that argues for *a genetic, and against a contact
relationship* between the two families, provided we allow for a great time
depth in order to avoid the obvious paradox". (p. 312)
 
    It does not sound like an outright rejection.
 
    I am aware that most Munda specialists are sceptical about Austric and
Austroasiatic itself, however as it seems there is no unity here either.
Reading the recent "Munda-jin no nookoo bunka to shokuji bunka: minzoku
gengogaku teki koosatsu (Farming culture and food culture of Munda: an
ethnolinguistic study)" by Toshiki Osada (Kyoto: Kokusai nihon bunka
kekkyuu sentaa, 1995) I was under a definite impression that its author
supports Austroasiatic.
    Besides, let us suppose that Munda languages are not related to
Austronesian or rest of the Austroasiatic (If I remember correctly, this
was the point David Stampe was making at CAMAC 1993 -- if I am wrong
please correct me). But this hardly affects Austric or even Austroasiatic
itself: Munda specialists would just remove one of the lower nodes. In
addition, as far as I can tell, Munda materials in the post-Shafer and
post-Pinnow research were not quite the main materials on which the
demonstration of Austric was based (again, please correct me if I am
missing something here), but the evidence stands predominantly on
Mon-Khmer, and now, thanks to Laurie, also on Nicobarese.
 
Sincerely,
 
Alexander Vovin
vovin at hawaii.edu
 
On Wed, 2 Apr 1997, Lawrence A. Reid wrote:
 
>[...]   I think that David Stampe's inclusion
> of Gerard Diffloth as among the scholars present at the CAMAC conference as
> among those who do not endorse a genetic relationship between AA and An
> languages is perhaps misleading.  Although not wildly enthusiastic about the
> strength of the lexical evidence that has been accrued to date, he makes it
> clear in his published paper in Oceanic Linguistics 33 (1994), that what
> there is is convincing, and that he finds other explanations for the
> morphological evidence for the relationship such as coincidence or borrowing
> to be unacceptable.
[...]>
> Laurie Reid


From mcv at pi.net  Thu Apr  3 17:58:42 1997
From: mcv at pi.net (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 12:58:42 EST
Subject: On the general acceptance of Austric
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.95q.970402230034.11504D-100000@uhunix2>
Message-ID: <THU.3.APR.1997.125842.EST.MCV@PI.NET>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Alexander Vovin <vovin at hawaii.edu> wrote:
 
>Common numerals do not necessarily indicate genetic relationship.
>Japanese, e.g., borrowed numerals from Chinese:
 
I know.  But it invariably indicates very intimate connections between
the two peoples, languages and cultures.  My question was: how do the
Mundologists account for that?  Where and when were Munda and
Mon-Khmer supposed to have been in initimate contact with each other?
SE Asia?  The Neolithic?  Did Proto-Munda borrow the numerals from
Mon-Khmer, or viceversa?  
 
A hypothesis of large-scale or systematic borrowing (and that of the
number system certainly counts as such) needs to be proved and
explained, just as much as a hypothesis of genetic relationship.
 
==
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal                     ~ ~
Amsterdam                   _____________  ~ ~
mcv at pi.net                 |_____________|||
 
========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig


From vovin at hawaii.edu  Thu Apr  3 17:58:21 1997
From: vovin at hawaii.edu (Alexander Vovin)
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 12:58:21 EST
Subject: On the general acceptance of Austric
In-Reply-To: <33586acf.82468225@mailhost.pi.net>
Message-ID: <THU.3.APR.1997.125821.EST.VOVIN@HAWAII.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Common numerals do not necessarily indicate genetic relationship.
Japanese, e.g., borrowed numerals from Chinese:
 
       Japanese            Middle Chinese (transcription simplified)
1        iti                   ?it
2        ni                    ~ni
3        san                    sam
4        si                     s"i
5        go                     ngo
6        roku                   luk
7.       siti                   chit
8        hati                   pat
9.       kyuu/ku                kju
10.      zyuu                   sip
 
    Native numerals in modern Japanese are used only for concrete count.
 
Alexander Vovin
 
 
On Wed, 2 Apr 1997, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:
 
> I don't know anything about Munda or Austroasiatic, but I wonder how
> the Munda specialists account for the numerals, if there is no genetic
> connection?
>
>    Mun.d.a:ri:  Santali    Mon      Khmer
> 1  mi'd         mit_       moa      mu at y
> 2  baria        bar        ba:      pii
> 3  apia         pe         pei      b at y
> 4  upunia       pon        pon      bu at n
> 5  mon.r.ea     mo~r.e~    msaun    pram
> 6  turuia       turui      tarao:   pram-mu at y
> 7  ea           eae        thapoh   pram-pii
> 8  i'rilia      iral.      tec^am   pram-b at y
> 9  area         are        tec^it   pram-bu at n
> 10 gelea        gel        c^oh     dOp
>
>
> ==
> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal                     ~ ~
> Amsterdam                   _____________  ~ ~
> mcv at pi.net                 |_____________|||
>
> ========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig
>


From mcv at pi.net  Thu Apr  3 17:58:02 1997
From: mcv at pi.net (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 12:58:02 EST
Subject: On the general acceptance of Austric
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.95q.970402140044.15153C-100000@uhunix2>
Message-ID: <THU.3.APR.1997.125802.EST.MCV@PI.NET>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Alexander Vovin <vovin at hawaii.edu> wrote:
 
>    I am aware that most Munda specialists are sceptical about Austric and
>Austroasiatic itself [..]
 
I don't know anything about Munda or Austroasiatic, but I wonder how
the Munda specialists account for the numerals, if there is no genetic
connection?
 
   Mun.d.a:ri:  Santali    Mon      Khmer
1  mi'd         mit_       moa      mu at y
2  baria        bar        ba:      pii
3  apia         pe         pei      b at y
4  upunia       pon        pon      bu at n
5  mon.r.ea     mo~r.e~    msaun    pram
6  turuia       turui      tarao:   pram-mu at y
7  ea           eae        thapoh   pram-pii
8  i'rilia      iral.      tec^am   pram-b at y
9  area         are        tec^it   pram-bu at n
10 gelea        gel        c^oh     dOp
 
 
==
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal                     ~ ~
Amsterdam                   _____________  ~ ~
mcv at pi.net                 |_____________|||
 
========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig


From Izzy at telaviv.ndsoft.com  Thu Apr  3 17:57:32 1997
From: Izzy at telaviv.ndsoft.com (Izzy (Israel) Cohen (req-telaviv))
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 12:57:32 EST
Subject: Nostratic: the state of the question
Message-ID: <THU.3.APR.1997.125732.EST.IZZY@TELAVIV.NDSOFT.COM>

forwarded by Israel Cohen
izzy at telaviv.ndsoft.com
 ----------
From: mcv at pi.net
To: nostratic at mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu
Subject: Nostratic: the state of the question
Date: Thursday, 3 April 1997 12:52AM
 
This message was sent using a character set not supported on the
Internet
Mail Connector. The message text has been placed into the attachment:
ATT00018.txt. To view, double-click on the attachment. If the text isn't
displayed correctly, save the attachment to disk, and then use a viewer
that can display the original character set.
 
 
 
-------------- next part --------------
Rick Mc Callister's question on "Indo-Uralic" and Kevin Tuite's
question on the possible implications for the Nostratic theory of the
suggested reconstruction of PIE as a Klimovian "jazyk aktivnogo
stroja", raise a couple of interesting questions.
 
What is the current state of Nostratic linguistics?  Where is there
still work to be done, which questions need to be settled, and what,
if anything, is required to "prove" the validity of the Nostratic
hypothesis?
 
I will discuss a number of issues separately, although all is
intertwined in practice: no lexical cognates can be generally
accepted, as long as no consensus exists on the phonology of
Nostratic.  Nostratic will not be accepted as a unit, as long as there
is no clarity on the question of which languages belong in it and
which don't.
 
1. LEXICON
 
This is the area where most work has been done.  Allan Bomhard's 601
etymologies in "The Nostratic Macrofamily" and the 378 published
etymologies of Illich-Svitych, despite differences in the treatment if
sound correspondences, have 139 roots in common, if I have not
miscounted.  That constitutes a solid basis for further work, and
should give us a degree of confidence in the validity of the Nostratic
hypothesis.  What are the odds that the reconstructed proto-languages
of the AA, IE, Kartvelian, Dravidian, Uralic and Altaic families
should share 139 basic vocabulary roots, with regular sound
correspondences, *exclusively* due to borrowing or chance resemblance?
 
2. PHONOLOGY
 
The biggest problem remains the interpretation of the PN stop system.
Illich-Svitych had reconstructed PN *t' *t *d =3D> PIE *t *d *dh.  Allan
Bomhard, following the "glottalic theory" of Gamqrelidze et al. for
PIE, reconstructs PN *t' *t *d =3D> PIE *d *t *dh (/t'/, /t/, /d/)
instead.  The most curious fact about all of this is that results
could be obtained using both correspondence sets.  As a matter of
fact, back in 1911, Hermann Moeller had obtained a sizeable amount of
IE ~ Semitic cognates using yet another set of sound correspondences.
 
Are the critics right that at this level of long range comparison, a
number of "cognates" (i.e. chance resemblances) can be found, no
matter what set of sound correspondences one uses?  I don't think so.
In the first place, Illich-Svitych and Bomhard have not done "mass
comparison".  Their work is based mainly on reconstructed proto-forms
for the families involved, and the choice of possible words is no
greater than what one has in IE linguistics (which is not to say that
one cannot dip into a family and pick a word that is present in one
language only, just as, say, Pokorny can dip into Greek and use an
obscure dialect word from Hesyochios (sp?)).  In my view, the body of
solid etymologies that are common to both "systems" cannot be
dismissed by pointing to these apparent irregularities in the stop
system.  If so, Indo-European should have been dismissed because of
the irregularities in Grimm's law (solved by Verner) or cases like
Lat. <habere> ~ E. "to have" (to be solved), and many others like it
(I wish I had a list of them).
 
We know at least that PIE had dissimilated roots that contained more
than one glottalic.  Similar assimilations and dissimilations will
have occurred in other branches of Nostratic, even at the
proto-language level itself (e.g. I am convinced that Bomhard's #92
*tap, and #134 *t'ab, both "warm, hot" are in fact the same word, but
until some Nostratic Verner comes along to prove the fact, it remains
an act of faith -- or common sense -- as in the case of <habere> ~
<hebban>).
 
 
3. GRAMMAR
 
Too little is known about Nostratic grammar.  In Historical
Linguistics, lexicon is nice, but morphology is nicer. =20
 
John Kerns' chapter on Grammar in "The Nostratic Macrofamily", while
concentrating on "Northern Nostratic" (Eurasiatic), gives a fair view
of nominal and pronominal morphology (genitive *-n, locative *-nV,
accusative *-m, an ablative involving a dental, etc.), but the absence
of any kind of verbal morphology is disappointing.
 
I myself recently suggested here that a case can be made for
reconstructing the the Nostratic stative verb paradigm (*-kV, *-tkV,
*-V, *-wenV, *-tkwenV, (?)), based on Ancient Egyptian, Berber,
Semitic, Indo-European and Elamite, with possible traces of the same
paradigm in at least Uralic (Ugric), and the Kartvelian 2pl.p.p.
*tkwen as additional supporting evidence.  There is a problem with the
correspondence PAA *k ~ PIE *H, wich neither Illich-Svitych nor
Bomhard envisages, but then neither system is concerned with
Auslautgesetze.  As far as I know, no proposal had been previously
made to reconstruct this, or any other bit of Nostratic verbal
morphology (but I may be wrong).  In any case, I would have loved to
hear some comments...
 
 
4. MEMBERSHIP AND SUBGROUPING
 
One of the most important questions is: which languages belong in
Nostratic?  Illich-Svitych's publications made use of materials from
AA, Kartvelian, IE, Dravidian, Uralic and Altaic (incl. Korean).
Bomhard/Kerns' book uses AA, Kartvelian, IE, Elamo-Dravidian,
Uralic-Yukaghir, Altaic and Sumerian, with occasional references to
Etruscan.  In the Grammar section, Kerns uses Korean and Japanese
examples, while in the preliminary chapters Chukchi-Kamchtakan, Gilyak
and Eskimo-Aleut are explicitly mentioned as members of Nostratic
(which is also in accordance with Dologopol'skij's and Greenberg's
views).
 
[I have just seen Allan's reply.  A question to Allan: compared with
the tree on p. 36 of the "Nostratic Macrofamily", would your current
views be accurately described by the following diagram?
 
          Nostratic
             |
     ________|_______
    |                |
Afrasiatic   ________|________
            |                 |
       Elamo-Dravidian  ______|_______
                       |              |
                  Kartvelian      Eurasiatic
 
(i.e. Kartvelian and Elamo-Dravidian "switch places", and Sumerian
moves to a level above Nostratic?)]
 
Greenberg's definition of Eurasiatic not only includes Nivkh, but also
Ainu, which in view of recent discussion (here or on HISTLING?) would
appear to be controversial.
 
Controversial also remains the position of Sumerian, mainly due to our
imperfect knowledge of both the phonology and the semantics of the
Sumerian lexicon.  I will simply note that the Sumerian sound
correspondences on pp. 125-131 correspond almost exactly with the ones
I independently derived last year from a comparison of IE and
Sumerian.
 
The position of Basque, which I recently tried to link with Nostratic
on this very forum, is of course controversial as well.
 
In "Postscript 1991" to the Classification of the World's Languages,
Ruhlen quotes Starostin's views that Afro-Asiatic should be considered
coordinate to, not included in Nostratic, and his assertion that
Elamo-Dravidian is the most divergent branch of Nostratic.  Coupled
with Greenberg's views on Eurasiatic [and Allan's comments here], this
seems to indicate some kind of preliminary consensus on the
subgrouping of Nostratic [something like the tree I drew above].
Since Uralic, Altaic and "Chukchi-Eskimo" are beyond my level of
expertise, I cannot judge whether IE is indeed closer to those
languages than it is to AA, Kartvelian or Dravidian (again, not my
specialisms).  I see enough parallels between IE and AA, however
(sound system, the stative verb endings which I outlined above), to
consider the possibility that IE might actually have close ties both
ways and act like a kind of "bridge" between South (AA, Kartv, Drav)
and North (EA, CK, Alt), like Uralic probably does from the other
side.  Which sort of answers Rick's question.
 
Another issue discussed by Starostin in the same article quoted by
Ruhlen (1989 "Nostratic and Sino-Caucasian", in Shevoroshkin
"Explorations in Language Macrofamilies") is the relationship of
Nostratic as a whole with other macrofamilies.  Unfortunately, I have
not read Starostin's article, but while studying John Bengtson's
materials on Basque and Caucasian, which the author was kind enough to
send me, I could not help but notice some striking parallels between
Proto-North-(East-)Caucasian and Nostratic (*Hwir-i "lake, pond"
[*Haw-, *Hw-er- "rain"]; *tl'a:npV "lip" [PAA *tlip-at- "lip", etc.];
*tl_w-irV "horn" [*tlir- "highest point/rank"]; *dzwhari: "star" [PSem
*?iTtar-, PIE *ster- etc.]; *X~wejrV "dog" [PIE *k(u)on- "dog", PU
*ku"jna" "wolf"]; *swerho "old" [*dzwer- "old" or *syiny- "old" ?];
*s'u"no "year" [*syiny- "old, year" if this is not a loan from
Semitic]; *=3Da":sA "to sit" [*?asy- "to sit"]; *s_e:HmV "vein, muscle"
[*sin- "sinew, tendon, vein"]; *b~ak'V "(palm of the) hand" [PIE
*bha:ghu- "elbow, lower arm"]; *?iman "to stay" [*man- "to stay"], to
quote the most obvious ones).
 
The above suggest some kind of relationship between Nostratic (however
defined) and (Macro-)Caucasian (however defined).  One area which I
for one would very much like to see investigated would be that of
possible relations of Nostratic with the African language groups
(Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Kordofanian, Macro-Khoisan).  Which brings me to:
 
 
5 PREHISTORIC FRAMEWORK
 
Another issue that is closely intertwined with the others.
Determining linguistically which languages are part of Nostratic could
shed some light on interpreting the archaeological data.  Conversely,
knowing the archaeological data can guide our thoughts on linguistic
relationships and time depths.
 
It is funny that Allan has just said: "Afrasian stands apart as an
extremely ancient, independent branch -- it was the first branch of
Nostratic to separate from the rest of the Nostratic speech
community", as this is the exact opposite of how I would put it.
I would regard the speakers of Afro-Asiatic as the "stay behinds",
while the rest of Nostratic wandered out into North Africa, the Near
East and Europe.  The linguist effect (at least as it affects AA
versus the rest) is of course the same.
 
Suffice it to quote something that I wrote some time ago on the
Basque-L, in the course of a speculative discussion on
historico-linguistic matters with Miguel Aguirre Martinez, who is also
Spanish and also lives in the Netherlands...
 
[I wrote on the BASQUE-L:]
 
In my view, the history of Homo displays a remarkably stable pattern=20
from its inception in Africa more than a million years ago to about=20
10,000 years BP.  Africa, and in particular the upper Nile valley=20
(Sudan) has acted as a population "pump", injecting new populations=20
into the rest of the world at regular intervals.  We cannot trace=20
every single episode, but some of the major ones are clear:
 
1,000,000 BP: expansion of Homo Erectus (Lower Paleolithic).
Java man and Peking man show that Erectus migrated from Africa to=20
Asia early on. =20
 
150,000 BP: expansion of Homo Sapiens (Middle Paleolithic).
This is where I would put "Proto-World".  This stage marks the origin=20
of the Neanderthal populations of North Africa, the Near East, Europe=20
and Central Asia.  I haven't got much information on the physical=20
characteristics of the populations of India, SE Asia and China in=20
this period ("Solo man"?), but at the risk of not being politically=20
correct, I'd suggest a link with the modern "Australoid" populations=20
(Vedda, Negrito, Papuan and Australian).  This simply means that=20
Neanderthal man was fully a member of our own species, as is=20
the current palaeoanthropological consensus. =20
 
50,000 BP: expansion of "H.S.Sapiens" (Upper Paleolithic).
This is in fact the expansion of the Aurignacian culture, which=20
developed in Africa and the Near East 50 or 60,000 years ago, and=20
subsequently spread to Europe (40,000 BP), Central Asia, and=20
presumably India as well.  In SE Asia and Europe, the Aurignacian=20
penetration was only partial, and we have several cultures that seem=20
to continue Middle Paleolithic traditions (pebble-tool cultures in SE=20
Asia and China, the Lower Perigordian (Ch=D7telperronian) in Western=20
Europe, the Uluzzian in Italy and the Szeletian in Eastern Europe.
Linguistically, Austric, Macro-Caucasian, Sino-Tibetan, Na-Dene and=20
the various Amerind groups may be traced back to this wave.
 
30,000 BP: Gravettian.
The Gravettian absorbed the Aurignacian, Chatelperronian, Uluzzian,=20
and Szeletian cultures in North Africa, the Near East and Europe.
Apart from the post-glacial expansions into Siberia [and the Neolithic
expansions], there is a perfect geographical match with the
"Nostratic" macro-family.
 
15,000 BP?: Afro-Asiatic.
Sometime between the Gravettian expansion and the Neolithic,=20
the Egyptian, Berber-Chadic and Semitic populations must have=20
expanded from the Sudan to Northern Africa and the Near East=20
(Palestine), leaving Cushitic and Omotic in the Sudanese homeland.
 
By the time of the Neolithic, the stage was set for yet another=20
African wave, as Nilo-Saharans had pushed the Omotians-Cushites out=20
of the Sudan (Nubia).  However, the Neolithic population explosion in=20
Egypt and the Near East effectively blocked the way for any new=20
migrations out of Africa, and with the modern advance of Arabic=20
southwards into the Sudan, the pattern seems to have been partially=20
reversed, for the first time in human history.
 
[end quote]
 
I must repeat that the above is highly speculative.
 
But what it suggests in linguistical terms is a kind of "onion like"
structure of the Nostratic macrofamily, with Omotic at the core [and
that's where possible links with African families would be most
interesting to examine], Cushitic and Beja the inner ring, then
"Northern Afrasiatic" (Ancient Egyptian, Semitic, Berber-Chadic).  The
next layer(s) would be Basque [N.Africa=3D>W.Europe], Etruscan and IE
[S.Europe], Eurasiatic [E.Europe=3D>Siberia], Kartvelian, Elamo-
Dravidian and Sumerian [N.East].  Then, no longer "Nostratic", but
distantly related, come the layers consisting of Caucasian/Yeniseian/
Sino-Tibetan [C.Asia], Burushaski and Nahali [S.Asia], "Austric"
[SE.Asia], with Na-Dene and the various Amerind groups as offshoots of
these groups into the New World.
 
=3D=3D
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal                     ~ ~
Amsterdam                   _____________  ~ ~
mcv at pi.net                 |_____________|||
 
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig

From n-zide at uchicago.edu  Fri Apr  4 13:44:39 1997
From: n-zide at uchicago.edu (Norman Zide)
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 1997 08:44:39 EST
Subject: No subject
Message-ID: <FRI.4.APR.1997.084439.EST.NZIDE@UCHICAGO.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
  Regarding Vovin's reference to Mundalogists who question the
Munda-Mon-Khmer relationship, who are these people ? I agree with Sasha -
who doesn't ? - that the numbers (along with much else) imply genetic
relationship. His examples (Kherwarian/North Munda as compared with Khmer)
could be better chosen. I think it is clear that the numbers 1,2,3,4 and 10
are cognate in Munda and MK  (see the Austroasiatic number systems issue of
Linguistics (1976), in most ways not superseded, and, for Munda, N. Zide's
Studies in the Munda Numerals (1978). A messier and more interesting
historical development of number words, in Gorum (a South Munda language) -
partly discussed in Zide, 1978 - was described in a paper (unpublished) by
Zide given at the 1995 Manchester historical linguistics meetings.
Coincidentally - surprisingly to me - a paper with similar data (strange
semantic extensions of simple number words within the number series) on a
Tibeto-Burman language of Nepal was presented by Werner Winter at the same
meeting.
    As to Austric, I agree with Vovin's and Laurie Reid's description of
the state of opinion on  A. I am not competent to deal with 'the Austric
question', but I do agree with Stampe that Reid's paper - in particular his
use of the Nicobarese data - is not convincing.


From mcv at pi.net  Fri Apr  4 17:46:51 1997
From: mcv at pi.net (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 1997 12:46:51 EST
Subject: Munda numerals
In-Reply-To: <199704040346.VAA01295@woodlawn.uchicago.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.4.APR.1997.124651.EST.MCV@PI.NET>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Norman Zide <n-zide at uchicago.edu> wrote:
 
>  Regarding Vovin's reference to Mundalogists who question the
>Munda-Mon-Khmer relationship, who are these people ? I agree with Sasha -
>who doesn't ? - that the numbers (along with much else) imply genetic
>relationship. His examples (Kherwarian/North Munda as compared with Khmer)
>could be better chosen. 
 
Sasha ne vinovat.  The examples were mine, and as I said, I know
nothing about either Munda or Mon-Khmer.  I just happen to have
Campbell's "Compendium of the World's Languages", where only Mundari
and Santali are represented...
 
 
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at pi.net
Amsterdam


From manaster at umich.edu  Fri Apr  4 17:44:58 1997
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 1997 12:44:58 EST
Subject: On the general acceptance of Austric
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.95q.970402230034.11504D-100000@uhunix2>
Message-ID: <FRI.4.APR.1997.124458.EST.>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
See the forthcoming paper by Manaster and Ramer and Sidwell
in WZKM "Numerals and the Altaic question" (the title may
be something else when it comes out in the fall).


From vovin at hawaii.edu  Fri Apr  4 23:13:03 1997
From: vovin at hawaii.edu (Alexander Vovin)
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 1997 18:13:03 EST
Subject: your mail
In-Reply-To: <199704040346.VAA01295@woodlawn.uchicago.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.4.APR.1997.181303.EST.VOVIN@HAWAII.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
 
On Fri, 4 Apr 1997, Norman Zide wrote:
 
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>   Regarding Vovin's reference to Mundalogists who question the
> Munda-Mon-Khmer relationship, who are these people ? I agree with Sasha -
> who doesn't ? - that the numbers (along with much else) imply genetic
> relationship. His examples (Kherwarian/North Munda as compared with Khmer)
> could be better chosen.
 
I believe that there is some confusion: Sasha Vovin is the one person
(me), Miguel Vidal is another. I trust that both Zide and Vidal
misunderstood my message on numerals in the sense that I deny
Munda-Mon-Khmer genetic relationship. I don't, but I can't see how
numerals alone can be used as a proof of genetic relationship -- that was
the essence of my reply to Vidal. As for Mundologists who doubt the
Munda-Mon-Khmer, it seems to me that David Stampe expressed doubts in his
recent posting not only about re Austric, but about Austroasiatic in
general, referring not only to himself, but also to Zide and Donegan. If I
misunderstood him, I offer my sincere apologies, since it turns out that
Zide does not doubt AA.
 
Sincerely,
 
Alexander (Sasha) Vovin


From fcosws at prairienet.org  Sun Apr  6 21:52:57 1997
From: fcosws at prairienet.org (Steven Schaufele)
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 1997 17:52:57 EDT
Subject: ref search on various glossogenetic affiliations in Africa
Message-ID: <SUN.6.APR.1997.175257.EDT.FCOSWS@PRAIRIENET.ORG>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Dear Colleagues,
 
Recent browsing in some general texts has made me aware that there are
or have been recently some questions raised about certain putative
affiliations amongst certain languages on the African continent.  Not
being an Africanist, this is in no way an area i am particularly
knowledgeable about, but i have hopes someday of teaching a seminar in
which students are called upon to examine critically the literature
arguing pro & con certain hypotheses in the field of historical
linguistics, and i would therefore like some references to good
discussions in the literature on the following topics:
 
1. There is presumably no question that all the so-called `Cushitic'
languages are members of the Afro-Asiatic family.  But do they constitute
a well-defined sub-family, or are they merely a `miscellaneous' category?
 
2. Are the so-called `Nilo-Saharan' languages a well-defined glosso-
genetic family or merely a geographically-defined group?
 
3. Ditto the `Khoisan' languages.
 
Thanks for any suggestions wrt literature on these issues.  If there is
sufficient interest, i'll post a summary on HISTLING.
 
Best,
Steven
---------------------
Dr. Steven Schaufele
712 West Washington
Urbana, IL  61801
217-344-8240
fcosws at prairienet.org
http://www.prairienet.org/~fcosws/homepage.html
 
**** O syntagmata linguarum liberemini humanarum! ***
*** Nihil vestris privari nisi obicibus potestis! ***


From stampe at hawaii.edu  Tue Apr  8 11:09:04 1997
From: stampe at hawaii.edu (David Stampe)
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 07:09:04 EDT
Subject: On the general acceptance of Austric
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.95q.970404125018.22487C-100000@uhunix2> (message from
 Alexander Vovin on Fri, 4 Apr 1997 13:13:03 -1000)
Message-ID: <TUE.8.APR.1997.070904.EDT.STAMPE@HAWAII.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Summary: Austroasiatic yes, Austric not yet.
 
No one I know doubts the Munda--Mon-Khmer relationship (Austroasiatic).
A sizable percentage of their respective proto vocabularies is cognate,
and Donegan and I have showed how the polysynthetic structure of Munda
evolved from (and preserved much evidence of) the analytic structure of
proto-Austroasiatic (which remains in Mon-Khmer) [1].  In the century
since Schmidt published evidence for Aa, new data on Munda and MK have
considerably strengthened the case.
 
This is NOT so for Schmidt's hypothesis that Austroasiatic and Austro-
nesian are related (the Austric hypothesis): as we have learned more
about the languages and their histories, resemblances have had to be
discarded, and although new ones have appeared, after a century the
strength of the case for Austric has not increased.  We now have far
better documentation of South Munda, which, despite its distance, has
more cognates with Mon-Khmer than North Munda does.  But resemblances
between Aa and An cluster in South MK languages, which have had close
contacts with An languages since proto-Aa times.  According to the
Austric hypothesis, Munda and MK are equidistant from An.  But if only
MK resembles An, that is a problem for the Austric hypothesis.
 
For example, it once seemed impressive that Munda and Nicobarese, the
extreme ends of Aa, have suffixes, like An.  But if the suffixes are
not even similar between Munda and Nicobarese, much less between Munda
and An, they are not evidence for Austric.
 
Even the one resemblance that everyone agrees is most striking -- that
both Munda and An infix VC- prefixes in C-initial roots -- probably has
a functional basis: it keeps the prefix from forming a closed syllable
which could attract the accent away from the root [1]; Sora (S. Munda)
uses such pre/infixes as @n- 'nominalizer' or @r- 'instrumentalizer,
locativizer' productively in deverbal derivation, but VC- prefixes are
NOT infixed where they represent inflectional categories that naturally
take the accent, e.g. @r- 'reciprocal' or @d- 'negative' (which takes
the form @dn- before V-initial verbs, as if to insure that it does take
the accent).  Although a functional basis does not mean that infixation
could not have had a common origin in Aa and An, it weakens a case that
from the beginning has rested on similar morphological processes rather
than on cognate morphemes.
 
David <stampe at hawaii.edu>
 
 
[1] Patricia Donegan and David Stampe.  1983.  Rhythm and the holistic
organization of language structure.  In: John F. Richardson, Mitchell
Marks, and Amy Chukerman, eds.  Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.
337-351.


From Izzy at telaviv.ndsoft.com  Tue Apr  8 11:18:40 1997
From: Izzy at telaviv.ndsoft.com (Izzy (Israel) Cohen (req-telaviv))
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 07:18:40 EDT
Subject: Language Conferences/Seminars web site
Message-ID: <TUE.8.APR.1997.071840.EDT.IZZY@TELAVIV.NDSOFT.COM>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Appologies for multiple postings:
 
The language conference list located on the WWW at URL
 
http://www.clark.net/pub/royfc/confer.html
 
has been updated with over 80 new conferences and
about 2 dozen other changes since the February
1997 edition.
 
Conference Schedule
 for Linguists, Translators, Interpreters and Teachers of Languages.
 
(Clicking on the applicable link will provide
 additional conference information).
 
1997
1998
1999
2000 - 2003!
 
Quarterly events for which the exact date is not known.
Annual events for which the exact date is not known.
Biennial events for which the exact date is not known.
A special "continuing" event.
Your chance to publish your scholarly work on language.
Links for linguists I've run across while searching for conferences.
I've even found some job opportunities for linguists.
Past schedules will remain on the list for several months after the
date of the function for those who may wish to plan for next year.
 
For maintenance convenience, this list
is divided into several pages. They are:
     confer.html The conference list home page.
     confer7.html for conferences in 1997.
     confer8.html for conferences in 1998 and beyond.
     conf_pub.html for miscellaneously scheduled conferences
        and other links for linguists.
     confer_x.html for past conference schedules.
     con_links.html for useful conference-related links.
 
    Searching for Conferences
 
Conferences are listed chronologically.
No attempt has been made at this time to
provide a means to search the list for a
particular type of conference. Perhaps this
capability will be available in the future.
One may, of course, search the list using
the "find" or "search" function of the WWW
browser being used.
 
I have moved the links where one may search for
additional conferences to its own page because the
number is growing so large and beginning to clutter
this page even more. There also are links to other
related sites which Linguists, Translators, Inter-
preters and Teachers of Languages should find of value.
 
As all information pasted to the list is cut from the
original source (hypertexted with each schedule) I cannot
be held responsible for errors. Check the provided source,
first. Otherwise, please send corrections, additions, and
updates to royfcoch at clark.net (Roy F. Cochrun)
 
Return to Roy's Russian Resource home page
 
Last update 5 April 1997.
* * * *
 
Information forwarded by:
Israel Cohen
izzy at atelaviv.ndsoft.com


From Egidio.Marsico at mrash.fr  Mon Apr 14 14:46:52 1997
From: Egidio.Marsico at mrash.fr (Egidio Marsico)
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 10:46:52 EDT
Subject: IN SEARCH OF PROTO-LANGUAGES
Message-ID: <MON.14.APR.1997.104652.EDT.EGIDIO.MARSICO@MRASH.FR>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Dear Histling  Colleagues,
 
Jean-Marie Hombert and I are putting together a data base on
Proto-languages. We are trying to regroup in this data base as many
reconstructed proto systems as possible. We are aiming at a
"representative" sample of proto-systems corresponding to different
time-depths (right now our data base contains 60 proto-systems).
For language families we are not familiar with, it is  sometimes difficult
to evaluate the quality of the sources (and sometimes difficult to find the
relevant sources).
 
If you are familiar with one (or several) language families and
corresponding proto-phonological systems, we would greatly appreciate if
you could send us what you consider to be the best bibliographical
reference (or references if there are competing reconstructions ) for the
reconstructed proto-system(s) of  this (these) language family.
Thank you very much.
Egidio Marsico


From jharvey at ucla.edu  Tue Apr 15 15:18:39 1997
From: jharvey at ucla.edu (Jasmin Harvey)
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 11:18:39 EDT
Subject: GLAC-3 Conference Announcement
Message-ID: <TUE.15.APR.1997.111839.EDT.JHARVEY@UCLA.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
*This message is being cross-posted to HistLing, IndoEuropean, Lowlands-L,
and the Old Norse Net -- with apologies to those receiving repeated messages *
 
        The Third Germanic Linguistics Annual Conference
     (The Conference of the Society of Germanic Philology)
                     April 25 - 27, 1997
              University of California, Los Angeles
 
     Plenary Speakers:
 * Wolfgang Dressler, University of Vienna
 * Paul Kiparsky, Stanford University
 * Jan-Wouter Zwart, University of Groningen
 
A complete and current program of the Conference, including registration
info and lecture locations, titles and chairs, is posted on our website at
the address below:
 
http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/germanic/glac-3/default.htm
 
Questions may be sent to this e-mail address or to glac3 at humnet.ucla.edu.
 
Jasmin Harvey
Germanic linguistics,
UCLA Dept of Germanic Languages
jharvey at ucla.edu


From jsalmons at facstaff.wisc.edu  Thu Apr 17 00:29:20 1997
From: jsalmons at facstaff.wisc.edu (Joseph C. Salmons)
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 20:29:20 EDT
Subject: TOC: American J. of Germanic Linguistics, 8.2
Message-ID: <WED.16.APR.1997.202920.EDT.JSALMONS@FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Vol. 8.2 of the American Journal of Germanic Linguistics (journal of the
Society for Germanic Philology) is now available. New members joining now
will receive 8.2, plus 9.1 (currently in press) and 9.2 (fall). New
institutional subscribers will receive a complete set of back issues,
1.1-8.2, plus volume 9.
  8.2 contains:
 
ARTICLES
John R. te Velde: Coordination and antisymmetry theory
Neil G. Jacobs: On the investigation of 1920s Vienna Jewish speech
Amanda Pounder: Inflection and the paradigm in German nouns
W. A. Benware: Processual change and phonetic analogy: ENHG <s> > <sch>
 
DISCUSSION NOTE
Joseph B. Voyles: Response to Penzl's "Zum Beweismaterial . . ."
 
REVIEW ARTICLE
E. Koenig and J. van der Auwera, eds., The Germanic languages, rev. by
        Wayne Harbert
 
REVIEWS
W. J. Jones, Sprachhelden und Sprachverderber, rev. by Klaus-Peter Wegera
C. Russ, The German language today, rev. by Ulrich Ammon
R. Bloomer, System-congruity and the participles of  Modern German and
        Modern English, rev. by David Fertig
T. Swan et al., eds., Language change and language structure, rev. by
        Mark Louden
H. Haider et al., eds., Studies in comparative Germanic syntax, rev. by
        Beatrice Santorini
 
Index to volume 8
 
  Dues for personal memberships are $30.00 per calendar year, sustaining
membership $50.00. Institutional subscriptions are $43.00 per calendar
year. Dues for student memberships (with proof of status) and emeriti are
$15.00 per year.
  Applications for membership, subscriptions, etc. should be directed to
the Secretary of the Society: Prof. Robert B. Howell, Department of German,
University of Wisconsin, 818 Van Hise Hall, Madison, WI  53706, USA.
  Manuscripts for publication should be submitted in four (4) copies to the
chair of the editorial committee, Prof. Paul T. Roberge, Department of
Germanic Languages, CB# 3160 438 Dey Hall, University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3160, USA (Email: ptr at email.unc.edu.) Books for review
and reviews should be sent to the review editor, Prof. Sarah M. B. Fagan,
Department of German, University of Iowa, 528 Phillips Hall, Iowa City, IA
52242, USA (Email: sfagan at blue.weeg.uiowa.edu).
  Visit our site on the Web: http://www.cohums.ohio-state.edu/german/sgp/.


From mfceprh at fs1.art.man.ac.uk  Sat Apr 19 13:07:36 1997
From: mfceprh at fs1.art.man.ac.uk (Richard Hogg)
Date: Sat, 19 Apr 1997 09:07:36 EDT
Subject: Job notice
Message-ID: <SAT.19.APR.1997.090736.EDT.>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Nigel Vincent and I have two 6-year research posts in Romance and
Germanic linguistics which are currently being advertised in the U.K.
 
If anyone wants further information (or knows of a recently completed
PhD who might be interested), further information can be found on my
web page:
http://www.art.man.ac.uk/english/staff/rmh/home.htm
 
Richard Hogg
***************************************************************************
Richard M. Hogg                               Tel:    +44 (0)161-275-3164
Dept of English & American Studies     Fax:    +44 (0)161-275-3256
University of Manchester            e-mail: r.m.hogg at man.ac.uk
Oxford Road                              home:   +44 (0)161-941-1931
Manchester M13 9PL                  web:
 http://www.art.man.english/staff/rmh/home.htm
***************************************************************************


From russo at inrete.it  Mon Apr 28 13:37:24 1997
From: russo at inrete.it (Sonia Cristofaro)
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997 09:37:24 EDT
Subject: TOC: Archivio Glottologico Italiano
Message-ID: <MON.28.APR.1997.093724.EDT.RUSSO@INRETE.IT>

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
This is to inform that volume LXXXI, 1996 of 'Archivio Glottologico
Italiano' is now available.
 
 
Archivio Glottologico Italiano LXXXI, 1996
 
A. Nocentini, Tipologia e genesi dell'articolo nelle lingue
indoeuropee
 
S. Luraghi, Processi di grammaticalizzazione in ittita
 
M. Sala Gallini, Lo statuto del clitico nella dislocazione a destra:
pronome vero o marca flessionale?
 
F. Fanciullo, Tra fonologia e morfologia: vicende di un suffisso
greco-romanzo nell'Italia meridionale
 
Reviews
Historical Linguistics 1993. Selected Papers from the 11 International
Conference on Historical Linguistics, Los Angeles, 16-20 August 1993,
Edited by H. Andersen. (E. Roma)
 
V. Formentin, Flessione bicasuale del pronome relativo in antichi
testi italiani centro-meridionali
 
F. Vicario, Per la definizione della categoria dei verbi analitici in
friulano
 
P. Cuzzolin, Fortune (e sfortune) delle lingue celtiche. A proposito
di due recenti pubblicazioni
 
Reviews
V.R. Giustiniani, Adam von Rottweil, Deutsch-Italienischer
Sprachfuehrer. (R. Ambrosini) Langues indo-europeennes sous l
adirection de F. Bader. (A. Parenti)