From joh.wood at asu.edu Wed Apr 1 02:39:08 1998 From: joh.wood at asu.edu (Johamma L. Wood) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 21:39:08 EST Subject: CFP WECOL Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- CALL FOR PAPERS WECOL '98 Western Conference on Linguistics 9-11 October, 1998 Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona Deadline for Abstracts: 1 June 1998 Abstracts are invited for 20-minute talks in all areas of linguistic theory. Abstracts should be anonymous, and should be no longer than one page, with one inch margins, in typeface no smaller than 12 characters per inch. An additional page with examples and references may be included. Please provide 7 copies of the abstract. Authors should identify themselves on a separate 3x5" index card, and should include the title and author's address, affiliation, telephone number, and e-mail address. Invited speaker: James McCloskey, University of California at Santa Cruz. Abstracts should be sent to the following address: Elly van Gelderen, Chair, Abstracts Committee WECOL '98 PO Box 870302, Department of English, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-0302 WECOL 1998 will be held jointly with LASSO 1998. Deadline for LASSO Abstracts is June 15 and abstracts should be sent to gajill at unix1.sncc.lsu.edu. Additional information is available at www.public.asu.edu/~teresalw/lasso.html www.public.asu.edu/~teresalw/wecol.html From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Wed Apr 1 13:51:41 1998 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 08:51:41 EST Subject: Sum: `crystallization' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Last week I posted a query asking where Uriel Weinreich first used the term `crystallization' to denote the appearance of a more or less unified language out of a welter of linguistic activity. Several people have informed me that this term occurs in the most obvious place of all, Weinreich's famous book _Languages in Contact_ (1953, 1968), on pp. 69-70 and again on pp. 104-106. Guess I should have checked that book first, but I don't have a copy of it, and I couldn't remember encountering the term in it when I read it, back in my student days. The point of the query was that I am compiling a dictionary of historical and comparative linguistics, and I have recently been working on the terminology associated with the increasingly important topic of convergence phenomena. It cannot be said that terminology in this area has yet settled down, and I'm trying to work out just who has used which terms to denote what phenomena. Apart from `convergence' itself, I have found `crystallization', `lingua franca model', `rhizotic model', `social-network model', `contact language', `non-genetic language', `abrupt creole', `abnormal transmission', `mixed language', `punctuated equilibrium', `portmanteau language', `reification', `totemization', `endohybridization', and various other terms used to denote some aspect, attested or posited, of convergence, and I'm trying to assemble these various usages into some sort of order. My thanks to Sheri Pargman, Benji Wald, Sally Thomason, Richard Coates and Geoffrey Nathan for bringing the correct reference to my attention, and to Ernst Kotze, Roger Wright, Sharon Lorinskas and Max Wheeler for further comments and assistance. Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH England larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Wed Apr 1 13:53:25 1998 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 08:53:25 EST Subject: A question re IE In-Reply-To: from "manaster@umich.edu" at Mar 29, 98 09:53:31 am Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Alexis Manaster-Ramer asks for the missing 14th branch of IE recognized by Pokorny. It is `Phrygian and Dacian', which is unsurprisingly one of the smallest groups (less than two pages in the index). Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH England larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Thu Apr 2 17:00:52 1998 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 12:00:52 EST Subject: Dolgopolsky's new book Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- This really belongs on the Nostratic list, but the Nostratic list no longer exists. Dolgopolsky's new book on Nostratic has just been published in Britain. Here are the details: Aharon Dolgopolsky (1998), The Nostratic Macrofamily and Linguistic Palaeontology, Cambridge: The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, ISBN 0-9519420-7-7 (pb), price unknown, 116 + xxii pp. The book is distributed in the UK by Oxbow Books, Park End Place, Oxford OX1 1HN, UK; tel (0) or (+44) (1865)-241249; fax (0) or (+44) (1865)-794449. In the USA, it is distributed by The David Brown Book Company, P.O. Box 511, Oakville, CT 06779, USA; tel 860-945-9329; fax 860-945-9468. The book presents a reconstructed phoneme system for Proto-Nostratic, the reflexes of the consonants (but not the vowels) in ten major branches of Nostratic, and a sample of 125 proposed cognate sets. As the title suggests, the author is largely interested here in linguistic palaeontology, and he focuses his attention therefore on putative etyma pertaining to habitat, social organization and material culture. He can find no PN words pertaining to agriculture, animal husbandry, fishing, pottery, or maritime activity, and apparently also none pertaining to metal use or to any social unit larger than a clan. He therefore concludes that PN was spoken in the Mesolithic or late Palaeolithic period -- in other words, no later than 15,000 BC, or 17,000 BP. Given the words he thinks he finds for animal names, plant names, and weather phenomena, he further concludes that the PA homeland must have been subtropical and most likely located in southwest Asia. The proposed cognate sets await the attention of specialists in the relevant languages. Certainly some of the PIE comparanda cited are new to me, such as PIE * `marten' and * `wickerwork, wattle-fence', but I'm no IEist, and I may just be ignorant. Dolgopolsky reconstructs 50 consonant phonemes for PN; he doesn't provide a vowel system, but there appear to be seven distinct vowels present in his PA reconstructions. Among the 50 consonants are 35 obstruents, 14 resonants, and /h/, which you can classify to suit yourself. There are five contrasting nasals and no fewer than eight contrasting coronal laterals, which strikes me as rather a lot of coronal laterals. There are three series of obstruents: voiced, voiceless and emphatic. There are four orders of obstruents (labial, dental, velar, uvular), plus a further four of coronal affricates and fricatives (plain, palato-alveolar, alveolo-palatal and lateralized). All this makes for one hell of an obstruent system. The book is typographically a little challenging, in spite of obviously painstaking efforts, and it has been poorly proofread: typos are frequent. This is clearly only a taster toward the author's projected (and mammoth) Nostratic Dictionary, which we are told will contain around 2000 sets of comparisons. But it's enough to give the flavor of the author's Nostratic work, and I'd be interested to hear any comments on the quality of the reconstructions offered for the six families assigned to Nostratic -- especially since a number of them appear to be based on "reaching down" into the daughter languages to find comparanda. That is, there is a good deal of inverted reconstruction (top-down reconstruction) along the following lines: "this word I found in one Cushitic language must be assignable to Proto- Afro-Asiatic, because a suitable PAA reconstruction for it would match the PN reconstruction I've arrived at on the basis of IE and Tungusic". Inverted reconstruction is all very well in the case of a secure family, but it makes me nervous seeing it employed to set up a family in the first place. Just to cite an example, item number 2, for `hyena', claims reflexes in Afro-Asiatic, Altaic and Dravidian, but the claimed Afro-Asiatic form is found nowhere but in Semitic, while the claimed Altaic form is found nowhere but in a single Tungusic language. Not overwhelming. Moreover, I am a little disturbed by the very monotony of the reflexes of the PN obstruents (and indeed most other consonants) claimed for the assorted daughter languages. In spite of the truly vast time-depth claimed by Dolgopolsky, labial plosives just remain labial plosives practically everywhere, sibilants remain sibilants, */l/ remains /l/, */n/ remains /n/, and so on. It would appear that the daughters of Proto-Nostratic exhibited a singular reluctance to undergo any interesting phonological changes of the sort found in most other languages, even though we are talking about more than ten millennia from PN to (say) PIE. On the plus side, Dolgopolsky tries to be scrupulous in setting up systematic phoneme correspondences, though it's a little disconcerting that the first entry in the book, detected only in Afro-Asiatic and in Dravidian, fails to exhibit the claimed Dravidian reflex of *<-b->. Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH England larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From mcv at wxs.nl Fri Apr 3 02:02:11 1998 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 21:02:11 EST Subject: Dolgopolsky's new book In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Larry Trask wrote: >The proposed cognate sets await the attention of specialists in the >relevant languages. Certainly some of the PIE comparanda cited are >new to me, such as PIE * `marten' and * `wickerwork, >wattle-fence', but I'm no IEist, and I may just be ignorant. *bhel- doesn't ring a bell, unless it's Russ. belka "squirrel". *kat- is OK, except of course for the /a/: Lat. catena, casa and several others. >Dolgopolsky reconstructs 50 consonant phonemes for PN; he doesn't >provide a vowel system, but there appear to be seven distinct vowels >present in his PA reconstructions. Among the 50 consonants are 35 >obstruents, 14 resonants, and /h/, which you can classify to suit >yourself. There are five contrasting nasals and no fewer than eight >contrasting coronal laterals, which strikes me as rather a lot of >coronal laterals. Is that *without* counting the lateral affricates/fricatives? ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl Amsterdam From l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz Fri Apr 3 11:45:17 1998 From: l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz (Lyle Campbell) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 06:45:17 EST Subject: Question on "anythink" Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- My colleague, Elizabeth Gordon, would like to ask if anyone knows about/has any relevant information concerning the origin and distribution in varieties of English of a phenonenon found here in New Zealand. A common complaint from school teachers in New Zealand is about the pronunciations of words like 'nothing' and 'anything' as 'nothink' and 'anythink'. 'Nothink' is recorded in NZ by McBurney in 1887; it appears in an anonymous list written in 1817 of 'Errors of pronunciation and improper expressions used frequently and chiefly by inhabitants of London' (quoted in A.J. Ellis). Are the 'anythink/nothink' forms heard in other places today? Does anyone have any suggestions about the early history of this form? Thanks. Send replies directly to Liz (e.gordon at ling.canterbury.ac.nz). Dr. Lyle Campbell (Professor) Dept. of Linguistics University of Canterbury Private Bag 4800 Christchurch, New Zealand Fax: 64-3-364-2969 Phone: 64-3-364-2242 From richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk Fri Apr 3 11:45:52 1998 From: richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Richard Coates) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 06:45:52 EST Subject: Dologopolsky's new book : `marten' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Forwarded message: >From richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk Fri Apr 03 08:43:15 1998 Envelope-to: richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk Delivery-date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 08:43:15 +0100 Subject: Re: Dolgopolsky's new book To: mcv at wxs.nl Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 08:43:14 +0100 (BST) From: "Richard Coates" Cc: richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Richard Coates) In-Reply-To: <35952356.692887051 at mail.wxs.nl> from "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" at Apr 2, 98 09:02:11 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 610 Message-Id: > > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > Larry Trask wrote: > > >The proposed cognate sets await the attention of specialists in the > >relevant languages. Certainly some of the PIE comparanda cited are > >new to me, such as PIE * `marten' and * `wickerwork, > >wattle-fence', but I'm no IEist, and I may just be ignorant. > > *bhel- doesn't ring a bell, unless it's Russ. belka "squirrel". *kat- > is OK, except of course for the /a/: Lat. catena, casa and several > others. > Also in Celtic (W. bele, bela(u) `marten'). ----rc From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Fri Apr 3 11:48:20 1998 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 06:48:20 EST Subject: Dolgopolsky's new book In-Reply-To: <35952356.692887051@mail.wxs.nl> from "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" at Apr 2, 98 11:53:47 pm Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Miguel C V writes: [LT] > >There are five contrasting nasals and no fewer than eight > >contrasting coronal laterals, which strikes me as rather a lot of > >coronal laterals. > Is that *without* counting the lateral affricates/fricatives? No, with: three lateral affricates, two lateral fricatives, and three lateral resonants. I intend to check UPSID to see if any language is cited there with eight contrasting laterals. I know North American languages are fond of laterals, but I can't recall seeing one with eight of the things. Browsing in Ladefoged and Maddieson, I find that the Chadic language Bura has five contrasting coronal laterals, that Zulu has six but with two of them lateral clicks, that the Caucasian language Archi has seven phonetic laterals, but six of them pre-velar rather than coronal and probably not all phonemes, that Tlingit has five coronal laterals, none of them an ordinary voiced approximant, and that Navajo has five coronal laterals. So, if we exclude clicks, it appears at the moment that five laterals is the maximum known. Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From manaster at umich.edu Fri Apr 3 13:09:35 1998 From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 08:09:35 EST Subject: Dolgopolsky's new book In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- The PIE *kat 'wattlework' which Larry says Dolgopolsky has is clearly the same etymon as Illich-Svitych posited in the form *ket, and I do not understand how the vowel could be given as PIE *-a-. This is in fact supposed to be one of the many cases where Nostratic *a gives PIE *e (alternating with *o). However, this is a PIE etymon which is not traditional with IEnists, and was put together this way by Illich-Svitych himself, I believe. This does not mean that it is wrong, of course, and IS makes it clear that this is a new proposal. In general, although etyma that are not widely attested are quite often posited, I tend to agree with Larry's skepticism, and as I have argued elsewhere I think that AT BEST a very small percentage of the etyma posited for Nostratic by IS and Dolgopolsky will stand the test of time. Of course, as it happens *ket is fairly widely attested in IE, and I tend to think this was one of IS's better ideas. Alexis MR From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Fri Apr 3 13:55:28 1998 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 08:55:28 EST Subject: Question on "anythink" Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- You will doubtless receive better-informed answers than this, but I can say something. In most varieties of English, the plosive /g/ was lost after /n/ in word-final or morpheme-final position quite some time ago, leaving behind the new velar nasal phoneme. But this change apparently never happened in a sizeable area of England, including the West Midlands and southern Lancashire. In a continuous area including the cities of Birmingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Manchester and Liverpool, /g/ has remained in this position down to the present day. In this area, words like `sing', `long', `thing' and `bring' all end in a plosive /g/, and `singer' rhymes with `finger'. According to John Wells, this also happens, uniquely in Yorkshire, in the city of Sheffield, of which I have little experience, and was reported in the past in a part of Kent, from which it now appears to be absent. This type of pronunciation, which is very striking to my American ears, is categorical among all social classes in the West Midlands. It is not stigmatized, but is in fact regarded as prestigious, and speakers from the region typically do not lose it even when they otherwise adjust their accents strongly toward RP, or at least toward the speech of southern England. That is my experience, and that is the conclusion of John Wells, who reports that only a tiny minority of out-and-out RP-speakers in the region lack this /g/. Now, John Wells says nothing at all about the devoicing of /g/ to /k/ in this position, but I know from experience that it happens. I believe it never happens in a monosyllable: that is, `thing' is always pronounced with final /g/, and never with /k/, which would make it homophonous with `think'. However, in polysyllables, devoicing is frequent. I have noticed this above all in words like `anything' and `something', in which a final /k/ is often heard, though /g/ is (I think) also possible. I am uncertain about the treatment of verb-forms in <-ing>, though I *think* I have heard things like "What are you doing?" pronounced with a final /k/. So, the West Midlands and southern Lancashire would appear to be the obvious place to look for antecedents of the NZ pronunciation. On the other hand, the information from Sheffield and Kent suggests that the plosive pronunciation might have been more widespread in England not so long ago. Against this, I am not aware that the pronunciation with the plosive is recorded at all in North America, except in metropolitan New York, where it is prominent, but usually attributed to the influence of immigrant speech habits. The reference to John Wells is this: J. C. Wells (1982), Accents of English, 3 vols., vol. 2, pp. 365-366, Cambridge University Press. I hope this is helpful. Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH England larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From einarssonr at ADMIN.GMCC.AB.CA Fri Apr 3 16:57:53 1998 From: einarssonr at ADMIN.GMCC.AB.CA (Robert Einarsson) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 11:57:53 EST Subject: history of linguistics Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I am hoping that this list group is for both the history of languages and the history of linguistics as a tradition of study. I found the citation on _The History of Linguistics, vol 1-5_ very interesting, and have forwarded it and ordered a copy for our library. Sincerely, Robert Einarsson please visit my web site at www.artsci.gmcc.ab.ca/people/einarssonb/ From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Fri Apr 3 16:56:57 1998 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 11:56:57 EST Subject: Reversal of merger Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- It is a commonplace of historical linguistics that phonemic mergers cannot be reversed, a position recently dubbed "Garde's Principle" by Labov (1994) -- somewhat unfortunately, since "Garde's Principle" was already in use for something completely different. Nevertheless, a number of apparent counterexamples have been reported in the literature, and proposed explanations for these are not in short supply. So far, I have tracked down five putative explanations for apparent reversals of merger, as follows: (1) The merger occurred only at the phonetic level, and speakers retained different underlying representations in their heads, which they could later provide once again with differing phonetic realizations (Halle 1962). (2) The merger took place, but just one of the two merged segments had a distinctive phonological role in the language, and speakers were later able to separate out the two cases and de-merge them (Michelena 1957, 1961). (3) The merger took place in the prestige variety, but not in another variety of lower prestige, and a switch in prestige shows up in the record as a reversal, since only prestige varieties tend to be well recorded (Weinreich et al. 1968). (4) The merger occurred only variably, and speakers retained both merged and unmerged pronunciations, but tended to report only the merged pronunciation (Milroy 1992). (5) The merger never occurred; instead, there was only a near-merger, resulting in the usual failure of speakers to observe the objectively real contrast (Labov 1994). Now my query is this: does anybody know of any additional attempts at explaining apparent cases of reversal of merger? Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH England larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From geoffn at siu.edu Fri Apr 3 16:55:58 1998 From: geoffn at siu.edu (Geoffrey S. Nathan) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 11:55:58 EST Subject: Question on "anythink" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Let me add to what Larry says about final /g/ that Cockney exhibits final [k]. I don't have a handy reference to Cockney here in my office, but I note that Wells' discussion of the dialect includes the fact that final voiceless stops affricate in Cockney, and uses as an example 'nothing' [n^thinkx](1) (Wells 1982:323). I also recall my mother, who was raised in Central London, and occasionally produced some authentic data, used to say [n^fink], among other examples. I don't know what the immigration patterns to New Zealand are, but Londoners got around lots of places. (1) Apologies for ascii-flavored IPA. ^ represents caret, th represents theta. Geoff Geoffrey S. Nathan Department of Linguistics Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Carbondale, IL, 62901 USA Phone: +618 453-3421 (Office) FAX +618 453-6527 +618 549-0106 (Home) From llidop at gusun.georgetown.edu Fri Apr 3 16:55:17 1998 From: llidop at gusun.georgetown.edu (Paulino Llido) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 11:55:17 EST Subject: Morris Swadesh Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear anybody, I need help in tracing the life and works of Morris Swadesh who wrote I believe some works on lexico-statistics. Is he still alive? Where may I obtain a complete list of his works? Are his works part of a collection in some university? Are any of his relatives still around the US? Would anybody have a spare copy of his lexico-statistics work? Likewise, I am exploring the field of lexico-stats now and would want to know who the linguists are who have dedicated their life to this field and what and where their works, publications would be? Thanks for any help and will repost the answers of the contributors, Paul *********************************************************************** **************************************************** Paul C. LLIDO * ******************************* e-mail: llidop at gusun.georgetown.edu * **** Georgetown University (Graduate School - Dept. of Linguistics) * *********************************************************************** From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Fri Apr 3 14:26:35 1998 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 09:26:35 EST Subject: Dolgopolsky's new book In-Reply-To: from "manaster@umich.edu" at Apr 3, 98 08:09:35 am Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Alexis M R writes: [My first attempt at replying to this was interrupted by two crashes in rapid succession: the first of thunder, the second of our system. Here goes again.] > The PIE *kat 'wattlework' which Larry says Dolgopolsky has is > clearly the same etymon as Illich-Svitych posited in the form *ket, > and I do not understand how the vowel could be given as PIE *-a-. Yes, I'm now satisfied that PIE * is the intended form here. Possibly this is a typo (recall that the book is full of typos), but I don't think so. The PN reconstruction is *, with an emphatic /k/, and all the comparanda except the Kartvelian one have /a/. Elsewhere, PN */e/ is continued as PIE */e/, but in fact there is only one relevant form in the book. The small number of comparisons on offer here makes it difficult for the reader to check the consistency of proposed developments in the daughter languages. Also a problem is that only ten of the 125 PN reconstructions on offer are of definite form. All the others contain one or more instances of generic segments, optional segments, or fluctuation between segments. > This is in fact supposed to be one of the many cases where Nostratic > *a gives PIE *e (alternating with *o). However, this is a PIE > etymon which is not traditional with IEnists, and was put together > this way by Illich-Svitych himself, I believe. This does not mean > that it is wrong, of course, and IS makes it clear that this is a > new proposal. Dolgopolsky gives no clues as to which of his proposals follow I-S and which are new with him. > In general, although etyma that are not widely attested are > quite often posited, I tend to agree with Larry's skepticism, > and as I have argued elsewhere I think that AT BEST a very > small percentage of the etyma posited for Nostratic by IS and > Dolgopolsky will stand the test of time. Of course, > as it happens *ket is fairly widely attested in IE, and I > tend to think this was one of IS's better ideas. While I'm here, I might add that Dolgopolsky's PIE * `marten' is supported only by the Welsh word cited by Richard Coates and Latin `wild cat, marten, polecat>. Buck is not certain these words are related, and I have yet to check Pokorny. Also, I note that Dolgopolsky cites Sanskrit `lion' and Armenian `leopard', plus Tocharian `lion', to justify a supposed PIE * `lion, leopard'. It's news to me that the Sanskrit/Armenian link is generally accepted, though I have certainly seen it mooted, and the Tocharian form is new to me (and not obviously convincing). Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From semartin at pacifier.com Sat Apr 4 20:14:17 1998 From: semartin at pacifier.com (Sam Martin) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1998 15:14:17 EST Subject: Reversal of merger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Larry, An interesting message, with much food for thought. I seem to recall that Halle later discovered that the English data on which he based his "merger reversal" paper were flawed and he -- privately, at least -- recanted the conclusion, while still holding out that it "could" happen and waiting for a better case to prove it. I guess he's still waiting ... Too bad he never put anything in print about all that. My memory on this may be a bit fuzzy. Perhaps someone else can speak to the matter with more authority. Does Morris have an e-mail address? (Not listed in the LSA directory.) Sam From lieve.jooken at arts.kuleuven.ac.be Sat Apr 4 20:15:09 1998 From: lieve.jooken at arts.kuleuven.ac.be (Lieve Jooken) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1998 15:15:09 EST Subject: History of Linguistics conference (Leuven B, 2-4 July 198) Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- XI. International Colloquium of the Studienkreis `Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft' The History of Linguistic and Grammatical Praxis Leuven, 2nd - 4th July 1998 ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Pierre Swiggers, Piet Desmet, Lieve Jooken, Alfons Wouters (K.U.Leuven) Annie Boone (V.U.Brussel) Peter Schmitter (Universitat Munster, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul) Second Circular CONFERENCE PROGRAMME Wednesday 1 July 16.00-19.00 REGISTRATION . 20.00 INFORMAL GET-TOGETHER. Thursday 2 July Venue: House of Chievres, Great Beguinage. 09.00 Registration opens at House of Chievres. 09.30 Opening address Session I Antiquity to Renaissance 10.00 Muriel Lenoble, Pierre Swiggers, Alfons Wouters (Leuven, B) L'enseignement grammatical entre latin et grec: le manuel de Dosithee 10.30 Pieter A.M. Seuren (Nijmegen, NL) The Notion of Transformation in Antiquity 11.00 COFFEE 11.30 Nico Lioce (Oostende, B) Aspects grammaticographiques de l'ouvre rhetorique de Joan de Castellnou (XIVe siecle) 12.00 Willy Van Hoecke (Leuven, B) La `Declaration des Abus' (1578) d'Honorat Rambaud: La pratique de l'enseignement de l'ecriture et la necessite d'un systeme universel de transcription phonetique 12.30 Bernard Colombat (Grenoble, F) Les outils pour l'apprentissage du latin en France a la Renaissance et a l'Age classique 13.00 LUNCH Session II XVIIth and XVIIIth century 14.00 Werner Hullen (Essen, D) Textbook-families for the teaching of vernaculars between 1450 and 1700 14.30 Cristina Marras (Munster, D & Tel Aviv, ISR) Grammatica Rationalis und Lingua Philosophica bei G.W. Leibniz (1646-1716) 15.00 Astrid Gobels (Essen, D) Die "Brightland" Grammatik (1711): nationalsprachliche vs. rationale Grammatik 15.30 Brigitte Lepinette (Valencia, S) Les concepts de `methode', `grammaire', `art (grammatical)' et `cle' (pour apprendre le francais) au XVIIIe siecle dans l'enseignement du francais langue etrangere en Espagne 16.00 COFFEE 16.30 Serge Vanvolsem (Leuven, B) The first Italian grammar in Dutch (anon., Amsterdam, 1672) 17.00 Jan De Clercq (Zottegem, B) La grammaire francaise de Jean des Roches 17.30 Jutta Steinmetz (Paderborn, D) `Wissenschaft', `Sprache', und `Sprachwissenschaft' in deutschen Lexika und Enzyklopadien des 18. Jahrhunderts 18.00 Edeltraud Dobnig-Julch & Helmut WeiB (Regensburg, D) Georg Frantzlin: Versuch einer neuen Lehre ... der deutschen Sprachlehre 18.30 Joseph Reisdoerfer (Luxembourg, L) Un mythe pedagogique: les etudes de grec dans les colleges jesuites 20.00 RECEPTION offered by Peeters Publishers & Booksellers at Peeters Bookshop, Bondgenotenlaan 153. Friday 3 July Venue: House of Chievres, Great Beguinage. Session III XIXth & XXth century 09.00 Richard Steadman-Jones (Cambridge, GB) Etymology and language learning at the start of the 19th century 09.30 Dan Savatovsky (Paris, F) The interlinear translation techniques in Latin and French language learning 10.00 Jan Goes (Gent, B) La "grammaire generale" et l'enseignement des langues: la "Grammaire arabe" de Silvestre de Sacy 10.30 Els Elffers (Amsterdam, NL) Content words and function words in Dutch 19th-century school grammars 11.00 COFFEE 11.30 Erika Hultenschmidt (Bielefeld, D) Traduction, jugement pratique et ordre des mots: Henri Weil, eleve juif d'August Boeckh et lecteur de K.F. Becker en France 12.00 Pierre Boutan (Montpellier, F) Langues maternelles et langue nationale a l'ecole primaire francaise de la IIIe Republique: retour sur un conflit 12.30 Marie-Helene Claveres (Montpellier, F) La "methode maternelle" et le ministere de Victor Duruy (1863-1869) 13.00 LUNCH 14.00 Annie Boone & Michel Berre (Brussels, B) De l'influence de la "Grammaire generale" de P. Burggraff (1803-1881) sur les grammaires scolaires de la langue francaise publiees en Belgique entre 1863 et 1890 14.30 Edeltraud Werner (Halle-Wittenberg, D) Giovanni Romani: Projekt einer rationalen Beschreibung des Italienischen und Umsetzungsvorschlage fur den Unterricht 15.00 Klaus RoB (Duisburg, D) Sprachkunde oder Sprachwissenschaft im Lexikon? Eine historisch-systematische Analyse der Artikel `Sprache' und `Gebardensprache' am Beispiel dreier Ausgaben von Brockhaus und Meyer 15.30 Jacqueline Leon (Paris, F) Langues auxiliaires, traduction, et modeles de traduction automatique (1950-1970) 16.00 COFFEE 16.30 Sergej A. Romaschko (Moscow, RUS) title to be announced Session IV Missionary Grammars & non Indo-European Languages 17.00 Christopher Alake (Leuven, B) Early Descriptions of the Yoruba Language. The Work of Samuel Ajayi Crowther. 17.30 William B. McGregor (Melbourne, AUS) Fr. Alphonse Tachon's research into Nywlnyul (Dampier Land, Western Australia), 1890-1900 18.00 Matti Leiwo (Jyvaskyla, FIN) Presentation of the Finnish case system in school grammars 19.00 GUIDED TOUR of the University Library Saturday 4 July Venue: Justus Lipsius room, Faculty of Arts, 8th floor, Blijde-Inkomststraat 21. Session V Structuralism 09.00 Brigitte Bartschat (Leipzig, D) Baudouin de Courtenay in Tartu/Dorpat (1883-1893) - Entwicklung seiner sprachtheoretischer Ansatze 09.30 Jorg Hardy (Munster, D) Semiologie und Linguistik bei F. de Saussure 10.00 Markus Linda (Essen, D) Ansatze zu einer Semiologie des Sprechens und Horens in den nachgelassenen Papieren Ferdinand de Saussures 10.30 COFFEE 11.00 Klaas-Hinrich Ehlers (Berlin, D) Zeit der Zirkel. Deutsche slawistische Forschung nach dem organisatorischen Modell des fruhen Strukturalismus. 11.30 Michael Hanke (Bonn, D) Die "Angewandte Sprachwissenschaft" der Bonner Schule, ca. 1950-1965 12.00 Maria Herrlich (Paderborn, D) Der EinfluB Leo Weisgerbers auf die Auffassungen von `Muttersprache' und Sprachpflege 12.30 LUNCH 14.00 GUIDED TOUR of Leuven (ca. 21 hours). End of Conference REGISTRATION FORM The conference registration fee is 1000 BEF and covers all conference costs (including programmes, booklet with abstracts, tourist information, coffee and lunch during all sessions, and guided tour of Leuven). Advance payment is not necessary. You will be asked to pay your conference fee in cash on the premises. If you are interested in participating, please send your name and address by mail, fax or e-mail to the following address BEFORE APRIL 15, 1998: Lieve Jooken XI. SGdS Colloquium Department of Linguistics Faculty of Arts K.U.Leuven P.O.Box 33 B-3000 Leuven Fax: +32-16-32.47.67 E-mail: Lieve.Jooken at arts.kuleuven.ac.be NAME: ADDRESS: TEL./FAX no: E-MAIL: Travel information, a map of Leuven and a list of hotels and B&B's will be sent to you on receipt of your registration. Please also indicate whether you will join the following activities, included in the conference fee: will/will not participate in the informal get-together with buffet at Cafe Hoegaarden on Wednesday 1 July. will/will not join the guided tour of Leuven on Saturday afternoon, 4 July. From w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.d400.de Sat Apr 4 22:45:37 1998 From: w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.d400.de (Wolfgang Behr) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1998 17:45:37 EST Subject: Dolgopolsky's new book Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Larry Trask wrote (at 09:26 03.04.98 EST): LT| Also, I note that Dolgopolsky cites Sanskrit `lion' and LT| Armenian `leopard', plus Tocharian `lion', to justify a LT| supposed PIE * `lion, leopard'. It's news to me that the LT| Sanskrit/Armenian link is generally accepted, though I have certainly LT| seen it mooted, and the Tocharian form is new to me (and not obviously LT| convincing). Roots with the meaning lion/leopard are rather diverse in IE, leaving ample space for all sorts of Lehn- & Wanderwort-speculations. While Arm. _inj_ and OI _si.mha-_ would indeed seem to point to a derivation from (Proto-Indo-Armenian, *not* PIE) *sino-, as first pointed out by Meillet (_Esquisse d'une grammaire compare'e de l'arme'nien classique_, Wien 1936, p.142), and accepted, among others, by Gamkrelidze-Ivanov (1984, II: 507, who reconstruct *sin[H]o-, with "virtual" aspiration [H] under the glottalic theory), the PIE root *lew-, posited by GI as underlying Gr. _le'o:n_ (cf. also Lin.B _re-wo-te-jo_ "lion-like"), Lat. _leo:_, *as well as* Germanic +liuwaz > OHG _le:o-_, _lewo-_, MHG _lewe-_, OE _le:o_, is seen as problematic by more traditional IEists, who would account for the Gmc. forms in terms of late loans from Latin and Greek. The common IE character of this root, however, is strenghtened by a Hitt. reading _walwa-_ (=Luw.) of the Sumerogram/s UR.MA_H-as^/-is^ "lion" (cf. GI, II: 508) and the fact that it has possible extra-IE connections with Egyptian _rw_, Coptic _laBoi_, Akkad. _la:bu_, Ugaritic _lb'_, OHebr. _la:bi:'_, Arab. _labwa_, and, possibly, Kartvelian *lom- and its derivations (GI, II: 508). As for Dolgopolsky's attempt to drag Tocharian A _s'is'@k, B s.ecake "lion" into the Indo-Armenian root (does he have to say anything about external ralationships of *his* *singho-?), the idea of a regular correspondance with OI _si.mha-_ (going back to, at least, Schrader- Nehring, _Reallexicon_ II: 19) has long been given up in favour of the following six competing proposals: (a) Toch.A loan <-- Skr. _sim.ha-_ or _sim.haka_, B <-- Skr. *kes'aka- "maehnig" (Schwentner, IF 1939, p. 59) (b) Both Toch. A and B loans ("transcriptions") from Chinese shi1zi3 "lion" (Pelliot, _T'oung Pao_ 1932, p. 449) (c) Both Toch. A and B, *as well as* the Arm. and Greek forms loans from "quelque langue asiatique" (Van Windekens, _Orbis_ 13, 1964, p. 226 seq.) (d) Toch. AB related to the IE root *kais- "hair, mane", as evidenced by OI _ke:sara-_ "hair, mane" and Lat. _caesa- rie:s_ "hair on the head" (Pokorny, IEW, p. 520) (e) Toch. A s'is'@k derived from PIE *si:t-e-qo- (var. A _s'is'ak_ < *sit-e-qo-) and B _s.ecake_ < *se:t-e-qo, cf. Lat. _saeta_ "soies, crins, poil (rude) d'un animal, piquants crinie`re", i.e ultimately from PIE *se:(i)-/*s at i-/si- "bind", with proposed semantic extension --> bound" --> "band" --> "bristle of an animal" (Van Windekens, _Le Tokharien confronte' avec les autres langues indo-europe'ennes_, I, p. 480-481) (f) Toch. A _s'is'@k_ (through assimilation/contamination with A _s'is'ri_ "mane") < *sis'@k < *s at ys'@ke- < *s at ns'ake- < *s at nkj@ke- < * sing'heko- vs. B s.ecake (through loss of nasal) < *s.encake < prototoch. ablaut variant *sjeens'@ke. The word would thus be indirectly related to Sanskrit _sim.ha_ (D.Q. Adams, KZ 97.2, pp. 284-286). As was pointed out to me by Don Ringe in a discussion of the Toch words on the Indo-European list a couple of years ago (which I will try to find, if you're interested), the fact that the only parts of the Toch. words that match by regular sound laws are A - at k- = B -ak-, i.e. that the comparison of all other segments involves a plethora of analogies, back-formations etc. which are hard to justify, and usually entirely ad hoc, would strongly seem to point in the direction of borrowings from different source languages (or at least from dialects of the same language). The most likely candidate for such a source language is certainly some variety of Middle Iranian and I would be most happy to hear from other people on the list if they could enlighten me in that direction or about any other theory on the etymology of the Tocharian lions. Cheers, WOlfgang The idea of a rela What does Dolgopolsky relate *singho- to outside PIE? While IE *lew- and its ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wolfgang Behr, Research Fellow, Int'l. Inst. for Asian Studies wbehr at rullet.leidenuniv.nl | w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.de http://iias.leidenuniv.nl/fellows/fellows.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From jrader at m-w.com Tue Apr 7 21:41:15 1998 From: jrader at m-w.com (Jim Rader) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 17:41:15 EDT Subject: anythink Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- "The Basic Material" volumes of the Survey of English Dialects record the forms for (VII.8.14) and (VII.8.15) in cases where these lexemes are used rather than outcomes of , , etc. Forms with final [k] are scattered throughout the Midlands, having at least one attestation in Staffordshire (general), Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Leicestershire (common), Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Rutlandshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Middlesex and London, and Lincolnshire. Norfolk has some forms with a final devoiced [g], though the forms with stops are otherwise absent from East Anglia and Essex. In the south there is at least attestation in Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Somersetshire, and Wiltshire, and Hampshire (common). The forms are notably absent from Devonshire, Cornwall, and Dorsetshire. It's impossible to draw any conclusions on the north based on the Survey material, because outcomes of and are almost completely dominant in Lancashire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and the counties further north, though with final [k] occurs once in southern Yorkshire (Ecclesfield). (This jibes with Wells' assertion that it is found in Sheffield.) I haven't tried to search for other words that would have had historical final eng in an unstressed syllable. Note that forms with final eng + [g], i.e., with voiced [g], are not attested at all in and as far as I could tell from a quick pass. On the history of this form see E.J. Dobson, _English Pronunciation, 1500-1700_, p. 942. According to Dobson, the devoicing of [g] in this cluster "occurs sporadically in late Old English; it is regular in the North-west Midlands in Middle English and is a widespread vulgarism in Modern English." There may be data in _A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English_, but I haven't tried to search it. In any event, I don't think there is any problem accounting for the final [k] in New Zealand. A better question might be whether it occurs elsewhere in Southern Hemisphere English or in American English--not in the latter, as far as I know. Jim Rader From fcosw5 at mbm1.scu.edu.tw Wed Apr 8 11:42:10 1998 From: fcosw5 at mbm1.scu.edu.tw (Steven Schaufele) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 07:42:10 EDT Subject: anythink Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Jim Rader wrote: > ... > > In any event, I don't think there is any problem accounting for the > final [k] in New Zealand. A better question might be whether it > occurs elsewhere in Southern Hemisphere English or in American > English--not in the latter, as far as I know. Not unless you count humourous usage in cartoons, etc. Which could lead to humourous usage in real life. Which could lead in several directions. Especially if people don't have any regional associations for it -- i certainly didn't know about any of the regional associations that have been brought up during this discussion until this past week. Frankly, i wouldn't be at all surprised if some American communities were starting to experience occasional irruptions of this pronunciation, though i myself have none to report. Best, Steven -- Steven Schaufele, Ph.D., Asst. Prof. of Linguistics, English Department Soochow University, Waishuanghsi Campus, Taipei 11102, Taiwan, ROC (886)(02)2881-9471 ext. 6504 fcosw5 at mbm1.scu.edu.tw http://www.prairienet.org/~fcosws/homepage.html ***O syntagmata linguarum liberemini humanarum!*** ***Nihil vestris privari nisi obicibus potestis!*** From manaster at umich.edu Wed Apr 8 11:45:52 1998 From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 07:45:52 EDT Subject: Dolgopolsky's new book In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I certainly agree with Wolfgang Behr's comments re IE lion words. There are altogether too many cases where Nostraticists have proposed things within IE or one of the other branches of Nostratic that cannot be justified. Of course, while Illich was an Indo-Europeanist, Dolgopolsky is not. I myself think that several of Illich's ideas about IE which came out of Nostratic are quite sensible (his analysis of *ket and its semantics, his suggestion that *bher originally meant 'take' and not 'take', and some others), but some are absurd, as I have pointed out in print. However, it is sometimes the case that the absurd ones are ideas which are widely accepted by IEnists who have no Nostratic bias. My favorite example, since i recently worked on it, is the Armenian plural ending -kh, which some IEnists have long realized must come from PIE *-es but which even more people keep insisting comes from something entirely different. Illich unfortunately went with teh majority in this case. BTW, one of Illich's proposals which I once was rather enamored of, namely, that PIE had an inclusive/exsclusive distinction makred by n vs. m agrees with a widespread, though not unviersal, idea that PIE had two 1pl. pronouns starting with the two nasals. However, it now seems to me that since one of these (*mes) is only found in Armenian and Balto-Slavic, it is possible and even methodologiucally perhaps necessary to take *mes as an innovation of one branch of IE only and hence not of Nostratic pedigree. All in all, I remain convince that, even if Nostratic is basically right, only a small percentage of the etymologies proposed for it can possibly be right. Many of IS's etymologies seem to me to beborrowings or else innovations of some branch of Nostratic only. And I think that the etymologies proposed since his death are mostly even worse--although I hope that perhaps one or two of mine will turn out to belong to the small minority of etymolgies that will stand the test of time (:-). I am in any case very happy to see that we are actually looking at specifics here, as I suggested we should do some time ago. Re *ket- or *kat-, the IE evidence points to *-e-, tehre is very little evidence *-a* in PIE anyway (some would say, none at all), and Nostratic *-a should give PIE *-e-. I wonder if the form cited by Larry is a typo? Alexis MR From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Wed Apr 8 11:47:39 1998 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 07:47:39 EDT Subject: reversal of merger Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- So far I've received few, but interesting, responses to my query about reversal of merger, and I'm still interested in hearing more. I'll post a summary in a few days. Meanwhile, several people have enquired about the unusual case discussed by Michelena, and so I've decided it's worth posting this. It's certainly interesting; it's the only such case I know about; and it's admittedly buried in the specialist literature. The change in question is one that occurred in a dialect of Basque not many centuries ago. First, here is the principal reference: Luis Michelena (1957), `Las antiguas consonantes vascas', in D. Catalan (ed.), Miscelanea Homenaje a Andre Martinet, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna, pp. 113-157. Reprinted in L. Michelena (1988), Sobre Historia de la Lengua Vasca, J. A. Lakarra (ed.), Donostia/San Sebastian: Anejos del Anuario del Seminario de Filologia Vasca "Julio de Urqiojo" 10, vol. I, pp. 166-189. The relevant passage is on pp. 119-120 in the original, and on p. 169 in the reprint. The change is also discussed in Michelena's big book: Luis Michelena (1961) Fonetica Historica Vasca, San Sebastian: Publicaciones del Seminario de Filologia Vasca "Julio de Urquijo". Second expanded edition (1977). However, the account given here is less explicit than that in the earlier article. There is an account of the matter in my own book: R. L. Trask (1997), The History of Basque, London: Routledge, pp. 156-157. First, some remarks on Basque orthography. = English /s/ (laminal) = Castilian Spanish /s/ (apical) and are the corresponding affricates = English = English , and all represent various palatal consonants (plosive, nasal, lateral). Now, Basque has long had a set of palatal and palato-alveolar consonants, which I will here refer to collectively as the "palatal" consonants. But these things formerly occupied, and to some extent today still occupy, a special place in the phoneme system: they *never* occur in the basic forms of lexical items, but only in "expressive" variants of those items. An expressive variant may be a simple diminutive ("little X"), a hypocoristic ("X-ie"), or merely a variant indicating that the speaker regards X as something familiar, comfortable, intimate or rather sweet. Here are a few examples: `sweet' > `man' > `sardine' > `mouse' > `dog' > or `short' > or `many-colored' > `step' > ~ `small' > ~ `saliva' > or `white' > or `Peter' > `Martin' > or `erect' > `ant' > `bull' > `corner' > or `Dominic' > `James' > (male name) > or OK. Originally, such expressive formations provided the only occurrences in the language of the palatal consonants (ignoring one complication which is not relevant here). But then loan words began to be taken over with instances of these sounds in the basic forms of lexical items. Examples: `dishes' < Gascon `care, attention' < Gascon , `China' < French , Spanish `soap' < medieval Spanish `beret' < Occitan `pitcher' < Spanish The language thus came to have a number of lexical items with palatal consonants in their basic forms. Right. That's all background. Now to the serious stuff. Basque has an ancient consonant /j/ (US /y/), a palatal glide. This occurs in a large number of native words, such as `lord', `eat', and `go'. It also occurs in a few loan words, such as `game', from Latin . Now, in almost all varieties of the language, this /j/ has undergone some kind of strengthening. The result is different in different places, but it is always some kind of voiced palatal obstruent (apart from the Gipuzkoan case discussed below). In the largest part of the country, the result was a voiced palato-alveolar fricative, like the in . This is still the pronunciation in some regions. However, in much of the center of the country, and especially in the Gipuzkoan dialect, this fricative was devoiced. As a result, it merged with the existing voiceless fricative . This merger still exists today in some south-central varieties, including bits of southern Gipuzkoa. Here, for example, the inherited `eat' is pronounced (and traditionally written) , and so on. But then, at some later stage, most of Gipuzkoa underwent a further change: the fricative underwent backing to a back fricative, velar /x/ or uvular /X/. This unusual change appears to have been borrowed from Castilian Spanish, which underwent the same change in the late 16th and early 17th century. Be that as it may, the change occurred, but here's the important bit: this backing affected *only* those instances of derived from original /j/, or present in loan words, and did *not* affect those instances of found in expressive formations. Hence we have an apparent reversal of merger. So, in modern Gipuzkoan, all those words containing original /j/ are pronounced with a back fricative. That includes both native words like `lord' and `eat' and loan words like `game'. The back fricative is also found in loan words like `dishes' and `soap', the last two contrasting with the and of other dialects. But the original expressive remains, except that it has usually become the affricate in word-initial position. So, for example, the expressive form of `sweet' is still , and not *, and the expressive form of `dog' is , and not *. Now, we might surmise that the merger never actually took place, that the devoiced version of /j/ always remained somehow distinct from original . But, apart from the phonetic dubiousness of this, there are two pieces of evidence against it, as noted by Michelena. First, in the area which has undergone devoicing of /j/ but not backing of , the merger exists today. No variety of Basque has two contrasting versions of . Second, and crucially, there are a very few instances in which an original expressive *has* undergone backing. This occurs, for example, in the expressive word `poor' (as in `poor fellow'), also `sick', a word whose original non-expressive form has been lost (as not infrequently happens). In Gipuzkoan, the form today is , and not the expected *. Likewise, `poor fellow' is or , in which the /j/ derives from an earlier expressive . Michelena therefore draws the following conclusions. (1) The devoiced /j/ genuinely did merge completely with the inherited in Gipuzkoan. (2) However, when the backing of was introduced, speakers were readily able to distinguish instances of bearing expressive value from instances of lacking such expressive value. They therefore backed *only* the second group, while leaving the first unaffected. But and , in spite of their etymology, underwent backing because speakers no longer perceived their as having expressive value. So: there was an unconditioned merger, but the merger was later reversed, because just one of the two original segments undergoing the merger possessed a distinctive phonological role in the language, allowing speakers to distinguish the merged segments in all but a couple of cases. That's the story. I like it. Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From mcv at wxs.nl Wed Apr 8 21:49:00 1998 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 17:49:00 EDT Subject: reversal of merger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Larry Trask wrote: >Michelena therefore draws the following conclusions. > >(1) The devoiced /j/ genuinely did merge completely with the inherited > in Gipuzkoan. > >(2) However, when the backing of was introduced, speakers were >readily able to distinguish instances of bearing expressive value >from instances of lacking such expressive value. They therefore >backed *only* the second group, while leaving the first unaffected. >But and , in spite of their etymology, underwent >backing because speakers no longer perceived their as having >expressive value. > >So: there was an unconditioned merger, but the merger was later >reversed, because just one of the two original segments undergoing the >merger possessed a distinctive phonological role in the language, >allowing speakers to distinguish the merged segments in all but a >couple of cases. > >That's the story. I like it. I like it too, but I like it slightly better reformulated as follows. What do you think? (1) The devoiced /j/ genuinely did merge completely with the inherited in Gipuzkoan. (2) When the backing of was introduced, *all* instances were affected in principle, but those instances of bearing expressive value were re-palatalized back to /S/. However, and , in spite of their etymology, did not undergo "re-palatalization" because speakers no longer perceived their as having expressive value. ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl Amsterdam From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Wed Apr 8 21:50:26 1998 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 17:50:26 EDT Subject: reversal of merger In-Reply-To: <352c7aee.1174135601@mail.wxs.nl> from "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" at Apr 8, 98 01:35:29 pm Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Miguel Carrasquer writes: [on the Basque case] > I like it too, but I like it slightly better reformulated as > follows. What do you think? > (1) The devoiced /j/ genuinely did merge completely with the > inherited in Gipuzkoan. > (2) When the backing of was introduced, *all* instances were > affected in principle, but those instances of bearing expressive > value were re-palatalized back to /S/. However, and > , in spite of their etymology, did not undergo > "re-palatalization" because speakers no longer perceived their > as having expressive value. Both scenarios are possible, and I know of no way of deciding between them, in the absence of any textual evidence. If we had some early Gipuzkoan texts in which were used in place of modern , that would probably settle things in favor of Miguel's scenario, but we have no such texts. Unfortunately, Gipuzkoan was one of the last dialects to be written; we have nothing before the 18th century and hardly anything before Larramendi, who published his main works between 1729 and 1745, and these works exhibit the modern state of affairs. This little dilemma is reminiscent of the familiar problem of "analogical maintenance" versus "analogical restoration", though our case is phonological, not morphological. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I prefer to invoke Occam's Razor, and go with Michelena: no change to inherited , rather than change followed by reversal of change. Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From mcv at wxs.nl Wed Apr 8 21:50:51 1998 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 17:50:51 EDT Subject: reversal of merger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- "Larry Trask" wrote: >Miguel Carrasquer writes: > >[on the Basque case] > >> I like it too, but I like it slightly better reformulated as >> follows. What do you think? > >> (1) The devoiced /j/ genuinely did merge completely with the >> inherited in Gipuzkoan. > >> (2) When the backing of was introduced, *all* instances were >> affected in principle, but those instances of bearing expressive >> value were re-palatalized back to /S/. However, and >> , in spite of their etymology, did not undergo >> "re-palatalization" because speakers no longer perceived their >> as having expressive value. > >Both scenarios are possible, and I know of no way of deciding between >them, in the absence of any textual evidence. If we had some early >Gipuzkoan texts in which were used in place of modern , that >would probably settle things in favor of Miguel's scenario, but we >have no such texts. Actually, the way I meant it, there would be no way of deciding between the two at all on the, ahem, "surface" [underlying /x/ is immediately palatalized back to /S/]. That's why I referred to it as a "reformulation". Come to think of it, one way to decide would be if there are cases where (e.g. in a borrowed item) aquires affective palatalization to . I'm not aware of any. ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl Amsterdam From manaster at umich.edu Wed Apr 8 21:51:43 1998 From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 17:51:43 EDT Subject: reversal of merger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- The claim that mergers can be reversed apparently started with Halle and became one of the main arguments by generative phonologists against phonemicists in the 1960's. I discussed this topic in my 1981 dissertation, which was intended as broadbrush argument that generative phonology was wrong on almost all points at issue a decade or two earlier. I think it is easy to show that all the classic examples were hopelessly wrong, and in fact most have been withdrawn. Kiparsky for example debunked Postal's example from Mohawk, Chomsky and Halle in SPE quietly take back what halle had said earlier about early modern English. I recently published in Linguistique africaine a careful analysis and rebuttal of a classic early example proposed by Paul Newman from Tera. Etc., etc. Of course, just as in syntax, today very few people seem to know or care what teh original motivation for the paradigms we take for granted was, and so it is an uphill battle. But one day truth will out--maybe. Alexis MR From DISTERH at UNIVSCVM.SC.EDU Wed Apr 8 22:54:50 1998 From: DISTERH at UNIVSCVM.SC.EDU (Dorothy Disterheft) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 18:54:50 EDT Subject: No subject Message-ID: Return-Path: Received: from UNIVSCVM (NJE origin SMTP at UNIVSCVM) by VM.SC.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 1770; Wed, 8 Apr 1998 18:23:52 -0400 Received: from sparkie.humnet.ucla.edu [128.97.154.176] by VM.SC.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R3a) via TCP with SMTP ; Wed, 08 Apr 1998 18:23:51 EDT Received: from [128.97.208.83] (remote3.humnet.ucla.edu [128.97.208.83]) by sparkie.humnet.ucla.edu (8.7.4/1.0) with SMTP id PAA25155 for ; Wed, 8 Apr 1998 15:26:28 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 15:26:28 -0700 (PDT) X-Sender: bwald at pop1.humnet.ucla.edu Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: DISTERH at vm.sc.edu From: bwald at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU (bwald) Subject: Re: Question on "anythink" Lyle Campbell sent a query about the "anythink" pronunciation in NZ. It is also observed in Australia. It gets discussed in an article written by me and Tim Shopen called "A Researcher's Guide to the Sociolinguistic Variable (ING)" 219-249 in T. Shopen & Joseph M. Williams, eds. Style and Variables in English. Cambridge, Mass: Winthrop Publishers, Inc., 1981. The evidence discussed there suggests an origin in London, not in the West Midlands, as Larry Trasks suggests (very tentatively). Wyld makes the observation for London in the 1920s, in a statement similar to the anonymous much earlier one Lyle refers to. I have personally not heard the pronunciation in London (even Cockney East London), and suspect it may be as extinct there as the beta pronunciation of "w" which gave rise to "w"/"v" interchanges in literary representations of London "Cockney" English in the early 19th c (e.g., by Dickens) (cf. for the merger/unmerger typology that Larry Trask was also interested in, i.e., w vs. v > 19th c "literary" Cockney w/v > 20th c w vs. v in the exact same words as earlier). It turned out that in Canberra, Australia the pronunciation of "-ink" was quite rare, relative to either the variants -ing (velar nasal) or -in' (representing the apical unstressed syllabic nasal). However, it seems to be quite common, and, I assume, becoming more common in parts of NZ. It was very noticeable in the speech of working class urban Maori English speakers in a fairly recent film from New Zealand. (My conjecture is that this is not due to anything in Maori but motivated by the same social mechanism which promoted the Portuguese on Martha's Vineyard to further the sound change discussed as originating with the Anglo group in Labov's study of that change, i.e., raising the nuclei of /aw/ and /ay/ to a mid central position). Larry's suggestion was reasonable to the extent that he noted that he would not expect such devoicings to occur in monosyllabic words. That is because they are stressed, and the -ink variant occurs like -ing and -in' only in final unstressed syllables. However, the general phonological systems of Australia and New Zealand, and esp the vowel systems, are much more clearly based on Southern British, and not Midlands or the North, than the earlier established North American dialects of English. Incidentally, urban South African English departs radically from other "Southern Hemisphere" dialects of English by not having even an -in' variant of -ing (even among the working class), although it does share with Austr/NZ the vowel shift involving the short vowels /i/ (as in bit) and /e/ (as in bet). In general, and most specifics West Midlands speech is too different from either Southern British or Australia/NZ to be a credible source for the "-ink" change. My guess is that the -ink variant was nascent in London and perhaps allied Southern dialects of English in the late 18th to early 20th c, but aborted (or remains dormant) in Southern England, and perhaps remains somwhat rare in Australia (apart from "somethink", "nothink" and "anythink"), but has taken off in urban NZ for sociolinguistic reasons, and come to the point where it is very prominent and noticeable, a relatively advanced stage of development for a sound change. A question back to Lyle is whether or not this pronunciation has become so common and salient that it is subject to overt comment among NZ speakers (i.e., non-linguists). -- Benji From Cindy.Allen at anu.edu.au Wed Apr 8 23:55:09 1998 From: Cindy.Allen at anu.edu.au (Cynthia Allen) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 19:55:09 EDT Subject: anythink In-Reply-To: <352BB1AA.3E89@mbm1.scu.edu.tw> Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- In an article in the Australian Journal of Linguistics ('Your're gettin' somethink for nothink', issue 2.2:197-212, 1982), Anna Schnukal reported that four words-anything, everything, nothing, and something-in Cessnock New South Wales. So this pronunciation is certainly found, at least in these four words, in places in Australia. Cynthia Allen Linguistics, Arts Faculty Australian National University Canberra, ACT 0200 Australia From mcv at wxs.nl Thu Apr 9 18:15:49 1998 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 14:15:49 EDT Subject: Dolgopolsky's new book In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- manaster at umich.edu wrote: >The PIE *kat 'wattlework' which Larry says Dolgopolsky has is clearly the >same etymon as Illich-Svitych posited in the form *ket, and >I do not understand how the vowel could be given as PIE *-a-. This >is in fact supposed to be one of the many cases where Nostratic >*a gives PIE *e (alternating with *o). However, this is a PIE >etymon which is not traditional with IEnists, and was put >together this way by Illich-Svitych himself, I believe. This >does not mean that it is wrong, of course, and IS makes it >clear that this is a new proposal. He does refer to Pokorny pp. 586-587 *ke(:)t- *kot- "Wohnraum (urspruengl. ,Erdloch als Wohngrube'?)", which coincides with I-S's etymology in the Iranian (kata-, kad), Gothic (he:thjo:) and Latin (cati:nus, [catillus > kettle]) forms. OCS kotIcI "cella, Nest" provides the link with the Slavic forms listed by Illich-Svitych, which Pokorny lists under 1. *kat- "flechtend zusammendrehen etc." (the OCS form under both etymologies [!]). This entry *kat- contains some additional *a forms not included by Illich-Svitych (except the already mentioned Lat. cati:nus, "s nejasnym a"): Lat. cate:na, cassis, casa and ?caterva; Welsh cader, OIr. cathir "city". Semantically there is no reason to exclude these (Latin cate:na and casa resume the two main semantic developments that Illich-Svitych posits for the Nostratic root), but the *a is indeed problematic. The problem is of course internal to IE, but its resolution determines which forms are comparable to the posited PN *k.ad-. One might think of a laryngeal (*keh1t-/*kh1t-) for the Gothic and Latin/Celtic forms, and exclude them from the Nostratic comparison. Or of a Pre-PIE *a that somehow did not shift to either *e or *o [comparable to the *k's that are neither palatal *k^ nor labiovelar *kw]. Or one might consider if there's a relation with words such as "hut" (*(s)keu-d-) and "cot" (*geu-d-), and think of a Pre-PIE alternation *a/*aw [Lat. canis ~ PIE *kw[o]n-, Germ. *hauf-uth ~ PIE *kap-ut-] which would exclude those forms that are to be derived from Pokorny's ,Erdloch als Wohngrube' (*k[a]wt ~ *kat- ??) as opposed to the wattle-related words (*ket- ~ *kot-). ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl Amsterdam From manaster at umich.edu Fri Apr 10 11:33:49 1998 From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 07:33:49 EDT Subject: Dolgopolsky's new book In-Reply-To: <3533f740.95076022@mail.wxs.nl> Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- What I meant is that Illich put things together in a different way than earlier IEnist had done, and I believe he may have been right. As for Latin -a-, this is known to occur in many many forms where no other IE lg has it (recent work by the Leiden school esp. has tried to explain the Latin -a- problem), and I dont think anyone would posit a laryngeal or a PIE *-a- just on the basis of the Latin, much as no one would do it for any of the other Latin a's. On Thu, 9 Apr 1998, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote: > > He does refer to Pokorny pp. 586-587 *ke(:)t- *kot- "Wohnraum > (urspruengl. ,Erdloch als Wohngrube'?)", which coincides with I-S's > etymology in the Iranian (kata-, kad), Gothic (he:thjo:) and Latin > (cati:nus, [catillus > kettle]) forms. OCS kotIcI "cella, Nest" > provides the link with the Slavic forms listed by Illich-Svitych, > which Pokorny lists under 1. *kat- "flechtend zusammendrehen etc." > (the OCS form under both etymologies [!]). This entry *kat- contains > some additional *a forms not included by Illich-Svitych (except the > already mentioned Lat. cati:nus, "s nejasnym a"): Lat. cate:na, > cassis, casa and ?caterva; Welsh cader, OIr. cathir "city". > Semantically there is no reason to exclude these (Latin cate:na and > casa resume the two main semantic developments that Illich-Svitych > posits for the Nostratic root), but the *a is indeed problematic. > > The problem is of course internal to IE, but its resolution determines > which forms are comparable to the posited PN *k.ad-. One might think > of a laryngeal (*keh1t-/*kh1t-) for the Gothic and Latin/Celtic forms, > and exclude them from the Nostratic comparison. Or of a Pre-PIE *a > that somehow did not shift to either *e or *o [comparable to the *k's > that are neither palatal *k^ nor labiovelar *kw]. Or one might > consider if there's a relation with words such as "hut" (*(s)keu-d-) > and "cot" (*geu-d-), and think of a Pre-PIE alternation *a/*aw [Lat. > canis ~ PIE *kw[o]n-, Germ. *hauf-uth ~ PIE *kap-ut-] which would > exclude those forms that are to be derived from Pokorny's ,Erdloch als > Wohngrube' (*k[a]wt ~ *kat- ??) as opposed to the wattle-related words > (*ket- ~ *kot-). > > > ======================= > Miguel Carrasquer Vidal > mcv at wxs.nl > Amsterdam > From l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz Sat Apr 11 17:47:57 1998 From: l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz (Lyle Campbell) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 13:47:57 EDT Subject: Areal Linguistics & Chinese Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I'm writing to ask if for help for a student of mine with thesis research she wants to undertake. She is Sanja Brankof, an exceptional student (native speaker of Serbian and Hungarian, nearly native English, excellent Russian [her home language with her husband], and excellent Chinese -- she taught English and Linguistics in China (PR) for seven years, has a degree in Chinese linguistics and another in regular linguistics). She wants to explore possible areal linguistic traits involving Chinese and its neighbors (especially northern ones). Since our library is so limited, I'd like to ask for help with the following. (1) Do you think the project is viable? (Discovering areal traits, defining the linguistic area and the nature of the diffusion in it). Do you have any advice for what to do, not do? (2) Do you know of relevant bibliography which addresses diffusion among Chinese and any of its neighbors, especially northern ones? (3) What general advice do you have for Sanja concerning where she may find useful information on the structure of the languages for which we have less material available here: Manchu, Tungusic, Gilyak (Nivkh), Mongolian (Buriat, etc.), Turkic (especially Uighur, Kazakh, Kirgiz, Uzbek, Tatar, others in contact with Chinese), Bao(an), and other relevant ones. (We have pretty good materials on Japanese, Korean, and Ainu, but anything especially relevant here, too, would be valuable to hear about.) (4) If you has written any papers yourself that might be relevant, could you send a copy? With many thanks in advance and with best wishes, Lyle Dr. Lyle Campbell (Professor) Dept. of Linguistics University of Canterbury Private Bag 4800 Christchurch, New Zealand Fax: 64-3-364-2969 Phone: 64-3-364-2242 From delancey at darkwing.uoregon.edu Mon Apr 13 20:36:44 1998 From: delancey at darkwing.uoregon.edu (Scott DeLancey) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 16:36:44 EDT Subject: Areal Linguistics & Chinese In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Chinese can be considered part of the mainland Southeast Asian linguistic area, and shares a tremendous number of areal traits with Tai (Kadai), Hmong-Mien, and Mon-Khmer. Looking at that would be a pretty easy project, though tricky without the right library resources. Looking at the languages to the north is another problem altogether. I'm not aware of any reason at all to think that there has been any significant influence of Altaic languages on Chinese as a whole, and that seems like a pretty hopeless topic. Mantaro Hashimoto used to argue that some of the differences between Mandarin and the other Chinese languages--reduced tone inventory, atonal unstressed syllables, greater degree of agglutination, etc.--represented Altaic influence, and there might possibly be a thesis topic there. I don't know of any literature on the topic, though, except a few papers by Hashimoto; those I'm aware of appeared in pretty obscure places (like the occasional paper series _Computational Analyses of Asian & African Languages_ from the Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa in Tokyo; he also gave some papers on this at the annual Sino-Tibetan Conference which may or may not have ever been published). Mantaro passed away a few years ago, so I'm not sure how one could go about trying to track down any of this work. Scott DeLancey Department of Linguistics University of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403, USA delancey at darkwing.uoregon.edu http://www.uoregon.edu/~delancey/prohp.html On Sat, 11 Apr 1998, Lyle Campbell wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > I'm writing to ask if for help for a student of mine with thesis > research she wants to undertake. She is Sanja Brankof, an exceptional > student (native speaker of Serbian and Hungarian, nearly native English, > excellent Russian [her home language with her husband], and excellent > Chinese -- she taught English and Linguistics in China (PR) for seven > years, has a degree in Chinese linguistics and another in regular > linguistics). She wants to explore possible areal linguistic traits > involving Chinese and its neighbors (especially northern ones). Since our > library is so limited, I'd like to ask for help with the following. > (1) Do you think the project is viable? (Discovering areal traits, > defining the linguistic area and the nature of the diffusion in it). Do > you have any advice for what to do, not do? > (2) Do you know of relevant bibliography which addresses diffusion among > Chinese and any of its neighbors, especially northern ones? > (3) What general advice do you have for Sanja concerning where she may find > useful information on the structure of the languages for which we have less > material available here: Manchu, Tungusic, Gilyak (Nivkh), Mongolian > (Buriat, etc.), Turkic (especially Uighur, Kazakh, Kirgiz, Uzbek, Tatar, > others in contact with Chinese), Bao(an), and other relevant ones. (We > have pretty good materials on Japanese, Korean, and Ainu, but anything > especially relevant here, too, would be valuable to hear about.) > (4) If you has written any papers yourself that might be relevant, could > you send a copy? > With many thanks in advance and with best wishes, Lyle > > > > Dr. Lyle Campbell (Professor) > Dept. of Linguistics > University of Canterbury > Private Bag 4800 > Christchurch, New Zealand > Fax: 64-3-364-2969 > Phone: 64-3-364-2242 > From maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk Tue Apr 14 14:50:29 1998 From: maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Max Wheeler) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 10:50:29 EDT Subject: anythink Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Benji Wald writes: > My guess is that the -ink variant was nascent in London and perhaps allied > Southern dialects of English in the late 18th to early 20th c, but aborted > (or remains dormant) in Southern England, and perhaps remains somwhat rare > in Australia (apart from "somethink", "nothink" and "anythink"), but has > taken off in urban NZ for sociolinguistic reasons, and come to the point > where it is very prominent and noticeable, a relatively advanced stage of > development for a sound change. A question back to Lyle is whether or not > this pronunciation has become so common and salient that it is subject to > overt comment among NZ speakers (i.e., non-linguists). -- Benji Let it not be said that this pronunciation is dormant or aborted in SE England. Where I grew up (Pinner, Middlesex, 1950s), it was very much part of the casual style of schoolchildren, perhaps LMC given the social characteristics of the neighbourhood. I would say it was common even among those who did not display the -/f/ merger, and a fortiori among those who did. But my perception is that it is stereotypical of London-influenced pronunciations in SE England up to the present. I wonder if it may be less common among adults than among children or teenagers? Max Wheeler ___________________________________________________________________________ Max W. Wheeler School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QH, UK Tel: +44 (0)1273 678975; fax: +44 (0)1273 671320 ___________________________________________________________________________ From w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.d400.de Tue Apr 14 22:08:42 1998 From: w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.d400.de (Wolfgang Behr) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 18:08:42 EDT Subject: Areal Linguistics & Chinese Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear Lyle & Sanja, just for the record --- some of the papers by Hashimoto Mantaroo arguing for what became known as the "altaicization hypothesis" are: "Language diffusion on the Asian continent", _Computational Analyses of Asian and African Languages_ 3 (1976), pp.49-65 "The agrarian and the pastoral diffusion of languages", in: M.J. Hasihmoto ed., _Genetic Relationship, Diffusion and Typological Similarities of East- and Southeast-Asian Languages. (Papers for the 1st Japan-U.S. Joint Seminar on East and Souht- east Asian Linguistics)_, Tookyoo [:Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa] 1976, pp. 1-14 "The double object construction in Chinese", _Computational Analyses of Asian and African Languages_ 6 (1976), pp. 33-42 "The double-object construction in Chinese", _Monumenta Serica_ 33 (1977-78), pp. 268-285 "Origin of the East Asian linguistc structure. Latitudinal transitions and longitudinal developments in East and South- east Asian languages", _Computational Analyses of Asian and African Languages_ 22 (1984), pp.35-41 For a (rather harsh) critique cf. also Peter Bennett "A critique of the altaicization hypothesis", _Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale_ 3 (1979) pp. 91-104 On balance, Scott DeLancey's total denial of "northern" influences on Chinese might be a little bit overstated. Phonological influence of Altaic languages on adjacent Chinese dialects in Qinghai, Ningxia, Gansu, Xinjiang, Shaanxi etc. has been documented in a number of cases, the same applies to syntactical phenomena like gei3-insertion in double-object and passive constructions, classifier-inventory re- duction etc. As Hashimoto's hypothesis enjoyed most popularity in the PRC during the 80es, I would suggest that you browse through the relevant articles in _Fangyan_ and the local university journals (_Ningxia Shehuikexue_, _Qinghai Minzuxueyuan Xuebao_, _Gansu Shifan- xuexuan Xuebao_, _Xinjiang Daxue Xuebao_ etc.) occasionally dealing with Altaic languages (I'm sure they won't be available in Christchurch, though.) Then, there is also Jerry Norman's much quoted article "Four notes on Chinese-Altaic Linguistic Contacts", _Tsinghua Journla of Chinese Studies_ (1982), 14 (1-2), 243-48, which has just recently come under heavy (but, to my mind, rather unconvincing), criticism by Zhang Hongming "Chinese etyma for river", _Journal of Chinese Linguistics_ 26 (1998) 1, pp. 1-46 Apart from lexical influences of Tungusic and Turkic languages on northern Chinese (described in various articles in Zhongguo Yuwen, in the Beijing dialect dictionaries of Chen2 Gang1 or Gao1 Ai4jun1, in dictionaries of Yuan drama colloquialisms "su2yu3" etc. ), there is, as far as I am aware of, little to no serious work on areal lingui- stic traits involving these languages, let alone Gilyak or Ainu. Given the fact, that at least _one_ author (i.e. Sergej A. Starostin) claims, that Yeniseiyan and Old Chinese are genetically related ("Praenisejskaja rekonstrukcija i severokavkazskimi jazykami", in: _Ketskij Sbornik_, L.: Nauka 1982, pp. 144-237; "Gipoteza o genetic^eskix svazjax sino- tibetskix jazykov s enisejskimi i severnokavkazskimi jazykami", in: _Lingvistic^eskaja rekonstrukcija i drevnejs^aja istorija vostoka_ 4, M., pp. 19-38), you might wish to have a closer look at the typology of these languages (making good use of the recent publications by Hein- rich werner on Ketic matters). I am sure there are many more Soviet and Russian studies on Altaic-Chinese linguistic contacts, but I don't have the _Bibliograifija kit. jazykonanii_ here at hand. Finally, an absolute MUST as background reading on the whole geogra- phical, historical, ethnological _and_ linguistic setting of the question you're adressing, is Juha Janhunen's superb _Manchuria -- an Ethnic History (Me'moires de la Socie'te' Finno-Ougrienne; 222)_, Helsinki 1996 (esp. chap. VI) Cheers, Wolfgang ps: so, yes to (1), the project is viable, although it involves the almost superhuman task of studying dozens of languages which are not taught in NZ and, more often than not, rather poorly documented. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wolfgang Behr Kaiser Sigmund-Str. 3, 60320 Frankfurt, F.R.G. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From bwald at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU Thu Apr 16 11:56:26 1998 From: bwald at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU (bwald) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 07:56:26 EDT Subject: anythink Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I accept Max Wheeler's observations on "anythink". From what can be gathered so far it reflects a variant pronunciation of final unstressed -ing [velar nasal] in parts of England, esp the Southeast and parts of the Midlands, Australia, and perhaps most notably New Zealand. In most areas it seems to be a low intensity variant originating perhaps in Southeastern England in the late 18th century. It does not seem to occur at all in North America (if we discount ZsaZsa Gabor's famous "darlink" and such things coming from languages that do not have a velar nasal but devoice word-final obstruents), or in South Africa. Its sociolinguistic status seems to vary greatly in areas where it appears, from unobstrusive to stereotyped. Stereotype is suggested by Schaufele's earlier message implying that it occurs in cartoons (the old Andy Capp? -- before they stopped using stereotypes for Andy's Cockney speech -- I don't remember it there, only consistent -in' for -ing, now withdrawn presumably as "classist"). I would expect it to have reached stereotyped status in New Zealand, whether or not it appears in cartoons. In low intensity areas, it may be receding or it may be waiting for sociolinguistic conditions to change in order to become more prominent. Time will tell. Questions remains about its origin and historical trajectory in any particular area. Although Max suggested that /th/ (theta) > f implies -ink, I did not hear (or record) it in Cockney East London, among consistent th > f speakers, though it may because it is or has become so low intensity, and may have formerly been more common there. (Wheeler's suggestion of an implication between "f" and "-ink" may rest on a stereotyped "nuffink" varying with "nuffin", though "noTHink" is clearly the reflex in some areas.) Possibly a recesssion in the London area fits in with its non-occurrence in South Africa, against its occurrence in Australia and NZ, since all of these Southern Hemisphere varieties are unquestionably Southern British based, but South African English was more recently formed, and even -in' is uncommon there, in contrast with most of the English-speaking world (apart from the so-called "new Englishes", which raise other issues about -ing/-in'). (NB this is not to suggest that -in' is newer than -ing, far from it since some scholars have suggested -in' owes its origin to the OE -end participial suffix, but that South African English reflects some narrowing of variation in source dialects of English, esp with regard to -ing/in' variation -- whether in the source or in South Africa remains hard to determine -- SA has, of course, evolved regional and social variants of its own.) With regard to NZ, -ink's prominence among urban Maoris suggested to me that they may be responsible for further developing it there, but I do not know enough about NZ speech to be sure it is less frequent among Anglo than Maori speakers, if social class can be controlled. It certainly did not strike me among the non-Maori NZ speakers I have heard, though I would suppose that some of them sometimes use it (and maybe working class Euro-NZers also show it prominently, Anglo or not). As for ultimate origins, it is also not clear whether it began as rural or urban in Britain, since dialect sampling by Wright and even later focuses on rural speakers, while these observations are no earlier than those reporting it in London. If it came to London from the countryside, say, in the late 18th c it may have already had some unconscious sociolinguistic import, though the precise value of that import would most likely change in an urban context, as it no doubt has in New Zealand. Finally, it remains unclear whether the emergence of the -ink variant was phonologically related to any other sound changes in any area, and whether it was or is currently lexically restricted to the pronominal-like "-thing" words, i.e., any-/no-/some-thing, so that noone (or in some -ink areas noone) would say "they're still eatink" or "it's stuck on the ceilink" or "what a darlink!" etc. According to Shopen's observations in Canberra, Australia it was largely restricted to those 3 words, and therefore could not be seen as part of the major "ing / in' " variation, but only as a bleeder of it for the 3 words in question. Shopen actually reported 16 examples of -ink amidst 1660 examples of that variant, -ing, and -in', and those 3 words account for 14 of the examples. The others were goink and hopink, one example each. Thus, total occurrence of -ink is not impressive in Canberra, but its lexical bias to the -thing words is. For those unfamiliar with close observation of spoken language, it is not unusual to find some strange "nonce"-like pronunciation of any sound with a frequency of 1/1000. It is meaningless for sound change, though some may anticipate a sound change which will some day happen, or which has been attested elsewhere. So, for example, some American speaker may produce an -ink pronunciation of -ing with a frequency of 1/1000 chances, but that does not tell us anything about the chances for an -ing > -ink sound change in any American English dialect. -ink is worth further investigation, but except for a few areas where it seems to be lively I don't see much payoff for major research, other than to demonstrate that relatively low intensity sound changes (those much less frequent than more conservative, e.g., -ing, or competing variants, e.g., -in') may survive without changing status for a considerable period of time, and that not all such sound changes survive to make it into the Neogrammarian big-time. -Benji From m.macmahon at englang.arts.gla.ac.uk Thu Apr 16 22:21:36 1998 From: m.macmahon at englang.arts.gla.ac.uk (Mike MacMahon) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 18:21:36 EDT Subject: New Zealand 'anythink' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I don't think there's been any comment so far on a 19th-century description of the use of the 'anythin' and 'anythink' pronunciations in Australia and NZ. Buried deep inside Ellis's 'On Early English Pronunciation' (Vol V, 1889), are some remarks on Australasian speech, to complement what he has to say about Cockney. Pages 236-248 are worth looking at. His information came from Samuel McBurney, a native Scot, who had worked in Australia and who appears to have been a good phonetician; McBurney carried out an 11-month study of Australasian pronunciation between January and November 1887. The results (or at least a resume of them) were subsequently transmitted to Ellis. The word 'anything' is specifically mentioned -- see Ellis page 247, right-hand column. It seems that the 'anythink' pronunciation (Ellis notates it with '-thiqk') was only found in three of the seven localities in Australia that were surveyed (see the table on page 244), although schoolteachers had also reported alternating pronunciations between '-iqk' and '-in' forms in Brisbane. The New Zealand examples (see page 245) indicate that the '-iqk' pronunciation was used by less than 25% of the people surveyed -- mainly schoolchildren, it seems -- in Wellington, Napier, Nelson, Christchurch and Dunedin. Mike Prof M K C MacMahon Dept of English Language University of Glasgow Glasgow G12 8QQ Scotland/UK Phone: +44 (0)141 330 4596 Fax: +44 (0)141 330 3531 http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/EngLang From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Mon Apr 20 19:40:23 1998 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 15:40:23 EDT Subject: Sum: reversal of merger Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Several weeks ago I posted a query about published analyses of apparent cases of reversal of merger. That query elicited a modest but interesting set of replies, but only one or two additions to my provisional list. For some reason, the replies spilled over onto the LINGUIST list. Perhaps a little clarification is in order. I am not attempting to attack or defend any position here. In particular, I am not trying to argue for or against the reality of reversal of merger, I am not maintaining that any particular development in any language either did or did not involve either a merger or a reversal of merger, and I am not arguing for or against the correctness of any published analysis. My goal is much more modest: I am merely trying to compile a list of all the different ways of accounting for apparent cases of reversal of merger that have been published, regardless of whether these analyses agree that any reversal of merger ever occurred. All this is merely for the purpose of writing an entry in a reference book I am preparing. Alice Faber has kindly sent me two of her papers on the subject, but these only arrived this morning, and I haven't had a chance to read them yet. Ernst Haakon Jahr drew my attention to his article `Language planning and language change', in which he concludes that a well-advanced merger in Icelandic was reversed by the semi-official action of influential individuals who took exception to it. My thanks to Miguel Carrasquer Vidal, Alice Faber, Matthew Gordon, Henry Hoenigswald, Ernst Haakon Jahr, Alexis Manaster-Ramer, Sam Martin, Roger Wright, and one other person whose reply I inadvertently deleted in a burst of over-zealous housecleaning -- sorry. Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH England larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From mcv at wxs.nl Tue Apr 21 14:48:37 1998 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 10:48:37 EDT Subject: "Pan-Americanisms" Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I was recently unable to resist the temptation to buy Lyle Campbell's "American Indian Languages. The Historical Linguistics of Native America" (Oxford University Press, 1997), despite the fact that my budget strictly speaking did not allow for it. I do not regret it. The book contains very thorough and extensive information on the history of American Indian linguistics, on the classification of the languages of North, Middle and South America, on pidgins and trade languages, linguistic areas, etc., complete with maps and indices. The polemic part are obviously chapters 7 & 8 ("Distant Genetic Relationships: The Methods" and "Distant Genetic Relationships: The Proposals"). Chapter 7 is an first rate resume of the general issues in dealing with proposals of genetic relationship: lexical versus morphological comparisons, sound correspondences, borrowings, chance resemblances, non-resemblances, semantic shifts, nursery/expressive words, errors of method and errors in the data, etc. Two of the points discussed, however, can be said to be specific to the field of Americanistic historical linguistics: the so-called "pronoun argument" (focusing on Greenberg's n- "I", m- "you") and the "so-called Pan-Americanisms". It is this latter concept that I have some specific questions (doubts) about, which I would like to put before the author and the other list-members. The methodological discussion of these "pan-Americanisms" (pp. 257-259) clears away some of the misunderstandings that the term might suggest. It was apparently introduced in Campbell and Kaufman 1980 ("On Mesoamerican linguistics", AA 82), referring to: ""widespread forms (so-called pan-Americanisms)" [..] which are not (necessarily) genetically related forms but may be due to such factors as onomatopoeia, sound symbolism, borrowing, nursery formations, universals, and accident". In the same article, Campbell and Kaufman recommend eliminating "pan-Americanisms" from proposals to link specific groups of American Indian languages together. One cannot use one of these wide-spread forms to prove that language A is to be grouped with language B, if the same form also occurs in languages X, Y and Z (historical case in point: Sapir used n- "I" , m- you" to support his Algonquian-Ritwan proposal, but since these pronouns are wide-spread outside Algonquian and Ritwan, Michelson's criticism was justified.). In sum: "Two points about so-called pan-Americanisms should be emphasized. First, these widespread forms are not necessarily traceable to inheritance from a common ancestor; second, these widespread forms are not valid indicators of narrower proposed genetic groupings if the forms are prevalent in languages not included in the comparison." Still, something fishy remains about these forms [why not simply classify them as onomatopoeic, borrowed, etc., and how can "universals" be restricted to the Americas in order to produce "pan-Americanisms"?], and indeed Campbell continues: "Finally, the possibility must be entertained that some of these widespread forms may actually reflect wider historical connections than are recognized at present". I agree with the three points. However, as we move into chapter 8, discussing specific proposals about distant genetic relationships, I get the feeling that there is a logical flaw in "pan-Americanism" as grounds for dismissal of specific forms. Let's take an example at random, Mary Haas' Yana-Karuk (Hokan) comparisons. Campbell says: ".. of the 92 look-alikes compared, 13 are onomatopoeic [..], 26 are short forms [..], 10 reflect semantic latitude [..], 23 are widespread or pan-American forms, 15 have little phonetic similarity; [2] are suggestive of diffusion [..]; and [1] is a nursery form". Unfortunately, the total number of rejects is 90, so I cannot work out if the categories are meant to be mutually exclusive or that they overlap. I should say that I haven't seen Haas' data (and that I wouldn't be able to recognize the "pan-Americanisms" even if I had). But here we have a group of 23 sound-alikes being `dismissed' as "pan- Americanisms" (apparently not of the kind that is transparently attributable to onomatopoeia or borrowing). Certainly, the "pan-Americanism" argument, as explained above, can be used against each and every one of these 23 forms individually, but can it be used against the 23 as a whole? That is my worry. English "two" and German "zwei" cannot individually be used as an argument for a close relationship between these two languages, because we are clearly dealing with "pan-Indo-Europeanisms". But what about a block of 23 "pan-Indo-Europeanisms" found as a group in Germanic and Germanic only? ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl Amsterdam From bwald at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU Wed Apr 22 12:27:08 1998 From: bwald at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU (bwald) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 08:27:08 EDT Subject: "Pan-Americanisms" Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I cannot comment definitively on Miguel Carrasquer Vidal's question about Lyle Campbell's >"American Indian Languages. The Historical Linguistics of Native >America" (Oxford University Press, 1997), since I have not even seen, much >less read that book. Therefore, I don't know how coherently its entire >argument hangs together. However, I thought there was an interesting problem in logic involved, and as far as Miguel's discussion went, I thought his question was worth asking and thinking about. He ends up by asking: >... Certainly, the >"pan-Americanism" argument, as explained above, can be used against >each and every one of these 23 forms individually, but can it be used >against the 23 as a whole? That is my worry. English "two" and >German "zwei" cannot individually be used as an argument for a close >relationship between these two languages, because we are clearly >dealing with "pan-Indo-Europeanisms". But what about a block of 23 >"pan-Indo-Europeanisms" found as a group in Germanic and Germanic >only? This is in regard to a *set* of 23 Yana-Karuk (Hokan) comparisons by Mary Haas, which Miguel reports Campbell as rejecting as evidence of a *special* relationship between Yana and Karuk, on the basis that the forms (whatever they are) are widespread enough among Amerind languages outside of these groups to be set aside as "Pan-Americanisms", and therefore not evidence of any more of a special relationship between Yana and Karuk than of either of these two and any other Amerind groups. As best as I can understand, Miguel is supposing a situation in which these 23 Pan-Americanisms are scattered amongst numerous Amerind groups, so that, say, only Yana and Karuk share the SAME 23, even though other far-flung Amerind groups show that each of them is more widespread, and *if* all relevant Amerind languages were indeed genetically related, then only Yana and Karuk preserve these particular 23 *as a set* ... whereas another group A maybe preserves 12 of them, and another group B 15 of them (maybe overlapping with A for 6 of them, or whatever). I think this is what Miguel means, but his parallels in Germanic are not well chosen. The "two"/"zwei" set for a *special* German/English relationship (i.e., Germanic) is indeed found just about everywhere in Indo-European. He wants something like German and English have 23 examples attributable to Indo-European, but, say, only 4 of them are found in Tokharian, only 7 are found in Greek, and only 12 in Albanian, and so on for various permutations and combinations, until we are sure that all 23 are "Proto-IE". The general problem then seems to be the likelihood of a relatively large number of conservative (NOT innovative) forms remaining in two languages (or groups) WITHOUT those groups having a special historical relationship to each other. The alternative to "special relation" (i.e., innovation, which is precluded by the problem) is that it is just an accident that such a set remains in those languages/groups, but not in any other (related) languages/groups. In principle (or in the *absence* of further principles of word loss), it does not seem UNlikely to me that such a thing might happen. That is, it could happen accidentally. For example, let's take 4 language groups, A, B, C and D related to each other though descent from Proto-Z, along with F through X. So at the Proto-Z stage there is a single lexicon. Then C and D innovate for 23 words (over time or what-have-you). A and B don't. So A and B now share 23 Proto-Z words by virtue of not being in the "loop" of C and D. But F-X also contain those 23 words so nothing special about A and B. But over more time F-X do their own thing, and lose some of those words, F loses 3 of them, G 4 of them, etc. F-X just preserve enough of them (a few each) to insure that we can recognize the set of 23 in A and B as Proto-Z, i.e., "pan-Zisms". Of course, A and B are also losing (or replacing) pan-Zisms too, but other ones, not these 23. In the eventual outcome I would expect A and B to not only share 23 pan-Zisms, but also for A and C, but not B, to share a comparable number of pan-Zisms, and so on. There should not be a unique special relation between A and B if what they share is accidental; there should also be a comparable "special relation" between A and some other group to the exclusion of B, and so on. Thus, there is no unambiguous special relationship between A and B, because if there were, there would also be a special relationship between A and C to the exclusion of B. A tree model cannot allow that, and Miguel seems to be assuming a tree model. I assume, but may be wrong, that Campbell is criticising such a tree model for Yana-Karuk relationship (on the basis of such evidence). If so, he should be able to complete his argument by showing that Yana but not Karuk (or vice-versa) shares another large number of pan-Americanisms with another Amerind group. Maybe he can't do it for Amerind because there are not enough pan-Americanisms identified at this point. Then can he do it for three branches of Indo-European? I would suppose so. I would find it very interesting if it turns out it cannot be done, and would wonder why. After all, English has lost IE words that have remained in German, and no doubt the other way around too. What is there to prevent such things from happening? From DISTERH at UNIVSCVM.SC.EDU Wed Apr 22 12:34:43 1998 From: DISTERH at UNIVSCVM.SC.EDU (Dorothy Disterheft) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 08:34:43 EDT Subject: HISTLING index Message-ID: Dear colleagues in HISTLING, This morning I've received two inqueries about how one goes about retrieving past postings on HISTLING. Rather than replying to them only, I think that I should post a copy of the instructions new subscribers receive. Below is a list of the various options one can use. In regards to obtaining back postings, use the INDEX HISTLING and following commands which are described below. -Dorothy Disterheft Command Parameters/Options Explanation SUBSCRIBE HISTLING firstname lastname to subscribe to HISTLING SIGNOFF HISTLING to remove yourself from HISTLING SET HISTLING options where your subscription options are: ACK/NOACK/MSGack -Acknowledgements for postings; ACK is the default CONCEAL/NOCONCEAL -Conceals your membership from people sending the REVIEW command (see below); NOCONCEAL is the default Mail/NOMail -Toggle receipt of mail; Mail is the default REPro/NOREPro -Turn on/off receipt of copies of messages you send to HISTLING (REPRO is the default for HISTLING) REVIEW HISTLING by name Get a list of subscribers arranged alphabetically SCAN HISTLING X Scan a HISTLING's membership for a name or address ("X") INDEX HISTLING Get a list of HISTLING archives GET HISTLING LOGXXXXXXX Get a specific week's postings from the HISTLING archives; XXXXXXX refers to the log codes listed on the index of postings (see immediately above) SEARCH X HISTLING Search HISTLING for specific topics, where X is the keyword (keywords) of your search HOW TO USE THESE COMMANDS: To send a command to HISTLING, don't include a Subject: line; just type the command as the message. For example, to subscribe to HISTLING, send the command (as an e-mail message) to HISTLING at VM.SC.EDU: SUBSCRIBE HISTLING firstname lastname where you insert your own name. REMEMBER: You send LISTSERV commands to: LISTSERV at VM.SC.EDU You send messages which are contributions to the mailing list to: HISTLING at VM.SC.EDU If you have any trouble using these commands, contact Dorothy Disterheft at disterh at vm.sc.edu, who will be happy to help you or do it for you. From Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk Wed Apr 22 15:43:15 1998 From: Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk (Roger Wright) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:43:15 EDT Subject: "Pan-Americanisms" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- At the Historical Linguistics conference in Stanford in 1979, Lyle Campbell was assuring us that "universals" could be over-ridden by areal pressure, thereby producing a phenomenon that seems self-contradictory, a "near-universal". His examples were specifically from Central America. ("Explaining Universals and Their Exceptions", Papers from the 4th ICHL [Benjamins, 1980], 17-26). If we accept this possibility, then areal pressure is given extraordinary power, and hardly anything can be deduced for sure about any relationship in the past ..... I wonder, Lyle, if you're out there, whether you would still agree with what you said then. I was startled when I heard it. > >The general problem then seems to be the likelihood of a relatively large >number of conservative (NOT innovative) forms remaining in two languages >(or groups) WITHOUT those groups having a special historical relationship >to each other. The alternative to "special relation" (i.e., innovation, >which is precluded by the problem) is that it is just an accident that such >a set remains in those languages/groups, but not in any other (related) >languages/groups. From l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz Thu Apr 23 15:38:49 1998 From: l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz (Lyle Campbell) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 11:38:49 EDT Subject: near universals (and pan-Americanisms) Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Let me attempt to offer some thoughts in reply to the question Roger Wright addressed to me in connection with Miguel Carrasquer's question about the so-called "pan-Americanisms". Roger wrote: At the Historical Linguistics conference in Stanford in 1979, Lyle Campbell was assuring us that "universals" could be over-ridden by areal pressure, thereby producing a phenomenon that seems self-contradictory, a "near-universal". His examples were specifically from Central America. ("Explaining Universals and Their Exceptions", Papers from the 4th ICHL [Benjamins, 1980], 17-26). If we accept this possibility, then areal pressure is given extraordinary power, and hardly anything can be deduced for sure about any relationship in the past ..... I wonder, Lyle, if you're out there, whether you would still agree with what you said then. I was startled when I heard it. First some general context: (1) This isn't really connected with the pan-Americanism question. (2) The notion of a "near-universal" or "statistical universal" is not mine, but rather comes from Joseph Greenberg and has been written about (and accepted) by most who work in typology and universals, not just me. (3) The "phenomenon" would seem "self-contradictory" only if one were to insist that 'universals' (as the name would seem to imply), must be absolute (which in fact they do not according to standard definitions of this technical term); Moreover, though it is a matter of definition, there are solid substantive reasons why people don't insist that all universals must be absolute (i.e. exceptionless). (4) Not an important point, my examples were not Central American, but mostly from the Northwest Coast of North America. (5) So, yes, I still agree with what I said, more so now than ever, precisely because of the typological findings of recent years. Let me give some justification. As Greenberg defined them, a statistical universal (near-universal) is one where with greater than chance frequency languages tend to exhibit the trait (e.g. nearly all languages have nasals; most SOV language have postposition). So, what does it mean to have "exceptions" to universals? In this view, an exception does not invalidate the universal, but only converts it into a statistical universal (near universal). All the questions remain the same: we still need to explain why the phenomenon is so frequent (nearly absolute) in the world's languages, and why so few languages have exceptions. Such near universals (universals which have exceptions) seem still to have explanatory value, since the violating languages are often soon brought back into line with the universal through language changes. For example, the universal that q > k (where > = implies) (q = uvular stops, k = velar stops) had exceptions in the NW Coast linguistic area; the sound change of k > "ch" [palato-alveolar affricate] diffused across many languages of different families, leaving languages with /q/ and /"ch"/ but no /k/, but a new /k/ soon entered the systems, from loans and sound shifts in the languages involved. That is, it appears that the universal soon brought these languages back in line. Most languages have nasals, but in a small area of the Northwest Coast, languages of several families lack nasals -- here original m > b, and n > d under areal pressure. We still need to know why nearly all languages, these (and perhaps a few in Papua New Guinea) excepted, have nasals. There is strong motivation for languages to deploy nasals, since they are perceptually the most salient of all consonants, great for carrying the phonological contrasts of your message clearly and unambiguously. So, exceptions are not necessarily counter-examples; a well-motivated (near) universal need not be abandoned/rejected because some few languages do not conform for whatever reasons. What is important is not that some linguist declares some phenomenon to be universal or not, but rather the reasons/explanations for why it is so. This view correlates the likelihood of something being universal (absolutely or nearly/statistically) to the role it plans in the function of language -- the more some linguistic thing facilitates languages to achieve their communicative ends, the more likely it is to be found in most languages. The possibility of exceptions is correlated with the degree of disruption to efficient functioning/processing such exceptions would cause in languages not conforming whole-heartedly to the universal. We are interested in the general principles of language -- what the pieces are and how the pieces interrelate with one another. Some of these principles have been considered to be absolute (exceptionless) universals, others near- (or statistical) universals. Still others have not necessarily been associated with universals, but rather are talked about in terms of typological connections. The more efficient the language (i.e., not permitting borrowing or language contact, to mention just one reason cited by Roger, to motivate departures from principles), or the greater the value of the universal for facilitating language processing, the more likely it is that absolute conformity will be found. Thus, since the burden on perception and production for speakers of a language which lacked vowels would be so great as to make communication viartually impossible, it is safe to say that the universal that all languages have vowels will probably never have any exceptions. However, the word order universals that say it's great to have all the heads preceded by their complements throughout a language (Genitive-Noun, Adjective-Noun, etc.) or all the heads followed by their complements throughout (Noun-Genitive, Noun-Adjective, etc.) make a languages very user friendly -- it's easier to parse, to figure out what the constituents, are if you can rely on the strategy that the same sort of constituent will show up in the same order across related grammatical categories; however, a language which happens not to conform does not become impossible to learn or use; it's just harder on its speakers and hearers, explaining why most languages conform, but a few are able to get by without conforming. The color universals provide a clear example. By the human color universals the foci (centre, truest "red", etc.) is perceived as the same everywhere; human perception of color is universal and is reflected in languages in universal ways, in the implicational universals established by Berlin and Kay (e.g. the presence of a basic color term for 'yellow' implies the language also has one for 'red', and 'red' in turn implies terms for' 'black' and 'white'). Nevertheless, there are some instances where a language's basic color terms do not correspond to the universal foci (according to human perception) but rather to the color of culturally salient objects. For example the basic color terms in Pukapukan (Samoan outlier, Cook Islands) correspond to colors of parts of tubers, extremely salient objects in the culture, e.g. 'red' matches the color of the 'inner layer of a variety of tuber', not the universal 'red'. This, however, does not change the fact that the vast majority of languages have their term for red matching the one expected from the universal; it just means that in some cases culture is able to mediate the universal -- how could we even talk about the handful of exceptions if we didn't recognize the generalization, the "near" universal, and acknowledge that it has explanations underlying it? Just so, linguistic universals have explanations underlying them and absolutely every language may or may not conform depending on the strength of the explanation/motivation behind the particular universal at hand. It may not be that all are sympathetic to this relativization of universals, but most textbooks and programmatic papers do readily acknowledge near or statistical universals as part of the overall research program aimed at universals of language. Lyle Campbell (Professor) Dept. of Linguistics University of Canterbury Private Bag 4800 Christchurch, New Zealand Fax: 64-3-364-2969 Phone: 64-3-364-2242 From l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz Thu Apr 23 15:33:24 1998 From: l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz (Lyle Campbell) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 11:33:24 EDT Subject: No subject Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Miguel Carrasquer asked about pan-Americanisms and I'd like to offer a bit in that connection; I'll address this directly to Miguel, but send it out generally. I was glad to see you did not regret buying the "American Indian languages" book -- pity it cost so much; I tried everything I could to get the Press to come down on the price. As for your question (reservations) about "pan-Americanisms," I agree with you that the whole business, on the surface, does have an uncomfortable feel to it. Still, I would defend the need to treat the topic more or less as I did. I'll say a couple of general things about it before getting to your specific question. Let me start by repeating that the term is not mine; I read it somewhere as a student (I thought in writings of Swadesh's), but have never been able to find it again. I'd be grateful to anyone who could (re)locate the source of the term. I wish the whole notion did not exist, or at least that it had a less confusing name, since several people have misunderstood it badly (not you). You ask if a block of 23 "pan-Indo-Europeanisms" found in Germanic as a group would be significant (for demonstrating a closer relationship)? The answer, I would say, has to do with the fact that in IE and in the Americas we are on rather different ground, or, better said, there are more straightforward considerations and more convoluted considerations, and each is important to the overall stance that should be taken in answering a question such as yours. The answer would depend on the nature of the 23 things compared and on the nature of the languages in which they are compared (though probably "no" in both instances). Let's take up the nature of the items compared first. The so-called pan-Americanisms are a pretty messy, shaggy, muddled lot (probably of something between 25 and 100 forms, depending on who is looking); it is not even clear that a number of the forms compared as "pan-Americanisms" are worth comparing. Let me for illustration's sake just mention one case, perhaps the best known of all of them, the one for 'hand'. Greenberg's (1987:229-30) list under his proposed 'hand' Amerind "etymology" can be used to illustrate the problem. He lists forms from various languages he compares which include: imak, amik, hemik, mEgeh, e-me, maka, ma, min, mane, maki, mux, imik, imi, ami, etc.; these have glosses which involve in addition to straight 'hand' also 'right hand, left hand, give, take, bring, palm, branch, finger, carry, five, etc.' He believes these to involve something more or less like //ma// or //mV//, often with //-kV// -- that is, minimally all they really need to share to fit this set (a supposed pan-Americanism) is //m//, but, then, apparently not even //m// is really necessary, since some m-less forms also show up in the set (ba, nwan). It will be noticed that this is a pretty ragged assembly; how could you tell what is a legitimate comparison (even if some of the compared languages might prove to be related) and what is just accidental ( -- keep in mind the sort of accidental, non-etymological IE similarities such as English day/Spanish día 'day' or French feu/German Feuer 'fire')? And since we don't know in advance which languages may be related and which not (which ones might legitimately be compared), should we throw into the mix such things as Old Japanese migi 'right (hand)' (form from Miller, no idea whether it's accurate, but then, this is using sources as Greenberg did), or maybe some IE, as in Spanish (and other Romance languages) mano 'hand'? In fact we know that some of the forms which were thrown into the 'hand' mix don't fit at all; for example, Rama mukuik is really mu- 'your' + kwik 'hand', where the real root for 'hand' (kwik) has nothing of the //mV(-kV)// which was the target of the set. With this you may begin to get an idea of why I say that the answer to your question would depend on the nature of the 23 pan-Americanisms or pan-IEisms involved. The pan-Americanisms I had in mind are not quite as ragged and unconstrained as several of the forms Greenberg listed in this particular set, but still there are a number of possible reasons for whatever phonetic similarity they share which should be investigated before we place any stock in them as indicators of a possible genetic connection. I had originally intended to publish an appendix of the more commonly repeated pan-Americanisms in the book, but was advised against that by several reviewers (and by the Press, who were pressing me on the book being too long) -- it probably would have just given ammunition to wild imaginations, anyway, so perhaps it was good I didn't do that. On the whole, though, they are something like Greenberg's 'hand' set, only sometimes more possibly onomatopoeic, sometimes with greater semantic latitude, and so on, and generally not as plausible as the 'hand' example, which is one of the better ones (the best?). Let me move on now to the nature of the languages in which a block of pan-IEisms may be compared. There really is no analogue in IE studies to this phenomenon; perhaps the closest is something like the handful of Wanderwörter across Northern Eurasia -- but these are not really to be identified specifically as IE things, rather as similarities found across a number of families, presumably due to diffusion, though perhaps some have other explanations, too. If there were an Old World analogue in these to the pan-Americanisms, it would probably play itself out at the level of Nostratic or Proto-World hypotheses -- that is, where the evidence for genetic relationship, in spite of daring hypotheses, is not compelling. In such a context, similarities found among the set of languages compared may just be accidental or due to diffusion, onomatopoeia, or a random collection of these and other factors. Since we don't yet know whether the compared languages are related, we also don't know whether it is possible that some of these may prove to be legitimate cognates, inherited from an earlier common ancestor and as such evidence of relationship, or are due to other things. So it goes in the Americas. We have a handful of forms thought to recur in (more or less) similar shape in a number of different Native American families -- and it is important to emphasize that "pan-American" doesn't mean that these show up even in most of the language families, just in more than a couple --, but we really don't know to what they are attributed. Now to the question of whether a block of 23 pan-IEisms found as a group in Germanic and only Germanic might be evidence of closer kinship among the Germanic languages than other IE languages, this really has us standing on different soil. That is, if we are within a language family for which we have pretty good evidence of genetic relationship and are trying to sort out the subgrouping arrangements (which languages are more closely related to one another within this family), then this is not at all like the American Indian situation. However, even within this clearer (or at least more narrowly circumscribed) situation, it is unlikely that a block of 23 forms found to be shared by all and only the Germanic languages would suffice for adequate subgrouping, for showing that these languages belong together in a branch as opposed to all other IE languages. If they were pan-IEisms, then I take it it's OK to assume they are probably legitimate cognates, since individual borrowings mostly didn't make it to all the branches (nor did accidental similarities), and we're pretty good at weeding out accidents and other stuff based on the known sound correspondences. This being the case, the fact that some set of 23 shows up as a block in each of the Germanic languages but not necessarily in others could be an accident. That is, if they are legitimate IE cognates, then they had a legitimate chance to be preserved and show up in any of the branches, not just Germanic, and indeed, some would have to show up in a number of other branches, since otherwise they would not be considered "pan-IEisms." This being the case, the set of 23 would simply be a subset of all those that were available for showing up. Of course, it is possible that the set indeed reflects Germanic as a group, but this could be shown only on the basis of sound correspondences, and then it wouldn't really matter whether Germanic preserved the whole set of 23 or whether some Germanic languages managed to lose or replace some of them. In short, I don't see how a shared block does anything more than any other cognates, whether shared by all or only some, to establish the subgrouping. It was an interesting question; thanks for asking. I suspect others might have some different feelings about it. As I see it, within IE, the question hinges on whether blocks of lexical items are sufficient by themselves for establishing subgrouping (family branching) -- I don't think so. Lyle Lyle Campbell (Professor) Dept. of Linguistics University of Canterbury Private Bag 4800 Christchurch, New Zealand Fax: 64-3-364-2969 Phone: 64-3-364-2242 From alderson at netcom.com Thu Apr 23 15:23:08 1998 From: alderson at netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 11:23:08 EDT Subject: Nostratic & Indo-European mailing lists Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- With some trepidation, I wish to announce to the broad historical linguistics community that I have taken over ownership of the Nostratic and Indo-European mailing lists previously hosted by Bobby Bryant of the University of Texas. These two lists serve rather different purposes. The Indo-European list is intended for the discussion of topics centered on languages of the IE family and the cultures that speak or have spoken them. This is fairly narrowly construed: External connections, for example, should be referred to the Nostratic list. The Nostratic list is intended for the discussion of the ramifications of the Nostratic hypothesis (whether we mean by this Pedersen, Cuny, Illi^c-Svity^c, Bomhard, or the "Michigan school", or a variant such as Greenberg's Eurasiatic) including the discussion of similar hypotheses when they illuminate points of theory (although we do not in general duplicate discussions on HISTLING). We have always been broad-minded as to allowable discussions--Basque historical linguistics has figured prominently in some discussions, for example. Ground rule #1: I am not nearly as patient as Bobby Bryant. Uncollegial behaviour will not be tolerated, and messages without scholarly content will not be forwarded to the list. These lists is not publicly owned or sponsored; I am providing places for those interested in these topics to discuss them, on my own time and at my own expense. The mail system from which I will run the new list lacks certain facilities of the listserver software. If I were simply to relay all incoming e-mail to the list, there would be no protection from commercial solicitations unrelated to the purpose of the list, so there will have to be a human component in mail delivery. Because of this, mail will not be delivered to subscribers immediately, but will be sent out in batches after 17:00 Pacific time (= GMT/BST - 08:00). There is no digest option; each message will be sent separately. The volume of the Nostratic list, even at its peak, has never been particularly high; that on the Indo-European list is generally lower. I have already sent announcements of the re-constitution of these lists to most of the subscribers; a few have failed to be delivered because of restrictions on the subscribers' mail systems. I would like to invite those interested in these topics (both present subscribers who have not received mail from me, and those newly interested in subscribing) to send e-mail to the these addresses: For Indo-European: indoeuropean-request at xkl.com For Nostratic: nostratic-request at xkl.com Until 31 May 1998, everyone who has not UNSUBSCRIBED will continue to receive mailings from the list. After that date, only those who (RE-)SUBSCRIBE will get the mailings. Rich Alderson From mcv at wxs.nl Fri Apr 24 01:01:42 1998 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 21:01:42 EDT Subject: Pan-Americanisms In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Lyle Campbell wrote: > Let me start by repeating that the term is not mine; I read it >somewhere as a student (I thought in writings of Swadesh's), but have never >been able to find it again. I'd be grateful to anyone who could (re)locate >the source of the term. Yes, sorry, I got that wrong in my short resume (and I *had* read the footnote where you say so). > You ask if a block of 23 "pan-Indo-Europeanisms" found in Germanic >as a group would be significant (for demonstrating a closer relationship)? >The answer, I would say, has to do with the fact that in IE and in the >Americas we are on rather different ground, or, better said, there are more >straightforward considerations and more convoluted considerations, and each >is important to the overall stance that should be taken in answering a >question such as yours. The answer would depend on the nature of the 23 >things compared and on the nature of the languages in which they are >compared (though probably "no" in both instances). Let's take up the >nature of the items compared first. > The so-called pan-Americanisms are a pretty messy, shaggy, muddled >lot (probably of something between 25 and 100 forms, depending on who is >looking); There was a tacit assumption in my first message, that I'm glad to see confirmed here, namely that the number of "pan-Americanisms" is a rather small one. As a matter of fact, I had originally ended my message saying "But what about a block of 23 (or rather: 230) "pan-Indo-Europeanisms" found as a group in Germanic and Germanic only?", but in the end I changed my mind and deleted the parenthetical remark because it sounded cryptic without further explanation, and because I didn't know for a fact whether the number of pan-Americanisms was indeed roughly a factor 10 smaller than the number of IE roots (1000+ in Pokorny). If we pretend for a minute that "pan-Americanisms" can be treated the same way as "pan-Indo-Europeanisms", i.e. if we pretend they are cognates at some level, then I think it would be statistically justified to compare a block of 23 pan-Americanism in Hokan with a block of 230 pan-Indo-Europeanisms in Germanic. I am aware of the rule which says that "shared retentions are not valid evidence for subgrouping; only shared innovations provide support" ("American Indian Languages", p. 258 [which I should have quoted in my resume, because it's a central point in the argument]), and which is also the point Benji Wald was making in his reaction to my message. In my view, this is only a rule of thumb, and in exceptional circumstances it can safely be ignored. I think that if we did find a group of languages which has retained the same 25% or more of the original vocabulary, that should be taken as strong indication that the group is closely related (in the same sub-group). Of course, there is usually no need to do so, because languages that closely related will show a large amount of other evidence for their close relationship. But, as Mark Rosenfelder says in his excellent Web article "How likely are chance resemblances between languages?" : "The brain is no good at probabilities" (under the heading: "Why are we so easy to fool?"). I know my brain is no good at them, so maybe I'm totally wrong about my equation of the 23 Hokan with 230 Germanic look-alikes. As to the nature of the pan-Americanisms themselves, Lyle's characterisation of them as a "messy, shaggy, muddled lot" (and further explanation, deleted for brevity) casts doubts on whether we *can* compare them with "pan-Indo-Europeanisms" (i.e. cognates) even in principle. Maybe it would be better to avoid the term until somebody figures what they really are, which is probably best done anyway by treating each item individually and not worry about them as a whole. In that sense, I'm still not happy with "pan-Americanism" as a reason for dismissal of items in Haas' list: if (and only if) regular sound correspondences can be established between two or more languages, based on sufficient and valid data [and that's what I gather is the real weakness of Haas' list: too few illustrations of the proposed sound-correspondences, and some of them clearly onomatopoeic or borrowed], then the fact that for some of the words wide-spread look-alikes exist is not in itself reason to reject those forms. After all, we don't reject PIE *swek^s and *septm just because they are Wanderwoerter (or possibly borrowings into PIE itself), occurring all over the place (Semitic, Egyptian, Berber, Kartvelian, Etruscan, Basque, i.e. "pan-Mediterraneanisms"). [I should add that I feel the same in principle about another reason for dismissal in that paragraph, viz. "little phonetic similarity": if the sound law is real, it shouldn't matter how dissimilar the reflexes are (I feel tradition-bound to insert a reference to Armenian here)]. ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl Amsterdam From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Sun Apr 26 18:48:34 1998 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 14:48:34 EDT Subject: Q: HL textbook Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Does anybody know of a university-level textbook of historical linguistics earlier than W. P. Lehmann's 1962 textbook? Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH England larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From fcosw5 at mbm1.scu.edu.tw Mon Apr 27 12:45:39 1998 From: fcosw5 at mbm1.scu.edu.tw (Steven Schaufele) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 08:45:39 EDT Subject: stats on vocab coincidences? Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear fellow historical linguists, If memory serves, two or three years ago somebody did some sort of statistical study on the odds of vocabulary correspondences occurring between any two languages purely by chance. Does anybody remember what the results of this study were, or where i could find out? I'm in the middle of a struggle to enlighten someone trying to argue for Hebrew-English affiliation purely on the basis of lexical coincidences. Best, Steven -- Steven Schaufele, Ph.D., Asst. Prof. of Linguistics, English Department Soochow University, Waishuanghsi Campus, Taipei 11102, Taiwan, ROC (886)(02)2881-9471 ext. 6504 fcosw5 at mbm1.scu.edu.tw http://www.prairienet.org/~fcosws/homepage.html ***O syntagmata linguarum liberemini humanarum!*** ***Nihil vestris privari nisi obicibus potestis!*** From jhewson at morgan.ucs.mun.ca Mon Apr 27 21:52:38 1998 From: jhewson at morgan.ucs.mun.ca (John Hewson) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 17:52:38 EDT Subject: Q: HL textbook In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- On Sun, 26 Apr 1998, Larry Trask wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > Does anybody know of a university-level textbook of historical > linguistics earlier than W. P. Lehmann's 1962 textbook? There was a general introduction for undergraduates published by the Welsh scholar T. Hudson-Williams that in its own way was a little gem. It tabulated much of the data from Meillet's _Introduction_. T. Hudson-Williams. 1935. A Short Introduction to the Study of Comparative Grammar (Indo-European) (Reprinted 1951). Cardiff: University of Wales Press. John Hewson, FRSC tel: (709)737-8131 University Research Professor fax: (709)737-4000 Memorial University of Newfoundland St. John's NF, CANADA A1B 3X9 From manaster at umich.edu Tue Apr 28 13:21:44 1998 From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 09:21:44 EDT Subject: stats on vocab coincidences? In-Reply-To: <3544D3DC.258D@mbm1.scu.edu.tw> Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- This was done by Bender, Marvin L. 1969 Chance CVC Correspondences in Unrelated Languages. Language 45:519-531. I was able to use his results to produce a new argument for the validity of the connection, often denied, between Haida and the other Nadene languages in my paper Sapir's classifications: Nadene. Anthropological Linguistics 38:1-38 (1996). I don't how robust Bender's findings are (that is, how they fare if one does the same statistics on other languages than the ones he did or if one varies the 100-word pseudo-Swadesh list he used). Hence, I do not know whether the argument is a very strong one. I of course have other arguments for Haida-Nadene, so this does not concern me too much, but still I would be interested in any other references to this subject. One other thing of relevance: In William Baxter and AMR, Review of Donald Ringe (1992). Diachronica 13:371-389 (1996), we show that there are pairs of related languages which have fewer matches of initial consonants than is the case in some pairs of unrelated languages. This does not deal with the general problem of spurious matches, because it is is restricted to one position only, but on the other hand, we consider not just phonetically similar consonants but all possible correspondences in this one position. A. On Mon, 27 Apr 1998, Steven Schaufele wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > Dear fellow historical linguists, > > If memory serves, two or three years ago somebody did some sort of > statistical study on the odds of vocabulary correspondences occurring > between any two languages purely by chance. Does anybody remember what > the results of this study were, or where i could find out? I'm in the > middle of a struggle to enlighten someone trying to argue for > Hebrew-English affiliation purely on the basis of lexical coincidences. > > Best, > Steven > -- > Steven Schaufele, Ph.D., Asst. Prof. of Linguistics, English Department > > Soochow University, Waishuanghsi Campus, Taipei 11102, Taiwan, ROC > > (886)(02)2881-9471 ext. 6504 fcosw5 at mbm1.scu.edu.tw > > http://www.prairienet.org/~fcosws/homepage.html > > > > ***O syntagmata linguarum liberemini humanarum!*** > > ***Nihil vestris privari nisi obicibus potestis!*** > From C.Bowern at student.anu.edu.au Wed Apr 29 13:31:57 1998 From: C.Bowern at student.anu.edu.au (Claire Bowern) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 09:31:57 EDT Subject: Q: HL textbook Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- We used Terry Crowley's "Introduction to Historical Linguistics" for a second year university course. There's a third edition which was published recently. We supplemented it with a reading brick from various other authors. Crowley tends to demonstrate his points with languages other than Indo-European ones, and there's quite a bit on Austronesian from memory. I can give you the full reference details if you're interested. Claire Bowern >On Sun, 26 Apr 1998, Larry Trask wrote: > >> ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >> Does anybody know of a university-level textbook of historical >> linguistics earlier than W. P. Lehmann's 1962 textbook? > From rjanda at midway.uchicago.edu Thu Apr 30 02:14:52 1998 From: rjanda at midway.uchicago.edu (Richard Janda) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 22:14:52 EDT Subject: Earlier textbooks than Lehmann 1962 Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Let's not forget Sturtevant's 1917 (!) _Linguistic Change: An Introduction to the Historical Study of Language_, reprinted in a Phoenix Books (U. of Chicago Press) edition in 1961 and subsequently (at least as late as 1973). As Hamp's introduction states, "This book is quite out of date...", but its quaintness is offset by some good qualities. Labov 1972, for example, praises Sturtevant's views on sound-change. +- Rich Janda From Georg at home.ivm.de Thu Apr 30 12:11:00 1998 From: Georg at home.ivm.de (Ralf-Stefan Georg) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 08:11:00 EDT Subject: Earlier textbooks than Lehmann 1962 Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- And let's not forget about that classic by Hermann Paul: Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte, Tübingen 1880. To qualify it as up to date would be a little bit exaggerated but every modern reader will certainly be surprised to learn how much of the methodological and theoretical points illustrated there still can be quoted today without much amendments. And it contains the all-time favourite quote of every devoted historical linguist: "Es ist eingewendet, dass es noch eine andere wissenschaftliche Betrachtung der Sprache g"abe, als die geschichtliche. Ich muss das in Abrede stellen." Stefan Georg Heerstrasse 7 D-53111 Bonn FRG +49-228-69-13-32 From rjanda at midway.uchicago.edu Thu Apr 30 18:24:19 1998 From: rjanda at midway.uchicago.edu (Richard Janda) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 14:24:19 EDT Subject: Paul 1880 vs. 1886 vs. 1920...; Bloomfield 1933/1965 Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Actually, the passage in Paul about the only scientific linguistics being historical is not in Paul 1880 (the 1st edition), since it arose in response to reviews like Misteli's of 1882 (in the _Zeitschrift fuer Voelkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft_ 13:376-409). The statement in question is thus also not (I think) in Strong's rather daunting English translation, even though an edition appeared in 1889, while Paul's remarks are in every edition starting with the 2nd of 1886. Bynon 1977 has a translation in a footnote, however. As for myself, I am more moved by Paul's short Preface to the 5th and last edition (1920) of the _Prinzipien..._ in his lifetime, in which he mentions that he "seit Jahren ausserstande... [ist], Ge- ] drucktes oder Geschriebenes zu lesen" and so "beduerfte... bei der Revision fremder Hilfe" (for which he thanks Fraeulein Dr. Deditius & Herr(n) Dr. Bluemel). Who now is so dedicated to the consulting and editing of original manuscripts as to risk his or her eyesight?!? Moreover, though Paul's lapidary words are excellent for exem- plifying the period when linguistics was historical linguistics, they certainly show how far he was from contemporary physical scien- tists and modern scientists of all sorts in his insistence that, essen- tially, you don't have a scientific understanding of a system unless you know the history of every piece of it. No sane geologist would today agree that understanding, say, the cliffs of Dover requires one to know the origin of every one of its molecules (or atoms, or elec trons [electra?], or quarks).... What would have happened without de Saussure--or Bloomfield? Which takes us back to Larry Trask's original question: It should be mentioned that Holt, Rinehart, & Winston (with Harry Hoijer as ed- itor, I believe), separately published the historical-linguistic chapters of Bloomfield 1933 (_Language_) as _Language History_, though this admittedly came out in 1965. I wonder whether the increase in books on historical linguistics alone after 1962 (or, better, 1969) doesn't partly reflect the fact that, until that time, most textbooks automatically included rather large sections on historical linguistics, already, whereas the generative works of the era tended to be so resolutely synchronic that a new need (and market) opened up for diachrony. What say ye? Rich Janda From karhu at umich.edu Thu Apr 30 15:25:52 1998 From: karhu at umich.edu (Marc Pierce) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:25:52 EDT Subject: Earlier textbooks than Lehmann 1962 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- While we're remembering classics, how about Bloomfield's Language? This was the textbook used in the first historical linguistics class I took (albeit supplemented with a substantial coursepack and list of readings). Marc Pierce On Thu, 30 Apr 1998, Ralf-Stefan Georg wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > And let's not forget about that classic by Hermann Paul: Prinzipien der > Sprachgeschichte, T�bingen 1880. To qualify it as up to date would be a > little bit exaggerated but every modern reader will certainly be surprised > to learn how much of the methodological and theoretical points illustrated > there still can be quoted today without much amendments. And it contains > the all-time favourite quote of every devoted historical linguist: "Es ist > eingewendet, dass es noch eine andere wissenschaftliche Betrachtung der > Sprache g"abe, als die geschichtliche. Ich muss das in Abrede stellen." From joh.wood at asu.edu Wed Apr 1 02:39:08 1998 From: joh.wood at asu.edu (Johamma L. Wood) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 21:39:08 EST Subject: CFP WECOL Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- CALL FOR PAPERS WECOL '98 Western Conference on Linguistics 9-11 October, 1998 Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona Deadline for Abstracts: 1 June 1998 Abstracts are invited for 20-minute talks in all areas of linguistic theory. Abstracts should be anonymous, and should be no longer than one page, with one inch margins, in typeface no smaller than 12 characters per inch. An additional page with examples and references may be included. Please provide 7 copies of the abstract. Authors should identify themselves on a separate 3x5" index card, and should include the title and author's address, affiliation, telephone number, and e-mail address. Invited speaker: James McCloskey, University of California at Santa Cruz. Abstracts should be sent to the following address: Elly van Gelderen, Chair, Abstracts Committee WECOL '98 PO Box 870302, Department of English, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-0302 WECOL 1998 will be held jointly with LASSO 1998. Deadline for LASSO Abstracts is June 15 and abstracts should be sent to gajill at unix1.sncc.lsu.edu. Additional information is available at www.public.asu.edu/~teresalw/lasso.html www.public.asu.edu/~teresalw/wecol.html From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Wed Apr 1 13:51:41 1998 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 08:51:41 EST Subject: Sum: `crystallization' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Last week I posted a query asking where Uriel Weinreich first used the term `crystallization' to denote the appearance of a more or less unified language out of a welter of linguistic activity. Several people have informed me that this term occurs in the most obvious place of all, Weinreich's famous book _Languages in Contact_ (1953, 1968), on pp. 69-70 and again on pp. 104-106. Guess I should have checked that book first, but I don't have a copy of it, and I couldn't remember encountering the term in it when I read it, back in my student days. The point of the query was that I am compiling a dictionary of historical and comparative linguistics, and I have recently been working on the terminology associated with the increasingly important topic of convergence phenomena. It cannot be said that terminology in this area has yet settled down, and I'm trying to work out just who has used which terms to denote what phenomena. Apart from `convergence' itself, I have found `crystallization', `lingua franca model', `rhizotic model', `social-network model', `contact language', `non-genetic language', `abrupt creole', `abnormal transmission', `mixed language', `punctuated equilibrium', `portmanteau language', `reification', `totemization', `endohybridization', and various other terms used to denote some aspect, attested or posited, of convergence, and I'm trying to assemble these various usages into some sort of order. My thanks to Sheri Pargman, Benji Wald, Sally Thomason, Richard Coates and Geoffrey Nathan for bringing the correct reference to my attention, and to Ernst Kotze, Roger Wright, Sharon Lorinskas and Max Wheeler for further comments and assistance. Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH England larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Wed Apr 1 13:53:25 1998 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 08:53:25 EST Subject: A question re IE In-Reply-To: from "manaster@umich.edu" at Mar 29, 98 09:53:31 am Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Alexis Manaster-Ramer asks for the missing 14th branch of IE recognized by Pokorny. It is `Phrygian and Dacian', which is unsurprisingly one of the smallest groups (less than two pages in the index). Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH England larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Thu Apr 2 17:00:52 1998 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 12:00:52 EST Subject: Dolgopolsky's new book Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- This really belongs on the Nostratic list, but the Nostratic list no longer exists. Dolgopolsky's new book on Nostratic has just been published in Britain. Here are the details: Aharon Dolgopolsky (1998), The Nostratic Macrofamily and Linguistic Palaeontology, Cambridge: The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, ISBN 0-9519420-7-7 (pb), price unknown, 116 + xxii pp. The book is distributed in the UK by Oxbow Books, Park End Place, Oxford OX1 1HN, UK; tel (0) or (+44) (1865)-241249; fax (0) or (+44) (1865)-794449. In the USA, it is distributed by The David Brown Book Company, P.O. Box 511, Oakville, CT 06779, USA; tel 860-945-9329; fax 860-945-9468. The book presents a reconstructed phoneme system for Proto-Nostratic, the reflexes of the consonants (but not the vowels) in ten major branches of Nostratic, and a sample of 125 proposed cognate sets. As the title suggests, the author is largely interested here in linguistic palaeontology, and he focuses his attention therefore on putative etyma pertaining to habitat, social organization and material culture. He can find no PN words pertaining to agriculture, animal husbandry, fishing, pottery, or maritime activity, and apparently also none pertaining to metal use or to any social unit larger than a clan. He therefore concludes that PN was spoken in the Mesolithic or late Palaeolithic period -- in other words, no later than 15,000 BC, or 17,000 BP. Given the words he thinks he finds for animal names, plant names, and weather phenomena, he further concludes that the PA homeland must have been subtropical and most likely located in southwest Asia. The proposed cognate sets await the attention of specialists in the relevant languages. Certainly some of the PIE comparanda cited are new to me, such as PIE * `marten' and * `wickerwork, wattle-fence', but I'm no IEist, and I may just be ignorant. Dolgopolsky reconstructs 50 consonant phonemes for PN; he doesn't provide a vowel system, but there appear to be seven distinct vowels present in his PA reconstructions. Among the 50 consonants are 35 obstruents, 14 resonants, and /h/, which you can classify to suit yourself. There are five contrasting nasals and no fewer than eight contrasting coronal laterals, which strikes me as rather a lot of coronal laterals. There are three series of obstruents: voiced, voiceless and emphatic. There are four orders of obstruents (labial, dental, velar, uvular), plus a further four of coronal affricates and fricatives (plain, palato-alveolar, alveolo-palatal and lateralized). All this makes for one hell of an obstruent system. The book is typographically a little challenging, in spite of obviously painstaking efforts, and it has been poorly proofread: typos are frequent. This is clearly only a taster toward the author's projected (and mammoth) Nostratic Dictionary, which we are told will contain around 2000 sets of comparisons. But it's enough to give the flavor of the author's Nostratic work, and I'd be interested to hear any comments on the quality of the reconstructions offered for the six families assigned to Nostratic -- especially since a number of them appear to be based on "reaching down" into the daughter languages to find comparanda. That is, there is a good deal of inverted reconstruction (top-down reconstruction) along the following lines: "this word I found in one Cushitic language must be assignable to Proto- Afro-Asiatic, because a suitable PAA reconstruction for it would match the PN reconstruction I've arrived at on the basis of IE and Tungusic". Inverted reconstruction is all very well in the case of a secure family, but it makes me nervous seeing it employed to set up a family in the first place. Just to cite an example, item number 2, for `hyena', claims reflexes in Afro-Asiatic, Altaic and Dravidian, but the claimed Afro-Asiatic form is found nowhere but in Semitic, while the claimed Altaic form is found nowhere but in a single Tungusic language. Not overwhelming. Moreover, I am a little disturbed by the very monotony of the reflexes of the PN obstruents (and indeed most other consonants) claimed for the assorted daughter languages. In spite of the truly vast time-depth claimed by Dolgopolsky, labial plosives just remain labial plosives practically everywhere, sibilants remain sibilants, */l/ remains /l/, */n/ remains /n/, and so on. It would appear that the daughters of Proto-Nostratic exhibited a singular reluctance to undergo any interesting phonological changes of the sort found in most other languages, even though we are talking about more than ten millennia from PN to (say) PIE. On the plus side, Dolgopolsky tries to be scrupulous in setting up systematic phoneme correspondences, though it's a little disconcerting that the first entry in the book, detected only in Afro-Asiatic and in Dravidian, fails to exhibit the claimed Dravidian reflex of *<-b->. Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH England larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From mcv at wxs.nl Fri Apr 3 02:02:11 1998 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 21:02:11 EST Subject: Dolgopolsky's new book In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Larry Trask wrote: >The proposed cognate sets await the attention of specialists in the >relevant languages. Certainly some of the PIE comparanda cited are >new to me, such as PIE * `marten' and * `wickerwork, >wattle-fence', but I'm no IEist, and I may just be ignorant. *bhel- doesn't ring a bell, unless it's Russ. belka "squirrel". *kat- is OK, except of course for the /a/: Lat. catena, casa and several others. >Dolgopolsky reconstructs 50 consonant phonemes for PN; he doesn't >provide a vowel system, but there appear to be seven distinct vowels >present in his PA reconstructions. Among the 50 consonants are 35 >obstruents, 14 resonants, and /h/, which you can classify to suit >yourself. There are five contrasting nasals and no fewer than eight >contrasting coronal laterals, which strikes me as rather a lot of >coronal laterals. Is that *without* counting the lateral affricates/fricatives? ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl Amsterdam From l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz Fri Apr 3 11:45:17 1998 From: l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz (Lyle Campbell) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 06:45:17 EST Subject: Question on "anythink" Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- My colleague, Elizabeth Gordon, would like to ask if anyone knows about/has any relevant information concerning the origin and distribution in varieties of English of a phenonenon found here in New Zealand. A common complaint from school teachers in New Zealand is about the pronunciations of words like 'nothing' and 'anything' as 'nothink' and 'anythink'. 'Nothink' is recorded in NZ by McBurney in 1887; it appears in an anonymous list written in 1817 of 'Errors of pronunciation and improper expressions used frequently and chiefly by inhabitants of London' (quoted in A.J. Ellis). Are the 'anythink/nothink' forms heard in other places today? Does anyone have any suggestions about the early history of this form? Thanks. Send replies directly to Liz (e.gordon at ling.canterbury.ac.nz). Dr. Lyle Campbell (Professor) Dept. of Linguistics University of Canterbury Private Bag 4800 Christchurch, New Zealand Fax: 64-3-364-2969 Phone: 64-3-364-2242 From richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk Fri Apr 3 11:45:52 1998 From: richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Richard Coates) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 06:45:52 EST Subject: Dologopolsky's new book : `marten' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Forwarded message: >From richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk Fri Apr 03 08:43:15 1998 Envelope-to: richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk Delivery-date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 08:43:15 +0100 Subject: Re: Dolgopolsky's new book To: mcv at wxs.nl Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 08:43:14 +0100 (BST) From: "Richard Coates" Cc: richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Richard Coates) In-Reply-To: <35952356.692887051 at mail.wxs.nl> from "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" at Apr 2, 98 09:02:11 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 610 Message-Id: > > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > Larry Trask wrote: > > >The proposed cognate sets await the attention of specialists in the > >relevant languages. Certainly some of the PIE comparanda cited are > >new to me, such as PIE * `marten' and * `wickerwork, > >wattle-fence', but I'm no IEist, and I may just be ignorant. > > *bhel- doesn't ring a bell, unless it's Russ. belka "squirrel". *kat- > is OK, except of course for the /a/: Lat. catena, casa and several > others. > Also in Celtic (W. bele, bela(u) `marten'). ----rc From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Fri Apr 3 11:48:20 1998 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 06:48:20 EST Subject: Dolgopolsky's new book In-Reply-To: <35952356.692887051@mail.wxs.nl> from "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" at Apr 2, 98 11:53:47 pm Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Miguel C V writes: [LT] > >There are five contrasting nasals and no fewer than eight > >contrasting coronal laterals, which strikes me as rather a lot of > >coronal laterals. > Is that *without* counting the lateral affricates/fricatives? No, with: three lateral affricates, two lateral fricatives, and three lateral resonants. I intend to check UPSID to see if any language is cited there with eight contrasting laterals. I know North American languages are fond of laterals, but I can't recall seeing one with eight of the things. Browsing in Ladefoged and Maddieson, I find that the Chadic language Bura has five contrasting coronal laterals, that Zulu has six but with two of them lateral clicks, that the Caucasian language Archi has seven phonetic laterals, but six of them pre-velar rather than coronal and probably not all phonemes, that Tlingit has five coronal laterals, none of them an ordinary voiced approximant, and that Navajo has five coronal laterals. So, if we exclude clicks, it appears at the moment that five laterals is the maximum known. Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From manaster at umich.edu Fri Apr 3 13:09:35 1998 From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 08:09:35 EST Subject: Dolgopolsky's new book In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- The PIE *kat 'wattlework' which Larry says Dolgopolsky has is clearly the same etymon as Illich-Svitych posited in the form *ket, and I do not understand how the vowel could be given as PIE *-a-. This is in fact supposed to be one of the many cases where Nostratic *a gives PIE *e (alternating with *o). However, this is a PIE etymon which is not traditional with IEnists, and was put together this way by Illich-Svitych himself, I believe. This does not mean that it is wrong, of course, and IS makes it clear that this is a new proposal. In general, although etyma that are not widely attested are quite often posited, I tend to agree with Larry's skepticism, and as I have argued elsewhere I think that AT BEST a very small percentage of the etyma posited for Nostratic by IS and Dolgopolsky will stand the test of time. Of course, as it happens *ket is fairly widely attested in IE, and I tend to think this was one of IS's better ideas. Alexis MR From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Fri Apr 3 13:55:28 1998 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 08:55:28 EST Subject: Question on "anythink" Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- You will doubtless receive better-informed answers than this, but I can say something. In most varieties of English, the plosive /g/ was lost after /n/ in word-final or morpheme-final position quite some time ago, leaving behind the new velar nasal phoneme. But this change apparently never happened in a sizeable area of England, including the West Midlands and southern Lancashire. In a continuous area including the cities of Birmingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Manchester and Liverpool, /g/ has remained in this position down to the present day. In this area, words like `sing', `long', `thing' and `bring' all end in a plosive /g/, and `singer' rhymes with `finger'. According to John Wells, this also happens, uniquely in Yorkshire, in the city of Sheffield, of which I have little experience, and was reported in the past in a part of Kent, from which it now appears to be absent. This type of pronunciation, which is very striking to my American ears, is categorical among all social classes in the West Midlands. It is not stigmatized, but is in fact regarded as prestigious, and speakers from the region typically do not lose it even when they otherwise adjust their accents strongly toward RP, or at least toward the speech of southern England. That is my experience, and that is the conclusion of John Wells, who reports that only a tiny minority of out-and-out RP-speakers in the region lack this /g/. Now, John Wells says nothing at all about the devoicing of /g/ to /k/ in this position, but I know from experience that it happens. I believe it never happens in a monosyllable: that is, `thing' is always pronounced with final /g/, and never with /k/, which would make it homophonous with `think'. However, in polysyllables, devoicing is frequent. I have noticed this above all in words like `anything' and `something', in which a final /k/ is often heard, though /g/ is (I think) also possible. I am uncertain about the treatment of verb-forms in <-ing>, though I *think* I have heard things like "What are you doing?" pronounced with a final /k/. So, the West Midlands and southern Lancashire would appear to be the obvious place to look for antecedents of the NZ pronunciation. On the other hand, the information from Sheffield and Kent suggests that the plosive pronunciation might have been more widespread in England not so long ago. Against this, I am not aware that the pronunciation with the plosive is recorded at all in North America, except in metropolitan New York, where it is prominent, but usually attributed to the influence of immigrant speech habits. The reference to John Wells is this: J. C. Wells (1982), Accents of English, 3 vols., vol. 2, pp. 365-366, Cambridge University Press. I hope this is helpful. Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH England larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From einarssonr at ADMIN.GMCC.AB.CA Fri Apr 3 16:57:53 1998 From: einarssonr at ADMIN.GMCC.AB.CA (Robert Einarsson) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 11:57:53 EST Subject: history of linguistics Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I am hoping that this list group is for both the history of languages and the history of linguistics as a tradition of study. I found the citation on _The History of Linguistics, vol 1-5_ very interesting, and have forwarded it and ordered a copy for our library. Sincerely, Robert Einarsson please visit my web site at www.artsci.gmcc.ab.ca/people/einarssonb/ From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Fri Apr 3 16:56:57 1998 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 11:56:57 EST Subject: Reversal of merger Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- It is a commonplace of historical linguistics that phonemic mergers cannot be reversed, a position recently dubbed "Garde's Principle" by Labov (1994) -- somewhat unfortunately, since "Garde's Principle" was already in use for something completely different. Nevertheless, a number of apparent counterexamples have been reported in the literature, and proposed explanations for these are not in short supply. So far, I have tracked down five putative explanations for apparent reversals of merger, as follows: (1) The merger occurred only at the phonetic level, and speakers retained different underlying representations in their heads, which they could later provide once again with differing phonetic realizations (Halle 1962). (2) The merger took place, but just one of the two merged segments had a distinctive phonological role in the language, and speakers were later able to separate out the two cases and de-merge them (Michelena 1957, 1961). (3) The merger took place in the prestige variety, but not in another variety of lower prestige, and a switch in prestige shows up in the record as a reversal, since only prestige varieties tend to be well recorded (Weinreich et al. 1968). (4) The merger occurred only variably, and speakers retained both merged and unmerged pronunciations, but tended to report only the merged pronunciation (Milroy 1992). (5) The merger never occurred; instead, there was only a near-merger, resulting in the usual failure of speakers to observe the objectively real contrast (Labov 1994). Now my query is this: does anybody know of any additional attempts at explaining apparent cases of reversal of merger? Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH England larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From geoffn at siu.edu Fri Apr 3 16:55:58 1998 From: geoffn at siu.edu (Geoffrey S. Nathan) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 11:55:58 EST Subject: Question on "anythink" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Let me add to what Larry says about final /g/ that Cockney exhibits final [k]. I don't have a handy reference to Cockney here in my office, but I note that Wells' discussion of the dialect includes the fact that final voiceless stops affricate in Cockney, and uses as an example 'nothing' [n^thinkx](1) (Wells 1982:323). I also recall my mother, who was raised in Central London, and occasionally produced some authentic data, used to say [n^fink], among other examples. I don't know what the immigration patterns to New Zealand are, but Londoners got around lots of places. (1) Apologies for ascii-flavored IPA. ^ represents caret, th represents theta. Geoff Geoffrey S. Nathan Department of Linguistics Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Carbondale, IL, 62901 USA Phone: +618 453-3421 (Office) FAX +618 453-6527 +618 549-0106 (Home) From llidop at gusun.georgetown.edu Fri Apr 3 16:55:17 1998 From: llidop at gusun.georgetown.edu (Paulino Llido) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 11:55:17 EST Subject: Morris Swadesh Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear anybody, I need help in tracing the life and works of Morris Swadesh who wrote I believe some works on lexico-statistics. Is he still alive? Where may I obtain a complete list of his works? Are his works part of a collection in some university? Are any of his relatives still around the US? Would anybody have a spare copy of his lexico-statistics work? Likewise, I am exploring the field of lexico-stats now and would want to know who the linguists are who have dedicated their life to this field and what and where their works, publications would be? Thanks for any help and will repost the answers of the contributors, Paul *********************************************************************** **************************************************** Paul C. LLIDO * ******************************* e-mail: llidop at gusun.georgetown.edu * **** Georgetown University (Graduate School - Dept. of Linguistics) * *********************************************************************** From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Fri Apr 3 14:26:35 1998 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 09:26:35 EST Subject: Dolgopolsky's new book In-Reply-To: from "manaster@umich.edu" at Apr 3, 98 08:09:35 am Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Alexis M R writes: [My first attempt at replying to this was interrupted by two crashes in rapid succession: the first of thunder, the second of our system. Here goes again.] > The PIE *kat 'wattlework' which Larry says Dolgopolsky has is > clearly the same etymon as Illich-Svitych posited in the form *ket, > and I do not understand how the vowel could be given as PIE *-a-. Yes, I'm now satisfied that PIE * is the intended form here. Possibly this is a typo (recall that the book is full of typos), but I don't think so. The PN reconstruction is *, with an emphatic /k/, and all the comparanda except the Kartvelian one have /a/. Elsewhere, PN */e/ is continued as PIE */e/, but in fact there is only one relevant form in the book. The small number of comparisons on offer here makes it difficult for the reader to check the consistency of proposed developments in the daughter languages. Also a problem is that only ten of the 125 PN reconstructions on offer are of definite form. All the others contain one or more instances of generic segments, optional segments, or fluctuation between segments. > This is in fact supposed to be one of the many cases where Nostratic > *a gives PIE *e (alternating with *o). However, this is a PIE > etymon which is not traditional with IEnists, and was put together > this way by Illich-Svitych himself, I believe. This does not mean > that it is wrong, of course, and IS makes it clear that this is a > new proposal. Dolgopolsky gives no clues as to which of his proposals follow I-S and which are new with him. > In general, although etyma that are not widely attested are > quite often posited, I tend to agree with Larry's skepticism, > and as I have argued elsewhere I think that AT BEST a very > small percentage of the etyma posited for Nostratic by IS and > Dolgopolsky will stand the test of time. Of course, > as it happens *ket is fairly widely attested in IE, and I > tend to think this was one of IS's better ideas. While I'm here, I might add that Dolgopolsky's PIE * `marten' is supported only by the Welsh word cited by Richard Coates and Latin `wild cat, marten, polecat>. Buck is not certain these words are related, and I have yet to check Pokorny. Also, I note that Dolgopolsky cites Sanskrit `lion' and Armenian `leopard', plus Tocharian `lion', to justify a supposed PIE * `lion, leopard'. It's news to me that the Sanskrit/Armenian link is generally accepted, though I have certainly seen it mooted, and the Tocharian form is new to me (and not obviously convincing). Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From semartin at pacifier.com Sat Apr 4 20:14:17 1998 From: semartin at pacifier.com (Sam Martin) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1998 15:14:17 EST Subject: Reversal of merger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Larry, An interesting message, with much food for thought. I seem to recall that Halle later discovered that the English data on which he based his "merger reversal" paper were flawed and he -- privately, at least -- recanted the conclusion, while still holding out that it "could" happen and waiting for a better case to prove it. I guess he's still waiting ... Too bad he never put anything in print about all that. My memory on this may be a bit fuzzy. Perhaps someone else can speak to the matter with more authority. Does Morris have an e-mail address? (Not listed in the LSA directory.) Sam From lieve.jooken at arts.kuleuven.ac.be Sat Apr 4 20:15:09 1998 From: lieve.jooken at arts.kuleuven.ac.be (Lieve Jooken) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1998 15:15:09 EST Subject: History of Linguistics conference (Leuven B, 2-4 July 198) Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- XI. International Colloquium of the Studienkreis `Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft' The History of Linguistic and Grammatical Praxis Leuven, 2nd - 4th July 1998 ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Pierre Swiggers, Piet Desmet, Lieve Jooken, Alfons Wouters (K.U.Leuven) Annie Boone (V.U.Brussel) Peter Schmitter (Universitat Munster, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul) Second Circular CONFERENCE PROGRAMME Wednesday 1 July 16.00-19.00 REGISTRATION . 20.00 INFORMAL GET-TOGETHER. Thursday 2 July Venue: House of Chievres, Great Beguinage. 09.00 Registration opens at House of Chievres. 09.30 Opening address Session I Antiquity to Renaissance 10.00 Muriel Lenoble, Pierre Swiggers, Alfons Wouters (Leuven, B) L'enseignement grammatical entre latin et grec: le manuel de Dosithee 10.30 Pieter A.M. Seuren (Nijmegen, NL) The Notion of Transformation in Antiquity 11.00 COFFEE 11.30 Nico Lioce (Oostende, B) Aspects grammaticographiques de l'ouvre rhetorique de Joan de Castellnou (XIVe siecle) 12.00 Willy Van Hoecke (Leuven, B) La `Declaration des Abus' (1578) d'Honorat Rambaud: La pratique de l'enseignement de l'ecriture et la necessite d'un systeme universel de transcription phonetique 12.30 Bernard Colombat (Grenoble, F) Les outils pour l'apprentissage du latin en France a la Renaissance et a l'Age classique 13.00 LUNCH Session II XVIIth and XVIIIth century 14.00 Werner Hullen (Essen, D) Textbook-families for the teaching of vernaculars between 1450 and 1700 14.30 Cristina Marras (Munster, D & Tel Aviv, ISR) Grammatica Rationalis und Lingua Philosophica bei G.W. Leibniz (1646-1716) 15.00 Astrid Gobels (Essen, D) Die "Brightland" Grammatik (1711): nationalsprachliche vs. rationale Grammatik 15.30 Brigitte Lepinette (Valencia, S) Les concepts de `methode', `grammaire', `art (grammatical)' et `cle' (pour apprendre le francais) au XVIIIe siecle dans l'enseignement du francais langue etrangere en Espagne 16.00 COFFEE 16.30 Serge Vanvolsem (Leuven, B) The first Italian grammar in Dutch (anon., Amsterdam, 1672) 17.00 Jan De Clercq (Zottegem, B) La grammaire francaise de Jean des Roches 17.30 Jutta Steinmetz (Paderborn, D) `Wissenschaft', `Sprache', und `Sprachwissenschaft' in deutschen Lexika und Enzyklopadien des 18. Jahrhunderts 18.00 Edeltraud Dobnig-Julch & Helmut WeiB (Regensburg, D) Georg Frantzlin: Versuch einer neuen Lehre ... der deutschen Sprachlehre 18.30 Joseph Reisdoerfer (Luxembourg, L) Un mythe pedagogique: les etudes de grec dans les colleges jesuites 20.00 RECEPTION offered by Peeters Publishers & Booksellers at Peeters Bookshop, Bondgenotenlaan 153. Friday 3 July Venue: House of Chievres, Great Beguinage. Session III XIXth & XXth century 09.00 Richard Steadman-Jones (Cambridge, GB) Etymology and language learning at the start of the 19th century 09.30 Dan Savatovsky (Paris, F) The interlinear translation techniques in Latin and French language learning 10.00 Jan Goes (Gent, B) La "grammaire generale" et l'enseignement des langues: la "Grammaire arabe" de Silvestre de Sacy 10.30 Els Elffers (Amsterdam, NL) Content words and function words in Dutch 19th-century school grammars 11.00 COFFEE 11.30 Erika Hultenschmidt (Bielefeld, D) Traduction, jugement pratique et ordre des mots: Henri Weil, eleve juif d'August Boeckh et lecteur de K.F. Becker en France 12.00 Pierre Boutan (Montpellier, F) Langues maternelles et langue nationale a l'ecole primaire francaise de la IIIe Republique: retour sur un conflit 12.30 Marie-Helene Claveres (Montpellier, F) La "methode maternelle" et le ministere de Victor Duruy (1863-1869) 13.00 LUNCH 14.00 Annie Boone & Michel Berre (Brussels, B) De l'influence de la "Grammaire generale" de P. Burggraff (1803-1881) sur les grammaires scolaires de la langue francaise publiees en Belgique entre 1863 et 1890 14.30 Edeltraud Werner (Halle-Wittenberg, D) Giovanni Romani: Projekt einer rationalen Beschreibung des Italienischen und Umsetzungsvorschlage fur den Unterricht 15.00 Klaus RoB (Duisburg, D) Sprachkunde oder Sprachwissenschaft im Lexikon? Eine historisch-systematische Analyse der Artikel `Sprache' und `Gebardensprache' am Beispiel dreier Ausgaben von Brockhaus und Meyer 15.30 Jacqueline Leon (Paris, F) Langues auxiliaires, traduction, et modeles de traduction automatique (1950-1970) 16.00 COFFEE 16.30 Sergej A. Romaschko (Moscow, RUS) title to be announced Session IV Missionary Grammars & non Indo-European Languages 17.00 Christopher Alake (Leuven, B) Early Descriptions of the Yoruba Language. The Work of Samuel Ajayi Crowther. 17.30 William B. McGregor (Melbourne, AUS) Fr. Alphonse Tachon's research into Nywlnyul (Dampier Land, Western Australia), 1890-1900 18.00 Matti Leiwo (Jyvaskyla, FIN) Presentation of the Finnish case system in school grammars 19.00 GUIDED TOUR of the University Library Saturday 4 July Venue: Justus Lipsius room, Faculty of Arts, 8th floor, Blijde-Inkomststraat 21. Session V Structuralism 09.00 Brigitte Bartschat (Leipzig, D) Baudouin de Courtenay in Tartu/Dorpat (1883-1893) - Entwicklung seiner sprachtheoretischer Ansatze 09.30 Jorg Hardy (Munster, D) Semiologie und Linguistik bei F. de Saussure 10.00 Markus Linda (Essen, D) Ansatze zu einer Semiologie des Sprechens und Horens in den nachgelassenen Papieren Ferdinand de Saussures 10.30 COFFEE 11.00 Klaas-Hinrich Ehlers (Berlin, D) Zeit der Zirkel. Deutsche slawistische Forschung nach dem organisatorischen Modell des fruhen Strukturalismus. 11.30 Michael Hanke (Bonn, D) Die "Angewandte Sprachwissenschaft" der Bonner Schule, ca. 1950-1965 12.00 Maria Herrlich (Paderborn, D) Der EinfluB Leo Weisgerbers auf die Auffassungen von `Muttersprache' und Sprachpflege 12.30 LUNCH 14.00 GUIDED TOUR of Leuven (ca. 21 hours). End of Conference REGISTRATION FORM The conference registration fee is 1000 BEF and covers all conference costs (including programmes, booklet with abstracts, tourist information, coffee and lunch during all sessions, and guided tour of Leuven). Advance payment is not necessary. You will be asked to pay your conference fee in cash on the premises. If you are interested in participating, please send your name and address by mail, fax or e-mail to the following address BEFORE APRIL 15, 1998: Lieve Jooken XI. SGdS Colloquium Department of Linguistics Faculty of Arts K.U.Leuven P.O.Box 33 B-3000 Leuven Fax: +32-16-32.47.67 E-mail: Lieve.Jooken at arts.kuleuven.ac.be NAME: ADDRESS: TEL./FAX no: E-MAIL: Travel information, a map of Leuven and a list of hotels and B&B's will be sent to you on receipt of your registration. Please also indicate whether you will join the following activities, included in the conference fee: will/will not participate in the informal get-together with buffet at Cafe Hoegaarden on Wednesday 1 July. will/will not join the guided tour of Leuven on Saturday afternoon, 4 July. From w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.d400.de Sat Apr 4 22:45:37 1998 From: w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.d400.de (Wolfgang Behr) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1998 17:45:37 EST Subject: Dolgopolsky's new book Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Larry Trask wrote (at 09:26 03.04.98 EST): LT| Also, I note that Dolgopolsky cites Sanskrit `lion' and LT| Armenian `leopard', plus Tocharian `lion', to justify a LT| supposed PIE * `lion, leopard'. It's news to me that the LT| Sanskrit/Armenian link is generally accepted, though I have certainly LT| seen it mooted, and the Tocharian form is new to me (and not obviously LT| convincing). Roots with the meaning lion/leopard are rather diverse in IE, leaving ample space for all sorts of Lehn- & Wanderwort-speculations. While Arm. _inj_ and OI _si.mha-_ would indeed seem to point to a derivation from (Proto-Indo-Armenian, *not* PIE) *sino-, as first pointed out by Meillet (_Esquisse d'une grammaire compare'e de l'arme'nien classique_, Wien 1936, p.142), and accepted, among others, by Gamkrelidze-Ivanov (1984, II: 507, who reconstruct *sin[H]o-, with "virtual" aspiration [H] under the glottalic theory), the PIE root *lew-, posited by GI as underlying Gr. _le'o:n_ (cf. also Lin.B _re-wo-te-jo_ "lion-like"), Lat. _leo:_, *as well as* Germanic +liuwaz > OHG _le:o-_, _lewo-_, MHG _lewe-_, OE _le:o_, is seen as problematic by more traditional IEists, who would account for the Gmc. forms in terms of late loans from Latin and Greek. The common IE character of this root, however, is strenghtened by a Hitt. reading _walwa-_ (=Luw.) of the Sumerogram/s UR.MA_H-as^/-is^ "lion" (cf. GI, II: 508) and the fact that it has possible extra-IE connections with Egyptian _rw_, Coptic _laBoi_, Akkad. _la:bu_, Ugaritic _lb'_, OHebr. _la:bi:'_, Arab. _labwa_, and, possibly, Kartvelian *lom- and its derivations (GI, II: 508). As for Dolgopolsky's attempt to drag Tocharian A _s'is'@k, B s.ecake "lion" into the Indo-Armenian root (does he have to say anything about external ralationships of *his* *singho-?), the idea of a regular correspondance with OI _si.mha-_ (going back to, at least, Schrader- Nehring, _Reallexicon_ II: 19) has long been given up in favour of the following six competing proposals: (a) Toch.A loan <-- Skr. _sim.ha-_ or _sim.haka_, B <-- Skr. *kes'aka- "maehnig" (Schwentner, IF 1939, p. 59) (b) Both Toch. A and B loans ("transcriptions") from Chinese shi1zi3 "lion" (Pelliot, _T'oung Pao_ 1932, p. 449) (c) Both Toch. A and B, *as well as* the Arm. and Greek forms loans from "quelque langue asiatique" (Van Windekens, _Orbis_ 13, 1964, p. 226 seq.) (d) Toch. AB related to the IE root *kais- "hair, mane", as evidenced by OI _ke:sara-_ "hair, mane" and Lat. _caesa- rie:s_ "hair on the head" (Pokorny, IEW, p. 520) (e) Toch. A s'is'@k derived from PIE *si:t-e-qo- (var. A _s'is'ak_ < *sit-e-qo-) and B _s.ecake_ < *se:t-e-qo, cf. Lat. _saeta_ "soies, crins, poil (rude) d'un animal, piquants crinie`re", i.e ultimately from PIE *se:(i)-/*s at i-/si- "bind", with proposed semantic extension --> bound" --> "band" --> "bristle of an animal" (Van Windekens, _Le Tokharien confronte' avec les autres langues indo-europe'ennes_, I, p. 480-481) (f) Toch. A _s'is'@k_ (through assimilation/contamination with A _s'is'ri_ "mane") < *sis'@k < *s at ys'@ke- < *s at ns'ake- < *s at nkj@ke- < * sing'heko- vs. B s.ecake (through loss of nasal) < *s.encake < prototoch. ablaut variant *sjeens'@ke. The word would thus be indirectly related to Sanskrit _sim.ha_ (D.Q. Adams, KZ 97.2, pp. 284-286). As was pointed out to me by Don Ringe in a discussion of the Toch words on the Indo-European list a couple of years ago (which I will try to find, if you're interested), the fact that the only parts of the Toch. words that match by regular sound laws are A - at k- = B -ak-, i.e. that the comparison of all other segments involves a plethora of analogies, back-formations etc. which are hard to justify, and usually entirely ad hoc, would strongly seem to point in the direction of borrowings from different source languages (or at least from dialects of the same language). The most likely candidate for such a source language is certainly some variety of Middle Iranian and I would be most happy to hear from other people on the list if they could enlighten me in that direction or about any other theory on the etymology of the Tocharian lions. Cheers, WOlfgang The idea of a rela What does Dolgopolsky relate *singho- to outside PIE? While IE *lew- and its ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wolfgang Behr, Research Fellow, Int'l. Inst. for Asian Studies wbehr at rullet.leidenuniv.nl | w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.de http://iias.leidenuniv.nl/fellows/fellows.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From jrader at m-w.com Tue Apr 7 21:41:15 1998 From: jrader at m-w.com (Jim Rader) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 17:41:15 EDT Subject: anythink Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- "The Basic Material" volumes of the Survey of English Dialects record the forms for (VII.8.14) and (VII.8.15) in cases where these lexemes are used rather than outcomes of , , etc. Forms with final [k] are scattered throughout the Midlands, having at least one attestation in Staffordshire (general), Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Leicestershire (common), Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Rutlandshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Middlesex and London, and Lincolnshire. Norfolk has some forms with a final devoiced [g], though the forms with stops are otherwise absent from East Anglia and Essex. In the south there is at least attestation in Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Somersetshire, and Wiltshire, and Hampshire (common). The forms are notably absent from Devonshire, Cornwall, and Dorsetshire. It's impossible to draw any conclusions on the north based on the Survey material, because outcomes of and are almost completely dominant in Lancashire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and the counties further north, though with final [k] occurs once in southern Yorkshire (Ecclesfield). (This jibes with Wells' assertion that it is found in Sheffield.) I haven't tried to search for other words that would have had historical final eng in an unstressed syllable. Note that forms with final eng + [g], i.e., with voiced [g], are not attested at all in and as far as I could tell from a quick pass. On the history of this form see E.J. Dobson, _English Pronunciation, 1500-1700_, p. 942. According to Dobson, the devoicing of [g] in this cluster "occurs sporadically in late Old English; it is regular in the North-west Midlands in Middle English and is a widespread vulgarism in Modern English." There may be data in _A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English_, but I haven't tried to search it. In any event, I don't think there is any problem accounting for the final [k] in New Zealand. A better question might be whether it occurs elsewhere in Southern Hemisphere English or in American English--not in the latter, as far as I know. Jim Rader From fcosw5 at mbm1.scu.edu.tw Wed Apr 8 11:42:10 1998 From: fcosw5 at mbm1.scu.edu.tw (Steven Schaufele) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 07:42:10 EDT Subject: anythink Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Jim Rader wrote: > ... > > In any event, I don't think there is any problem accounting for the > final [k] in New Zealand. A better question might be whether it > occurs elsewhere in Southern Hemisphere English or in American > English--not in the latter, as far as I know. Not unless you count humourous usage in cartoons, etc. Which could lead to humourous usage in real life. Which could lead in several directions. Especially if people don't have any regional associations for it -- i certainly didn't know about any of the regional associations that have been brought up during this discussion until this past week. Frankly, i wouldn't be at all surprised if some American communities were starting to experience occasional irruptions of this pronunciation, though i myself have none to report. Best, Steven -- Steven Schaufele, Ph.D., Asst. Prof. of Linguistics, English Department Soochow University, Waishuanghsi Campus, Taipei 11102, Taiwan, ROC (886)(02)2881-9471 ext. 6504 fcosw5 at mbm1.scu.edu.tw http://www.prairienet.org/~fcosws/homepage.html ***O syntagmata linguarum liberemini humanarum!*** ***Nihil vestris privari nisi obicibus potestis!*** From manaster at umich.edu Wed Apr 8 11:45:52 1998 From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 07:45:52 EDT Subject: Dolgopolsky's new book In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I certainly agree with Wolfgang Behr's comments re IE lion words. There are altogether too many cases where Nostraticists have proposed things within IE or one of the other branches of Nostratic that cannot be justified. Of course, while Illich was an Indo-Europeanist, Dolgopolsky is not. I myself think that several of Illich's ideas about IE which came out of Nostratic are quite sensible (his analysis of *ket and its semantics, his suggestion that *bher originally meant 'take' and not 'take', and some others), but some are absurd, as I have pointed out in print. However, it is sometimes the case that the absurd ones are ideas which are widely accepted by IEnists who have no Nostratic bias. My favorite example, since i recently worked on it, is the Armenian plural ending -kh, which some IEnists have long realized must come from PIE *-es but which even more people keep insisting comes from something entirely different. Illich unfortunately went with teh majority in this case. BTW, one of Illich's proposals which I once was rather enamored of, namely, that PIE had an inclusive/exsclusive distinction makred by n vs. m agrees with a widespread, though not unviersal, idea that PIE had two 1pl. pronouns starting with the two nasals. However, it now seems to me that since one of these (*mes) is only found in Armenian and Balto-Slavic, it is possible and even methodologiucally perhaps necessary to take *mes as an innovation of one branch of IE only and hence not of Nostratic pedigree. All in all, I remain convince that, even if Nostratic is basically right, only a small percentage of the etymologies proposed for it can possibly be right. Many of IS's etymologies seem to me to beborrowings or else innovations of some branch of Nostratic only. And I think that the etymologies proposed since his death are mostly even worse--although I hope that perhaps one or two of mine will turn out to belong to the small minority of etymolgies that will stand the test of time (:-). I am in any case very happy to see that we are actually looking at specifics here, as I suggested we should do some time ago. Re *ket- or *kat-, the IE evidence points to *-e-, tehre is very little evidence *-a* in PIE anyway (some would say, none at all), and Nostratic *-a should give PIE *-e-. I wonder if the form cited by Larry is a typo? Alexis MR From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Wed Apr 8 11:47:39 1998 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 07:47:39 EDT Subject: reversal of merger Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- So far I've received few, but interesting, responses to my query about reversal of merger, and I'm still interested in hearing more. I'll post a summary in a few days. Meanwhile, several people have enquired about the unusual case discussed by Michelena, and so I've decided it's worth posting this. It's certainly interesting; it's the only such case I know about; and it's admittedly buried in the specialist literature. The change in question is one that occurred in a dialect of Basque not many centuries ago. First, here is the principal reference: Luis Michelena (1957), `Las antiguas consonantes vascas', in D. Catalan (ed.), Miscelanea Homenaje a Andre Martinet, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna, pp. 113-157. Reprinted in L. Michelena (1988), Sobre Historia de la Lengua Vasca, J. A. Lakarra (ed.), Donostia/San Sebastian: Anejos del Anuario del Seminario de Filologia Vasca "Julio de Urqiojo" 10, vol. I, pp. 166-189. The relevant passage is on pp. 119-120 in the original, and on p. 169 in the reprint. The change is also discussed in Michelena's big book: Luis Michelena (1961) Fonetica Historica Vasca, San Sebastian: Publicaciones del Seminario de Filologia Vasca "Julio de Urquijo". Second expanded edition (1977). However, the account given here is less explicit than that in the earlier article. There is an account of the matter in my own book: R. L. Trask (1997), The History of Basque, London: Routledge, pp. 156-157. First, some remarks on Basque orthography. = English /s/ (laminal) = Castilian Spanish /s/ (apical) and are the corresponding affricates = English = English , and all represent various palatal consonants (plosive, nasal, lateral). Now, Basque has long had a set of palatal and palato-alveolar consonants, which I will here refer to collectively as the "palatal" consonants. But these things formerly occupied, and to some extent today still occupy, a special place in the phoneme system: they *never* occur in the basic forms of lexical items, but only in "expressive" variants of those items. An expressive variant may be a simple diminutive ("little X"), a hypocoristic ("X-ie"), or merely a variant indicating that the speaker regards X as something familiar, comfortable, intimate or rather sweet. Here are a few examples: `sweet' > `man' > `sardine' > `mouse' > `dog' > or `short' > or `many-colored' > `step' > ~ `small' > ~ `saliva' > or `white' > or `Peter' > `Martin' > or `erect' > `ant' > `bull' > `corner' > or `Dominic' > `James' > (male name) > or OK. Originally, such expressive formations provided the only occurrences in the language of the palatal consonants (ignoring one complication which is not relevant here). But then loan words began to be taken over with instances of these sounds in the basic forms of lexical items. Examples: `dishes' < Gascon `care, attention' < Gascon , `China' < French , Spanish `soap' < medieval Spanish `beret' < Occitan `pitcher' < Spanish The language thus came to have a number of lexical items with palatal consonants in their basic forms. Right. That's all background. Now to the serious stuff. Basque has an ancient consonant /j/ (US /y/), a palatal glide. This occurs in a large number of native words, such as `lord', `eat', and `go'. It also occurs in a few loan words, such as `game', from Latin . Now, in almost all varieties of the language, this /j/ has undergone some kind of strengthening. The result is different in different places, but it is always some kind of voiced palatal obstruent (apart from the Gipuzkoan case discussed below). In the largest part of the country, the result was a voiced palato-alveolar fricative, like the in . This is still the pronunciation in some regions. However, in much of the center of the country, and especially in the Gipuzkoan dialect, this fricative was devoiced. As a result, it merged with the existing voiceless fricative . This merger still exists today in some south-central varieties, including bits of southern Gipuzkoa. Here, for example, the inherited `eat' is pronounced (and traditionally written) , and so on. But then, at some later stage, most of Gipuzkoa underwent a further change: the fricative underwent backing to a back fricative, velar /x/ or uvular /X/. This unusual change appears to have been borrowed from Castilian Spanish, which underwent the same change in the late 16th and early 17th century. Be that as it may, the change occurred, but here's the important bit: this backing affected *only* those instances of derived from original /j/, or present in loan words, and did *not* affect those instances of found in expressive formations. Hence we have an apparent reversal of merger. So, in modern Gipuzkoan, all those words containing original /j/ are pronounced with a back fricative. That includes both native words like `lord' and `eat' and loan words like `game'. The back fricative is also found in loan words like `dishes' and `soap', the last two contrasting with the and of other dialects. But the original expressive remains, except that it has usually become the affricate in word-initial position. So, for example, the expressive form of `sweet' is still , and not *, and the expressive form of `dog' is , and not *. Now, we might surmise that the merger never actually took place, that the devoiced version of /j/ always remained somehow distinct from original . But, apart from the phonetic dubiousness of this, there are two pieces of evidence against it, as noted by Michelena. First, in the area which has undergone devoicing of /j/ but not backing of , the merger exists today. No variety of Basque has two contrasting versions of . Second, and crucially, there are a very few instances in which an original expressive *has* undergone backing. This occurs, for example, in the expressive word `poor' (as in `poor fellow'), also `sick', a word whose original non-expressive form has been lost (as not infrequently happens). In Gipuzkoan, the form today is , and not the expected *. Likewise, `poor fellow' is or , in which the /j/ derives from an earlier expressive . Michelena therefore draws the following conclusions. (1) The devoiced /j/ genuinely did merge completely with the inherited in Gipuzkoan. (2) However, when the backing of was introduced, speakers were readily able to distinguish instances of bearing expressive value from instances of lacking such expressive value. They therefore backed *only* the second group, while leaving the first unaffected. But and , in spite of their etymology, underwent backing because speakers no longer perceived their as having expressive value. So: there was an unconditioned merger, but the merger was later reversed, because just one of the two original segments undergoing the merger possessed a distinctive phonological role in the language, allowing speakers to distinguish the merged segments in all but a couple of cases. That's the story. I like it. Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From mcv at wxs.nl Wed Apr 8 21:49:00 1998 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 17:49:00 EDT Subject: reversal of merger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Larry Trask wrote: >Michelena therefore draws the following conclusions. > >(1) The devoiced /j/ genuinely did merge completely with the inherited > in Gipuzkoan. > >(2) However, when the backing of was introduced, speakers were >readily able to distinguish instances of bearing expressive value >from instances of lacking such expressive value. They therefore >backed *only* the second group, while leaving the first unaffected. >But and , in spite of their etymology, underwent >backing because speakers no longer perceived their as having >expressive value. > >So: there was an unconditioned merger, but the merger was later >reversed, because just one of the two original segments undergoing the >merger possessed a distinctive phonological role in the language, >allowing speakers to distinguish the merged segments in all but a >couple of cases. > >That's the story. I like it. I like it too, but I like it slightly better reformulated as follows. What do you think? (1) The devoiced /j/ genuinely did merge completely with the inherited in Gipuzkoan. (2) When the backing of was introduced, *all* instances were affected in principle, but those instances of bearing expressive value were re-palatalized back to /S/. However, and , in spite of their etymology, did not undergo "re-palatalization" because speakers no longer perceived their as having expressive value. ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl Amsterdam From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Wed Apr 8 21:50:26 1998 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 17:50:26 EDT Subject: reversal of merger In-Reply-To: <352c7aee.1174135601@mail.wxs.nl> from "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" at Apr 8, 98 01:35:29 pm Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Miguel Carrasquer writes: [on the Basque case] > I like it too, but I like it slightly better reformulated as > follows. What do you think? > (1) The devoiced /j/ genuinely did merge completely with the > inherited in Gipuzkoan. > (2) When the backing of was introduced, *all* instances were > affected in principle, but those instances of bearing expressive > value were re-palatalized back to /S/. However, and > , in spite of their etymology, did not undergo > "re-palatalization" because speakers no longer perceived their > as having expressive value. Both scenarios are possible, and I know of no way of deciding between them, in the absence of any textual evidence. If we had some early Gipuzkoan texts in which were used in place of modern , that would probably settle things in favor of Miguel's scenario, but we have no such texts. Unfortunately, Gipuzkoan was one of the last dialects to be written; we have nothing before the 18th century and hardly anything before Larramendi, who published his main works between 1729 and 1745, and these works exhibit the modern state of affairs. This little dilemma is reminiscent of the familiar problem of "analogical maintenance" versus "analogical restoration", though our case is phonological, not morphological. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I prefer to invoke Occam's Razor, and go with Michelena: no change to inherited , rather than change followed by reversal of change. Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH UK larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From mcv at wxs.nl Wed Apr 8 21:50:51 1998 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 17:50:51 EDT Subject: reversal of merger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- "Larry Trask" wrote: >Miguel Carrasquer writes: > >[on the Basque case] > >> I like it too, but I like it slightly better reformulated as >> follows. What do you think? > >> (1) The devoiced /j/ genuinely did merge completely with the >> inherited in Gipuzkoan. > >> (2) When the backing of was introduced, *all* instances were >> affected in principle, but those instances of bearing expressive >> value were re-palatalized back to /S/. However, and >> , in spite of their etymology, did not undergo >> "re-palatalization" because speakers no longer perceived their >> as having expressive value. > >Both scenarios are possible, and I know of no way of deciding between >them, in the absence of any textual evidence. If we had some early >Gipuzkoan texts in which were used in place of modern , that >would probably settle things in favor of Miguel's scenario, but we >have no such texts. Actually, the way I meant it, there would be no way of deciding between the two at all on the, ahem, "surface" [underlying /x/ is immediately palatalized back to /S/]. That's why I referred to it as a "reformulation". Come to think of it, one way to decide would be if there are cases where (e.g. in a borrowed item) aquires affective palatalization to . I'm not aware of any. ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl Amsterdam From manaster at umich.edu Wed Apr 8 21:51:43 1998 From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 17:51:43 EDT Subject: reversal of merger In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- The claim that mergers can be reversed apparently started with Halle and became one of the main arguments by generative phonologists against phonemicists in the 1960's. I discussed this topic in my 1981 dissertation, which was intended as broadbrush argument that generative phonology was wrong on almost all points at issue a decade or two earlier. I think it is easy to show that all the classic examples were hopelessly wrong, and in fact most have been withdrawn. Kiparsky for example debunked Postal's example from Mohawk, Chomsky and Halle in SPE quietly take back what halle had said earlier about early modern English. I recently published in Linguistique africaine a careful analysis and rebuttal of a classic early example proposed by Paul Newman from Tera. Etc., etc. Of course, just as in syntax, today very few people seem to know or care what teh original motivation for the paradigms we take for granted was, and so it is an uphill battle. But one day truth will out--maybe. Alexis MR From DISTERH at UNIVSCVM.SC.EDU Wed Apr 8 22:54:50 1998 From: DISTERH at UNIVSCVM.SC.EDU (Dorothy Disterheft) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 18:54:50 EDT Subject: No subject Message-ID: Return-Path: Received: from UNIVSCVM (NJE origin SMTP at UNIVSCVM) by VM.SC.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 1770; Wed, 8 Apr 1998 18:23:52 -0400 Received: from sparkie.humnet.ucla.edu [128.97.154.176] by VM.SC.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R3a) via TCP with SMTP ; Wed, 08 Apr 1998 18:23:51 EDT Received: from [128.97.208.83] (remote3.humnet.ucla.edu [128.97.208.83]) by sparkie.humnet.ucla.edu (8.7.4/1.0) with SMTP id PAA25155 for ; Wed, 8 Apr 1998 15:26:28 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 15:26:28 -0700 (PDT) X-Sender: bwald at pop1.humnet.ucla.edu Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: DISTERH at vm.sc.edu From: bwald at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU (bwald) Subject: Re: Question on "anythink" Lyle Campbell sent a query about the "anythink" pronunciation in NZ. It is also observed in Australia. It gets discussed in an article written by me and Tim Shopen called "A Researcher's Guide to the Sociolinguistic Variable (ING)" 219-249 in T. Shopen & Joseph M. Williams, eds. Style and Variables in English. Cambridge, Mass: Winthrop Publishers, Inc., 1981. The evidence discussed there suggests an origin in London, not in the West Midlands, as Larry Trasks suggests (very tentatively). Wyld makes the observation for London in the 1920s, in a statement similar to the anonymous much earlier one Lyle refers to. I have personally not heard the pronunciation in London (even Cockney East London), and suspect it may be as extinct there as the beta pronunciation of "w" which gave rise to "w"/"v" interchanges in literary representations of London "Cockney" English in the early 19th c (e.g., by Dickens) (cf. for the merger/unmerger typology that Larry Trask was also interested in, i.e., w vs. v > 19th c "literary" Cockney w/v > 20th c w vs. v in the exact same words as earlier). It turned out that in Canberra, Australia the pronunciation of "-ink" was quite rare, relative to either the variants -ing (velar nasal) or -in' (representing the apical unstressed syllabic nasal). However, it seems to be quite common, and, I assume, becoming more common in parts of NZ. It was very noticeable in the speech of working class urban Maori English speakers in a fairly recent film from New Zealand. (My conjecture is that this is not due to anything in Maori but motivated by the same social mechanism which promoted the Portuguese on Martha's Vineyard to further the sound change discussed as originating with the Anglo group in Labov's study of that change, i.e., raising the nuclei of /aw/ and /ay/ to a mid central position). Larry's suggestion was reasonable to the extent that he noted that he would not expect such devoicings to occur in monosyllabic words. That is because they are stressed, and the -ink variant occurs like -ing and -in' only in final unstressed syllables. However, the general phonological systems of Australia and New Zealand, and esp the vowel systems, are much more clearly based on Southern British, and not Midlands or the North, than the earlier established North American dialects of English. Incidentally, urban South African English departs radically from other "Southern Hemisphere" dialects of English by not having even an -in' variant of -ing (even among the working class), although it does share with Austr/NZ the vowel shift involving the short vowels /i/ (as in bit) and /e/ (as in bet). In general, and most specifics West Midlands speech is too different from either Southern British or Australia/NZ to be a credible source for the "-ink" change. My guess is that the -ink variant was nascent in London and perhaps allied Southern dialects of English in the late 18th to early 20th c, but aborted (or remains dormant) in Southern England, and perhaps remains somwhat rare in Australia (apart from "somethink", "nothink" and "anythink"), but has taken off in urban NZ for sociolinguistic reasons, and come to the point where it is very prominent and noticeable, a relatively advanced stage of development for a sound change. A question back to Lyle is whether or not this pronunciation has become so common and salient that it is subject to overt comment among NZ speakers (i.e., non-linguists). -- Benji From Cindy.Allen at anu.edu.au Wed Apr 8 23:55:09 1998 From: Cindy.Allen at anu.edu.au (Cynthia Allen) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 19:55:09 EDT Subject: anythink In-Reply-To: <352BB1AA.3E89@mbm1.scu.edu.tw> Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- In an article in the Australian Journal of Linguistics ('Your're gettin' somethink for nothink', issue 2.2:197-212, 1982), Anna Schnukal reported that four words-anything, everything, nothing, and something-in Cessnock New South Wales. So this pronunciation is certainly found, at least in these four words, in places in Australia. Cynthia Allen Linguistics, Arts Faculty Australian National University Canberra, ACT 0200 Australia From mcv at wxs.nl Thu Apr 9 18:15:49 1998 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 14:15:49 EDT Subject: Dolgopolsky's new book In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- manaster at umich.edu wrote: >The PIE *kat 'wattlework' which Larry says Dolgopolsky has is clearly the >same etymon as Illich-Svitych posited in the form *ket, and >I do not understand how the vowel could be given as PIE *-a-. This >is in fact supposed to be one of the many cases where Nostratic >*a gives PIE *e (alternating with *o). However, this is a PIE >etymon which is not traditional with IEnists, and was put >together this way by Illich-Svitych himself, I believe. This >does not mean that it is wrong, of course, and IS makes it >clear that this is a new proposal. He does refer to Pokorny pp. 586-587 *ke(:)t- *kot- "Wohnraum (urspruengl. ,Erdloch als Wohngrube'?)", which coincides with I-S's etymology in the Iranian (kata-, kad), Gothic (he:thjo:) and Latin (cati:nus, [catillus > kettle]) forms. OCS kotIcI "cella, Nest" provides the link with the Slavic forms listed by Illich-Svitych, which Pokorny lists under 1. *kat- "flechtend zusammendrehen etc." (the OCS form under both etymologies [!]). This entry *kat- contains some additional *a forms not included by Illich-Svitych (except the already mentioned Lat. cati:nus, "s nejasnym a"): Lat. cate:na, cassis, casa and ?caterva; Welsh cader, OIr. cathir "city". Semantically there is no reason to exclude these (Latin cate:na and casa resume the two main semantic developments that Illich-Svitych posits for the Nostratic root), but the *a is indeed problematic. The problem is of course internal to IE, but its resolution determines which forms are comparable to the posited PN *k.ad-. One might think of a laryngeal (*keh1t-/*kh1t-) for the Gothic and Latin/Celtic forms, and exclude them from the Nostratic comparison. Or of a Pre-PIE *a that somehow did not shift to either *e or *o [comparable to the *k's that are neither palatal *k^ nor labiovelar *kw]. Or one might consider if there's a relation with words such as "hut" (*(s)keu-d-) and "cot" (*geu-d-), and think of a Pre-PIE alternation *a/*aw [Lat. canis ~ PIE *kw[o]n-, Germ. *hauf-uth ~ PIE *kap-ut-] which would exclude those forms that are to be derived from Pokorny's ,Erdloch als Wohngrube' (*k[a]wt ~ *kat- ??) as opposed to the wattle-related words (*ket- ~ *kot-). ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl Amsterdam From manaster at umich.edu Fri Apr 10 11:33:49 1998 From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 07:33:49 EDT Subject: Dolgopolsky's new book In-Reply-To: <3533f740.95076022@mail.wxs.nl> Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- What I meant is that Illich put things together in a different way than earlier IEnist had done, and I believe he may have been right. As for Latin -a-, this is known to occur in many many forms where no other IE lg has it (recent work by the Leiden school esp. has tried to explain the Latin -a- problem), and I dont think anyone would posit a laryngeal or a PIE *-a- just on the basis of the Latin, much as no one would do it for any of the other Latin a's. On Thu, 9 Apr 1998, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote: > > He does refer to Pokorny pp. 586-587 *ke(:)t- *kot- "Wohnraum > (urspruengl. ,Erdloch als Wohngrube'?)", which coincides with I-S's > etymology in the Iranian (kata-, kad), Gothic (he:thjo:) and Latin > (cati:nus, [catillus > kettle]) forms. OCS kotIcI "cella, Nest" > provides the link with the Slavic forms listed by Illich-Svitych, > which Pokorny lists under 1. *kat- "flechtend zusammendrehen etc." > (the OCS form under both etymologies [!]). This entry *kat- contains > some additional *a forms not included by Illich-Svitych (except the > already mentioned Lat. cati:nus, "s nejasnym a"): Lat. cate:na, > cassis, casa and ?caterva; Welsh cader, OIr. cathir "city". > Semantically there is no reason to exclude these (Latin cate:na and > casa resume the two main semantic developments that Illich-Svitych > posits for the Nostratic root), but the *a is indeed problematic. > > The problem is of course internal to IE, but its resolution determines > which forms are comparable to the posited PN *k.ad-. One might think > of a laryngeal (*keh1t-/*kh1t-) for the Gothic and Latin/Celtic forms, > and exclude them from the Nostratic comparison. Or of a Pre-PIE *a > that somehow did not shift to either *e or *o [comparable to the *k's > that are neither palatal *k^ nor labiovelar *kw]. Or one might > consider if there's a relation with words such as "hut" (*(s)keu-d-) > and "cot" (*geu-d-), and think of a Pre-PIE alternation *a/*aw [Lat. > canis ~ PIE *kw[o]n-, Germ. *hauf-uth ~ PIE *kap-ut-] which would > exclude those forms that are to be derived from Pokorny's ,Erdloch als > Wohngrube' (*k[a]wt ~ *kat- ??) as opposed to the wattle-related words > (*ket- ~ *kot-). > > > ======================= > Miguel Carrasquer Vidal > mcv at wxs.nl > Amsterdam > From l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz Sat Apr 11 17:47:57 1998 From: l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz (Lyle Campbell) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 13:47:57 EDT Subject: Areal Linguistics & Chinese Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I'm writing to ask if for help for a student of mine with thesis research she wants to undertake. She is Sanja Brankof, an exceptional student (native speaker of Serbian and Hungarian, nearly native English, excellent Russian [her home language with her husband], and excellent Chinese -- she taught English and Linguistics in China (PR) for seven years, has a degree in Chinese linguistics and another in regular linguistics). She wants to explore possible areal linguistic traits involving Chinese and its neighbors (especially northern ones). Since our library is so limited, I'd like to ask for help with the following. (1) Do you think the project is viable? (Discovering areal traits, defining the linguistic area and the nature of the diffusion in it). Do you have any advice for what to do, not do? (2) Do you know of relevant bibliography which addresses diffusion among Chinese and any of its neighbors, especially northern ones? (3) What general advice do you have for Sanja concerning where she may find useful information on the structure of the languages for which we have less material available here: Manchu, Tungusic, Gilyak (Nivkh), Mongolian (Buriat, etc.), Turkic (especially Uighur, Kazakh, Kirgiz, Uzbek, Tatar, others in contact with Chinese), Bao(an), and other relevant ones. (We have pretty good materials on Japanese, Korean, and Ainu, but anything especially relevant here, too, would be valuable to hear about.) (4) If you has written any papers yourself that might be relevant, could you send a copy? With many thanks in advance and with best wishes, Lyle Dr. Lyle Campbell (Professor) Dept. of Linguistics University of Canterbury Private Bag 4800 Christchurch, New Zealand Fax: 64-3-364-2969 Phone: 64-3-364-2242 From delancey at darkwing.uoregon.edu Mon Apr 13 20:36:44 1998 From: delancey at darkwing.uoregon.edu (Scott DeLancey) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 16:36:44 EDT Subject: Areal Linguistics & Chinese In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Chinese can be considered part of the mainland Southeast Asian linguistic area, and shares a tremendous number of areal traits with Tai (Kadai), Hmong-Mien, and Mon-Khmer. Looking at that would be a pretty easy project, though tricky without the right library resources. Looking at the languages to the north is another problem altogether. I'm not aware of any reason at all to think that there has been any significant influence of Altaic languages on Chinese as a whole, and that seems like a pretty hopeless topic. Mantaro Hashimoto used to argue that some of the differences between Mandarin and the other Chinese languages--reduced tone inventory, atonal unstressed syllables, greater degree of agglutination, etc.--represented Altaic influence, and there might possibly be a thesis topic there. I don't know of any literature on the topic, though, except a few papers by Hashimoto; those I'm aware of appeared in pretty obscure places (like the occasional paper series _Computational Analyses of Asian & African Languages_ from the Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa in Tokyo; he also gave some papers on this at the annual Sino-Tibetan Conference which may or may not have ever been published). Mantaro passed away a few years ago, so I'm not sure how one could go about trying to track down any of this work. Scott DeLancey Department of Linguistics University of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403, USA delancey at darkwing.uoregon.edu http://www.uoregon.edu/~delancey/prohp.html On Sat, 11 Apr 1998, Lyle Campbell wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > I'm writing to ask if for help for a student of mine with thesis > research she wants to undertake. She is Sanja Brankof, an exceptional > student (native speaker of Serbian and Hungarian, nearly native English, > excellent Russian [her home language with her husband], and excellent > Chinese -- she taught English and Linguistics in China (PR) for seven > years, has a degree in Chinese linguistics and another in regular > linguistics). She wants to explore possible areal linguistic traits > involving Chinese and its neighbors (especially northern ones). Since our > library is so limited, I'd like to ask for help with the following. > (1) Do you think the project is viable? (Discovering areal traits, > defining the linguistic area and the nature of the diffusion in it). Do > you have any advice for what to do, not do? > (2) Do you know of relevant bibliography which addresses diffusion among > Chinese and any of its neighbors, especially northern ones? > (3) What general advice do you have for Sanja concerning where she may find > useful information on the structure of the languages for which we have less > material available here: Manchu, Tungusic, Gilyak (Nivkh), Mongolian > (Buriat, etc.), Turkic (especially Uighur, Kazakh, Kirgiz, Uzbek, Tatar, > others in contact with Chinese), Bao(an), and other relevant ones. (We > have pretty good materials on Japanese, Korean, and Ainu, but anything > especially relevant here, too, would be valuable to hear about.) > (4) If you has written any papers yourself that might be relevant, could > you send a copy? > With many thanks in advance and with best wishes, Lyle > > > > Dr. Lyle Campbell (Professor) > Dept. of Linguistics > University of Canterbury > Private Bag 4800 > Christchurch, New Zealand > Fax: 64-3-364-2969 > Phone: 64-3-364-2242 > From maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk Tue Apr 14 14:50:29 1998 From: maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Max Wheeler) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 10:50:29 EDT Subject: anythink Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Benji Wald writes: > My guess is that the -ink variant was nascent in London and perhaps allied > Southern dialects of English in the late 18th to early 20th c, but aborted > (or remains dormant) in Southern England, and perhaps remains somwhat rare > in Australia (apart from "somethink", "nothink" and "anythink"), but has > taken off in urban NZ for sociolinguistic reasons, and come to the point > where it is very prominent and noticeable, a relatively advanced stage of > development for a sound change. A question back to Lyle is whether or not > this pronunciation has become so common and salient that it is subject to > overt comment among NZ speakers (i.e., non-linguists). -- Benji Let it not be said that this pronunciation is dormant or aborted in SE England. Where I grew up (Pinner, Middlesex, 1950s), it was very much part of the casual style of schoolchildren, perhaps LMC given the social characteristics of the neighbourhood. I would say it was common even among those who did not display the -/f/ merger, and a fortiori among those who did. But my perception is that it is stereotypical of London-influenced pronunciations in SE England up to the present. I wonder if it may be less common among adults than among children or teenagers? Max Wheeler ___________________________________________________________________________ Max W. Wheeler School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QH, UK Tel: +44 (0)1273 678975; fax: +44 (0)1273 671320 ___________________________________________________________________________ From w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.d400.de Tue Apr 14 22:08:42 1998 From: w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.d400.de (Wolfgang Behr) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 18:08:42 EDT Subject: Areal Linguistics & Chinese Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear Lyle & Sanja, just for the record --- some of the papers by Hashimoto Mantaroo arguing for what became known as the "altaicization hypothesis" are: "Language diffusion on the Asian continent", _Computational Analyses of Asian and African Languages_ 3 (1976), pp.49-65 "The agrarian and the pastoral diffusion of languages", in: M.J. Hasihmoto ed., _Genetic Relationship, Diffusion and Typological Similarities of East- and Southeast-Asian Languages. (Papers for the 1st Japan-U.S. Joint Seminar on East and Souht- east Asian Linguistics)_, Tookyoo [:Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa] 1976, pp. 1-14 "The double object construction in Chinese", _Computational Analyses of Asian and African Languages_ 6 (1976), pp. 33-42 "The double-object construction in Chinese", _Monumenta Serica_ 33 (1977-78), pp. 268-285 "Origin of the East Asian linguistc structure. Latitudinal transitions and longitudinal developments in East and South- east Asian languages", _Computational Analyses of Asian and African Languages_ 22 (1984), pp.35-41 For a (rather harsh) critique cf. also Peter Bennett "A critique of the altaicization hypothesis", _Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale_ 3 (1979) pp. 91-104 On balance, Scott DeLancey's total denial of "northern" influences on Chinese might be a little bit overstated. Phonological influence of Altaic languages on adjacent Chinese dialects in Qinghai, Ningxia, Gansu, Xinjiang, Shaanxi etc. has been documented in a number of cases, the same applies to syntactical phenomena like gei3-insertion in double-object and passive constructions, classifier-inventory re- duction etc. As Hashimoto's hypothesis enjoyed most popularity in the PRC during the 80es, I would suggest that you browse through the relevant articles in _Fangyan_ and the local university journals (_Ningxia Shehuikexue_, _Qinghai Minzuxueyuan Xuebao_, _Gansu Shifan- xuexuan Xuebao_, _Xinjiang Daxue Xuebao_ etc.) occasionally dealing with Altaic languages (I'm sure they won't be available in Christchurch, though.) Then, there is also Jerry Norman's much quoted article "Four notes on Chinese-Altaic Linguistic Contacts", _Tsinghua Journla of Chinese Studies_ (1982), 14 (1-2), 243-48, which has just recently come under heavy (but, to my mind, rather unconvincing), criticism by Zhang Hongming "Chinese etyma for river", _Journal of Chinese Linguistics_ 26 (1998) 1, pp. 1-46 Apart from lexical influences of Tungusic and Turkic languages on northern Chinese (described in various articles in Zhongguo Yuwen, in the Beijing dialect dictionaries of Chen2 Gang1 or Gao1 Ai4jun1, in dictionaries of Yuan drama colloquialisms "su2yu3" etc. ), there is, as far as I am aware of, little to no serious work on areal lingui- stic traits involving these languages, let alone Gilyak or Ainu. Given the fact, that at least _one_ author (i.e. Sergej A. Starostin) claims, that Yeniseiyan and Old Chinese are genetically related ("Praenisejskaja rekonstrukcija i severokavkazskimi jazykami", in: _Ketskij Sbornik_, L.: Nauka 1982, pp. 144-237; "Gipoteza o genetic^eskix svazjax sino- tibetskix jazykov s enisejskimi i severnokavkazskimi jazykami", in: _Lingvistic^eskaja rekonstrukcija i drevnejs^aja istorija vostoka_ 4, M., pp. 19-38), you might wish to have a closer look at the typology of these languages (making good use of the recent publications by Hein- rich werner on Ketic matters). I am sure there are many more Soviet and Russian studies on Altaic-Chinese linguistic contacts, but I don't have the _Bibliograifija kit. jazykonanii_ here at hand. Finally, an absolute MUST as background reading on the whole geogra- phical, historical, ethnological _and_ linguistic setting of the question you're adressing, is Juha Janhunen's superb _Manchuria -- an Ethnic History (Me'moires de la Socie'te' Finno-Ougrienne; 222)_, Helsinki 1996 (esp. chap. VI) Cheers, Wolfgang ps: so, yes to (1), the project is viable, although it involves the almost superhuman task of studying dozens of languages which are not taught in NZ and, more often than not, rather poorly documented. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wolfgang Behr Kaiser Sigmund-Str. 3, 60320 Frankfurt, F.R.G. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From bwald at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU Thu Apr 16 11:56:26 1998 From: bwald at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU (bwald) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 07:56:26 EDT Subject: anythink Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I accept Max Wheeler's observations on "anythink". From what can be gathered so far it reflects a variant pronunciation of final unstressed -ing [velar nasal] in parts of England, esp the Southeast and parts of the Midlands, Australia, and perhaps most notably New Zealand. In most areas it seems to be a low intensity variant originating perhaps in Southeastern England in the late 18th century. It does not seem to occur at all in North America (if we discount ZsaZsa Gabor's famous "darlink" and such things coming from languages that do not have a velar nasal but devoice word-final obstruents), or in South Africa. Its sociolinguistic status seems to vary greatly in areas where it appears, from unobstrusive to stereotyped. Stereotype is suggested by Schaufele's earlier message implying that it occurs in cartoons (the old Andy Capp? -- before they stopped using stereotypes for Andy's Cockney speech -- I don't remember it there, only consistent -in' for -ing, now withdrawn presumably as "classist"). I would expect it to have reached stereotyped status in New Zealand, whether or not it appears in cartoons. In low intensity areas, it may be receding or it may be waiting for sociolinguistic conditions to change in order to become more prominent. Time will tell. Questions remains about its origin and historical trajectory in any particular area. Although Max suggested that /th/ (theta) > f implies -ink, I did not hear (or record) it in Cockney East London, among consistent th > f speakers, though it may because it is or has become so low intensity, and may have formerly been more common there. (Wheeler's suggestion of an implication between "f" and "-ink" may rest on a stereotyped "nuffink" varying with "nuffin", though "noTHink" is clearly the reflex in some areas.) Possibly a recesssion in the London area fits in with its non-occurrence in South Africa, against its occurrence in Australia and NZ, since all of these Southern Hemisphere varieties are unquestionably Southern British based, but South African English was more recently formed, and even -in' is uncommon there, in contrast with most of the English-speaking world (apart from the so-called "new Englishes", which raise other issues about -ing/-in'). (NB this is not to suggest that -in' is newer than -ing, far from it since some scholars have suggested -in' owes its origin to the OE -end participial suffix, but that South African English reflects some narrowing of variation in source dialects of English, esp with regard to -ing/in' variation -- whether in the source or in South Africa remains hard to determine -- SA has, of course, evolved regional and social variants of its own.) With regard to NZ, -ink's prominence among urban Maoris suggested to me that they may be responsible for further developing it there, but I do not know enough about NZ speech to be sure it is less frequent among Anglo than Maori speakers, if social class can be controlled. It certainly did not strike me among the non-Maori NZ speakers I have heard, though I would suppose that some of them sometimes use it (and maybe working class Euro-NZers also show it prominently, Anglo or not). As for ultimate origins, it is also not clear whether it began as rural or urban in Britain, since dialect sampling by Wright and even later focuses on rural speakers, while these observations are no earlier than those reporting it in London. If it came to London from the countryside, say, in the late 18th c it may have already had some unconscious sociolinguistic import, though the precise value of that import would most likely change in an urban context, as it no doubt has in New Zealand. Finally, it remains unclear whether the emergence of the -ink variant was phonologically related to any other sound changes in any area, and whether it was or is currently lexically restricted to the pronominal-like "-thing" words, i.e., any-/no-/some-thing, so that noone (or in some -ink areas noone) would say "they're still eatink" or "it's stuck on the ceilink" or "what a darlink!" etc. According to Shopen's observations in Canberra, Australia it was largely restricted to those 3 words, and therefore could not be seen as part of the major "ing / in' " variation, but only as a bleeder of it for the 3 words in question. Shopen actually reported 16 examples of -ink amidst 1660 examples of that variant, -ing, and -in', and those 3 words account for 14 of the examples. The others were goink and hopink, one example each. Thus, total occurrence of -ink is not impressive in Canberra, but its lexical bias to the -thing words is. For those unfamiliar with close observation of spoken language, it is not unusual to find some strange "nonce"-like pronunciation of any sound with a frequency of 1/1000. It is meaningless for sound change, though some may anticipate a sound change which will some day happen, or which has been attested elsewhere. So, for example, some American speaker may produce an -ink pronunciation of -ing with a frequency of 1/1000 chances, but that does not tell us anything about the chances for an -ing > -ink sound change in any American English dialect. -ink is worth further investigation, but except for a few areas where it seems to be lively I don't see much payoff for major research, other than to demonstrate that relatively low intensity sound changes (those much less frequent than more conservative, e.g., -ing, or competing variants, e.g., -in') may survive without changing status for a considerable period of time, and that not all such sound changes survive to make it into the Neogrammarian big-time. -Benji From m.macmahon at englang.arts.gla.ac.uk Thu Apr 16 22:21:36 1998 From: m.macmahon at englang.arts.gla.ac.uk (Mike MacMahon) Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 18:21:36 EDT Subject: New Zealand 'anythink' Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I don't think there's been any comment so far on a 19th-century description of the use of the 'anythin' and 'anythink' pronunciations in Australia and NZ. Buried deep inside Ellis's 'On Early English Pronunciation' (Vol V, 1889), are some remarks on Australasian speech, to complement what he has to say about Cockney. Pages 236-248 are worth looking at. His information came from Samuel McBurney, a native Scot, who had worked in Australia and who appears to have been a good phonetician; McBurney carried out an 11-month study of Australasian pronunciation between January and November 1887. The results (or at least a resume of them) were subsequently transmitted to Ellis. The word 'anything' is specifically mentioned -- see Ellis page 247, right-hand column. It seems that the 'anythink' pronunciation (Ellis notates it with '-thiqk') was only found in three of the seven localities in Australia that were surveyed (see the table on page 244), although schoolteachers had also reported alternating pronunciations between '-iqk' and '-in' forms in Brisbane. The New Zealand examples (see page 245) indicate that the '-iqk' pronunciation was used by less than 25% of the people surveyed -- mainly schoolchildren, it seems -- in Wellington, Napier, Nelson, Christchurch and Dunedin. Mike Prof M K C MacMahon Dept of English Language University of Glasgow Glasgow G12 8QQ Scotland/UK Phone: +44 (0)141 330 4596 Fax: +44 (0)141 330 3531 http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/EngLang From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Mon Apr 20 19:40:23 1998 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 15:40:23 EDT Subject: Sum: reversal of merger Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Several weeks ago I posted a query about published analyses of apparent cases of reversal of merger. That query elicited a modest but interesting set of replies, but only one or two additions to my provisional list. For some reason, the replies spilled over onto the LINGUIST list. Perhaps a little clarification is in order. I am not attempting to attack or defend any position here. In particular, I am not trying to argue for or against the reality of reversal of merger, I am not maintaining that any particular development in any language either did or did not involve either a merger or a reversal of merger, and I am not arguing for or against the correctness of any published analysis. My goal is much more modest: I am merely trying to compile a list of all the different ways of accounting for apparent cases of reversal of merger that have been published, regardless of whether these analyses agree that any reversal of merger ever occurred. All this is merely for the purpose of writing an entry in a reference book I am preparing. Alice Faber has kindly sent me two of her papers on the subject, but these only arrived this morning, and I haven't had a chance to read them yet. Ernst Haakon Jahr drew my attention to his article `Language planning and language change', in which he concludes that a well-advanced merger in Icelandic was reversed by the semi-official action of influential individuals who took exception to it. My thanks to Miguel Carrasquer Vidal, Alice Faber, Matthew Gordon, Henry Hoenigswald, Ernst Haakon Jahr, Alexis Manaster-Ramer, Sam Martin, Roger Wright, and one other person whose reply I inadvertently deleted in a burst of over-zealous housecleaning -- sorry. Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH England larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From mcv at wxs.nl Tue Apr 21 14:48:37 1998 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 10:48:37 EDT Subject: "Pan-Americanisms" Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I was recently unable to resist the temptation to buy Lyle Campbell's "American Indian Languages. The Historical Linguistics of Native America" (Oxford University Press, 1997), despite the fact that my budget strictly speaking did not allow for it. I do not regret it. The book contains very thorough and extensive information on the history of American Indian linguistics, on the classification of the languages of North, Middle and South America, on pidgins and trade languages, linguistic areas, etc., complete with maps and indices. The polemic part are obviously chapters 7 & 8 ("Distant Genetic Relationships: The Methods" and "Distant Genetic Relationships: The Proposals"). Chapter 7 is an first rate resume of the general issues in dealing with proposals of genetic relationship: lexical versus morphological comparisons, sound correspondences, borrowings, chance resemblances, non-resemblances, semantic shifts, nursery/expressive words, errors of method and errors in the data, etc. Two of the points discussed, however, can be said to be specific to the field of Americanistic historical linguistics: the so-called "pronoun argument" (focusing on Greenberg's n- "I", m- "you") and the "so-called Pan-Americanisms". It is this latter concept that I have some specific questions (doubts) about, which I would like to put before the author and the other list-members. The methodological discussion of these "pan-Americanisms" (pp. 257-259) clears away some of the misunderstandings that the term might suggest. It was apparently introduced in Campbell and Kaufman 1980 ("On Mesoamerican linguistics", AA 82), referring to: ""widespread forms (so-called pan-Americanisms)" [..] which are not (necessarily) genetically related forms but may be due to such factors as onomatopoeia, sound symbolism, borrowing, nursery formations, universals, and accident". In the same article, Campbell and Kaufman recommend eliminating "pan-Americanisms" from proposals to link specific groups of American Indian languages together. One cannot use one of these wide-spread forms to prove that language A is to be grouped with language B, if the same form also occurs in languages X, Y and Z (historical case in point: Sapir used n- "I" , m- you" to support his Algonquian-Ritwan proposal, but since these pronouns are wide-spread outside Algonquian and Ritwan, Michelson's criticism was justified.). In sum: "Two points about so-called pan-Americanisms should be emphasized. First, these widespread forms are not necessarily traceable to inheritance from a common ancestor; second, these widespread forms are not valid indicators of narrower proposed genetic groupings if the forms are prevalent in languages not included in the comparison." Still, something fishy remains about these forms [why not simply classify them as onomatopoeic, borrowed, etc., and how can "universals" be restricted to the Americas in order to produce "pan-Americanisms"?], and indeed Campbell continues: "Finally, the possibility must be entertained that some of these widespread forms may actually reflect wider historical connections than are recognized at present". I agree with the three points. However, as we move into chapter 8, discussing specific proposals about distant genetic relationships, I get the feeling that there is a logical flaw in "pan-Americanism" as grounds for dismissal of specific forms. Let's take an example at random, Mary Haas' Yana-Karuk (Hokan) comparisons. Campbell says: ".. of the 92 look-alikes compared, 13 are onomatopoeic [..], 26 are short forms [..], 10 reflect semantic latitude [..], 23 are widespread or pan-American forms, 15 have little phonetic similarity; [2] are suggestive of diffusion [..]; and [1] is a nursery form". Unfortunately, the total number of rejects is 90, so I cannot work out if the categories are meant to be mutually exclusive or that they overlap. I should say that I haven't seen Haas' data (and that I wouldn't be able to recognize the "pan-Americanisms" even if I had). But here we have a group of 23 sound-alikes being `dismissed' as "pan- Americanisms" (apparently not of the kind that is transparently attributable to onomatopoeia or borrowing). Certainly, the "pan-Americanism" argument, as explained above, can be used against each and every one of these 23 forms individually, but can it be used against the 23 as a whole? That is my worry. English "two" and German "zwei" cannot individually be used as an argument for a close relationship between these two languages, because we are clearly dealing with "pan-Indo-Europeanisms". But what about a block of 23 "pan-Indo-Europeanisms" found as a group in Germanic and Germanic only? ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl Amsterdam From bwald at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU Wed Apr 22 12:27:08 1998 From: bwald at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU (bwald) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 08:27:08 EDT Subject: "Pan-Americanisms" Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I cannot comment definitively on Miguel Carrasquer Vidal's question about Lyle Campbell's >"American Indian Languages. The Historical Linguistics of Native >America" (Oxford University Press, 1997), since I have not even seen, much >less read that book. Therefore, I don't know how coherently its entire >argument hangs together. However, I thought there was an interesting problem in logic involved, and as far as Miguel's discussion went, I thought his question was worth asking and thinking about. He ends up by asking: >... Certainly, the >"pan-Americanism" argument, as explained above, can be used against >each and every one of these 23 forms individually, but can it be used >against the 23 as a whole? That is my worry. English "two" and >German "zwei" cannot individually be used as an argument for a close >relationship between these two languages, because we are clearly >dealing with "pan-Indo-Europeanisms". But what about a block of 23 >"pan-Indo-Europeanisms" found as a group in Germanic and Germanic >only? This is in regard to a *set* of 23 Yana-Karuk (Hokan) comparisons by Mary Haas, which Miguel reports Campbell as rejecting as evidence of a *special* relationship between Yana and Karuk, on the basis that the forms (whatever they are) are widespread enough among Amerind languages outside of these groups to be set aside as "Pan-Americanisms", and therefore not evidence of any more of a special relationship between Yana and Karuk than of either of these two and any other Amerind groups. As best as I can understand, Miguel is supposing a situation in which these 23 Pan-Americanisms are scattered amongst numerous Amerind groups, so that, say, only Yana and Karuk share the SAME 23, even though other far-flung Amerind groups show that each of them is more widespread, and *if* all relevant Amerind languages were indeed genetically related, then only Yana and Karuk preserve these particular 23 *as a set* ... whereas another group A maybe preserves 12 of them, and another group B 15 of them (maybe overlapping with A for 6 of them, or whatever). I think this is what Miguel means, but his parallels in Germanic are not well chosen. The "two"/"zwei" set for a *special* German/English relationship (i.e., Germanic) is indeed found just about everywhere in Indo-European. He wants something like German and English have 23 examples attributable to Indo-European, but, say, only 4 of them are found in Tokharian, only 7 are found in Greek, and only 12 in Albanian, and so on for various permutations and combinations, until we are sure that all 23 are "Proto-IE". The general problem then seems to be the likelihood of a relatively large number of conservative (NOT innovative) forms remaining in two languages (or groups) WITHOUT those groups having a special historical relationship to each other. The alternative to "special relation" (i.e., innovation, which is precluded by the problem) is that it is just an accident that such a set remains in those languages/groups, but not in any other (related) languages/groups. In principle (or in the *absence* of further principles of word loss), it does not seem UNlikely to me that such a thing might happen. That is, it could happen accidentally. For example, let's take 4 language groups, A, B, C and D related to each other though descent from Proto-Z, along with F through X. So at the Proto-Z stage there is a single lexicon. Then C and D innovate for 23 words (over time or what-have-you). A and B don't. So A and B now share 23 Proto-Z words by virtue of not being in the "loop" of C and D. But F-X also contain those 23 words so nothing special about A and B. But over more time F-X do their own thing, and lose some of those words, F loses 3 of them, G 4 of them, etc. F-X just preserve enough of them (a few each) to insure that we can recognize the set of 23 in A and B as Proto-Z, i.e., "pan-Zisms". Of course, A and B are also losing (or replacing) pan-Zisms too, but other ones, not these 23. In the eventual outcome I would expect A and B to not only share 23 pan-Zisms, but also for A and C, but not B, to share a comparable number of pan-Zisms, and so on. There should not be a unique special relation between A and B if what they share is accidental; there should also be a comparable "special relation" between A and some other group to the exclusion of B, and so on. Thus, there is no unambiguous special relationship between A and B, because if there were, there would also be a special relationship between A and C to the exclusion of B. A tree model cannot allow that, and Miguel seems to be assuming a tree model. I assume, but may be wrong, that Campbell is criticising such a tree model for Yana-Karuk relationship (on the basis of such evidence). If so, he should be able to complete his argument by showing that Yana but not Karuk (or vice-versa) shares another large number of pan-Americanisms with another Amerind group. Maybe he can't do it for Amerind because there are not enough pan-Americanisms identified at this point. Then can he do it for three branches of Indo-European? I would suppose so. I would find it very interesting if it turns out it cannot be done, and would wonder why. After all, English has lost IE words that have remained in German, and no doubt the other way around too. What is there to prevent such things from happening? From DISTERH at UNIVSCVM.SC.EDU Wed Apr 22 12:34:43 1998 From: DISTERH at UNIVSCVM.SC.EDU (Dorothy Disterheft) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 08:34:43 EDT Subject: HISTLING index Message-ID: Dear colleagues in HISTLING, This morning I've received two inqueries about how one goes about retrieving past postings on HISTLING. Rather than replying to them only, I think that I should post a copy of the instructions new subscribers receive. Below is a list of the various options one can use. In regards to obtaining back postings, use the INDEX HISTLING and following commands which are described below. -Dorothy Disterheft Command Parameters/Options Explanation SUBSCRIBE HISTLING firstname lastname to subscribe to HISTLING SIGNOFF HISTLING to remove yourself from HISTLING SET HISTLING options where your subscription options are: ACK/NOACK/MSGack -Acknowledgements for postings; ACK is the default CONCEAL/NOCONCEAL -Conceals your membership from people sending the REVIEW command (see below); NOCONCEAL is the default Mail/NOMail -Toggle receipt of mail; Mail is the default REPro/NOREPro -Turn on/off receipt of copies of messages you send to HISTLING (REPRO is the default for HISTLING) REVIEW HISTLING by name Get a list of subscribers arranged alphabetically SCAN HISTLING X Scan a HISTLING's membership for a name or address ("X") INDEX HISTLING Get a list of HISTLING archives GET HISTLING LOGXXXXXXX Get a specific week's postings from the HISTLING archives; XXXXXXX refers to the log codes listed on the index of postings (see immediately above) SEARCH X HISTLING Search HISTLING for specific topics, where X is the keyword (keywords) of your search HOW TO USE THESE COMMANDS: To send a command to HISTLING, don't include a Subject: line; just type the command as the message. For example, to subscribe to HISTLING, send the command (as an e-mail message) to HISTLING at VM.SC.EDU: SUBSCRIBE HISTLING firstname lastname where you insert your own name. REMEMBER: You send LISTSERV commands to: LISTSERV at VM.SC.EDU You send messages which are contributions to the mailing list to: HISTLING at VM.SC.EDU If you have any trouble using these commands, contact Dorothy Disterheft at disterh at vm.sc.edu, who will be happy to help you or do it for you. From Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk Wed Apr 22 15:43:15 1998 From: Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk (Roger Wright) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:43:15 EDT Subject: "Pan-Americanisms" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- At the Historical Linguistics conference in Stanford in 1979, Lyle Campbell was assuring us that "universals" could be over-ridden by areal pressure, thereby producing a phenomenon that seems self-contradictory, a "near-universal". His examples were specifically from Central America. ("Explaining Universals and Their Exceptions", Papers from the 4th ICHL [Benjamins, 1980], 17-26). If we accept this possibility, then areal pressure is given extraordinary power, and hardly anything can be deduced for sure about any relationship in the past ..... I wonder, Lyle, if you're out there, whether you would still agree with what you said then. I was startled when I heard it. > >The general problem then seems to be the likelihood of a relatively large >number of conservative (NOT innovative) forms remaining in two languages >(or groups) WITHOUT those groups having a special historical relationship >to each other. The alternative to "special relation" (i.e., innovation, >which is precluded by the problem) is that it is just an accident that such >a set remains in those languages/groups, but not in any other (related) >languages/groups. From l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz Thu Apr 23 15:38:49 1998 From: l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz (Lyle Campbell) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 11:38:49 EDT Subject: near universals (and pan-Americanisms) Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Let me attempt to offer some thoughts in reply to the question Roger Wright addressed to me in connection with Miguel Carrasquer's question about the so-called "pan-Americanisms". Roger wrote: At the Historical Linguistics conference in Stanford in 1979, Lyle Campbell was assuring us that "universals" could be over-ridden by areal pressure, thereby producing a phenomenon that seems self-contradictory, a "near-universal". His examples were specifically from Central America. ("Explaining Universals and Their Exceptions", Papers from the 4th ICHL [Benjamins, 1980], 17-26). If we accept this possibility, then areal pressure is given extraordinary power, and hardly anything can be deduced for sure about any relationship in the past ..... I wonder, Lyle, if you're out there, whether you would still agree with what you said then. I was startled when I heard it. First some general context: (1) This isn't really connected with the pan-Americanism question. (2) The notion of a "near-universal" or "statistical universal" is not mine, but rather comes from Joseph Greenberg and has been written about (and accepted) by most who work in typology and universals, not just me. (3) The "phenomenon" would seem "self-contradictory" only if one were to insist that 'universals' (as the name would seem to imply), must be absolute (which in fact they do not according to standard definitions of this technical term); Moreover, though it is a matter of definition, there are solid substantive reasons why people don't insist that all universals must be absolute (i.e. exceptionless). (4) Not an important point, my examples were not Central American, but mostly from the Northwest Coast of North America. (5) So, yes, I still agree with what I said, more so now than ever, precisely because of the typological findings of recent years. Let me give some justification. As Greenberg defined them, a statistical universal (near-universal) is one where with greater than chance frequency languages tend to exhibit the trait (e.g. nearly all languages have nasals; most SOV language have postposition). So, what does it mean to have "exceptions" to universals? In this view, an exception does not invalidate the universal, but only converts it into a statistical universal (near universal). All the questions remain the same: we still need to explain why the phenomenon is so frequent (nearly absolute) in the world's languages, and why so few languages have exceptions. Such near universals (universals which have exceptions) seem still to have explanatory value, since the violating languages are often soon brought back into line with the universal through language changes. For example, the universal that q > k (where > = implies) (q = uvular stops, k = velar stops) had exceptions in the NW Coast linguistic area; the sound change of k > "ch" [palato-alveolar affricate] diffused across many languages of different families, leaving languages with /q/ and /"ch"/ but no /k/, but a new /k/ soon entered the systems, from loans and sound shifts in the languages involved. That is, it appears that the universal soon brought these languages back in line. Most languages have nasals, but in a small area of the Northwest Coast, languages of several families lack nasals -- here original m > b, and n > d under areal pressure. We still need to know why nearly all languages, these (and perhaps a few in Papua New Guinea) excepted, have nasals. There is strong motivation for languages to deploy nasals, since they are perceptually the most salient of all consonants, great for carrying the phonological contrasts of your message clearly and unambiguously. So, exceptions are not necessarily counter-examples; a well-motivated (near) universal need not be abandoned/rejected because some few languages do not conform for whatever reasons. What is important is not that some linguist declares some phenomenon to be universal or not, but rather the reasons/explanations for why it is so. This view correlates the likelihood of something being universal (absolutely or nearly/statistically) to the role it plans in the function of language -- the more some linguistic thing facilitates languages to achieve their communicative ends, the more likely it is to be found in most languages. The possibility of exceptions is correlated with the degree of disruption to efficient functioning/processing such exceptions would cause in languages not conforming whole-heartedly to the universal. We are interested in the general principles of language -- what the pieces are and how the pieces interrelate with one another. Some of these principles have been considered to be absolute (exceptionless) universals, others near- (or statistical) universals. Still others have not necessarily been associated with universals, but rather are talked about in terms of typological connections. The more efficient the language (i.e., not permitting borrowing or language contact, to mention just one reason cited by Roger, to motivate departures from principles), or the greater the value of the universal for facilitating language processing, the more likely it is that absolute conformity will be found. Thus, since the burden on perception and production for speakers of a language which lacked vowels would be so great as to make communication viartually impossible, it is safe to say that the universal that all languages have vowels will probably never have any exceptions. However, the word order universals that say it's great to have all the heads preceded by their complements throughout a language (Genitive-Noun, Adjective-Noun, etc.) or all the heads followed by their complements throughout (Noun-Genitive, Noun-Adjective, etc.) make a languages very user friendly -- it's easier to parse, to figure out what the constituents, are if you can rely on the strategy that the same sort of constituent will show up in the same order across related grammatical categories; however, a language which happens not to conform does not become impossible to learn or use; it's just harder on its speakers and hearers, explaining why most languages conform, but a few are able to get by without conforming. The color universals provide a clear example. By the human color universals the foci (centre, truest "red", etc.) is perceived as the same everywhere; human perception of color is universal and is reflected in languages in universal ways, in the implicational universals established by Berlin and Kay (e.g. the presence of a basic color term for 'yellow' implies the language also has one for 'red', and 'red' in turn implies terms for' 'black' and 'white'). Nevertheless, there are some instances where a language's basic color terms do not correspond to the universal foci (according to human perception) but rather to the color of culturally salient objects. For example the basic color terms in Pukapukan (Samoan outlier, Cook Islands) correspond to colors of parts of tubers, extremely salient objects in the culture, e.g. 'red' matches the color of the 'inner layer of a variety of tuber', not the universal 'red'. This, however, does not change the fact that the vast majority of languages have their term for red matching the one expected from the universal; it just means that in some cases culture is able to mediate the universal -- how could we even talk about the handful of exceptions if we didn't recognize the generalization, the "near" universal, and acknowledge that it has explanations underlying it? Just so, linguistic universals have explanations underlying them and absolutely every language may or may not conform depending on the strength of the explanation/motivation behind the particular universal at hand. It may not be that all are sympathetic to this relativization of universals, but most textbooks and programmatic papers do readily acknowledge near or statistical universals as part of the overall research program aimed at universals of language. Lyle Campbell (Professor) Dept. of Linguistics University of Canterbury Private Bag 4800 Christchurch, New Zealand Fax: 64-3-364-2969 Phone: 64-3-364-2242 From l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz Thu Apr 23 15:33:24 1998 From: l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz (Lyle Campbell) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 11:33:24 EDT Subject: No subject Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Miguel Carrasquer asked about pan-Americanisms and I'd like to offer a bit in that connection; I'll address this directly to Miguel, but send it out generally. I was glad to see you did not regret buying the "American Indian languages" book -- pity it cost so much; I tried everything I could to get the Press to come down on the price. As for your question (reservations) about "pan-Americanisms," I agree with you that the whole business, on the surface, does have an uncomfortable feel to it. Still, I would defend the need to treat the topic more or less as I did. I'll say a couple of general things about it before getting to your specific question. Let me start by repeating that the term is not mine; I read it somewhere as a student (I thought in writings of Swadesh's), but have never been able to find it again. I'd be grateful to anyone who could (re)locate the source of the term. I wish the whole notion did not exist, or at least that it had a less confusing name, since several people have misunderstood it badly (not you). You ask if a block of 23 "pan-Indo-Europeanisms" found in Germanic as a group would be significant (for demonstrating a closer relationship)? The answer, I would say, has to do with the fact that in IE and in the Americas we are on rather different ground, or, better said, there are more straightforward considerations and more convoluted considerations, and each is important to the overall stance that should be taken in answering a question such as yours. The answer would depend on the nature of the 23 things compared and on the nature of the languages in which they are compared (though probably "no" in both instances). Let's take up the nature of the items compared first. The so-called pan-Americanisms are a pretty messy, shaggy, muddled lot (probably of something between 25 and 100 forms, depending on who is looking); it is not even clear that a number of the forms compared as "pan-Americanisms" are worth comparing. Let me for illustration's sake just mention one case, perhaps the best known of all of them, the one for 'hand'. Greenberg's (1987:229-30) list under his proposed 'hand' Amerind "etymology" can be used to illustrate the problem. He lists forms from various languages he compares which include: imak, amik, hemik, mEgeh, e-me, maka, ma, min, mane, maki, mux, imik, imi, ami, etc.; these have glosses which involve in addition to straight 'hand' also 'right hand, left hand, give, take, bring, palm, branch, finger, carry, five, etc.' He believes these to involve something more or less like //ma// or //mV//, often with //-kV// -- that is, minimally all they really need to share to fit this set (a supposed pan-Americanism) is //m//, but, then, apparently not even //m// is really necessary, since some m-less forms also show up in the set (ba, nwan). It will be noticed that this is a pretty ragged assembly; how could you tell what is a legitimate comparison (even if some of the compared languages might prove to be related) and what is just accidental ( -- keep in mind the sort of accidental, non-etymological IE similarities such as English day/Spanish d?a 'day' or French feu/German Feuer 'fire')? And since we don't know in advance which languages may be related and which not (which ones might legitimately be compared), should we throw into the mix such things as Old Japanese migi 'right (hand)' (form from Miller, no idea whether it's accurate, but then, this is using sources as Greenberg did), or maybe some IE, as in Spanish (and other Romance languages) mano 'hand'? In fact we know that some of the forms which were thrown into the 'hand' mix don't fit at all; for example, Rama mukuik is really mu- 'your' + kwik 'hand', where the real root for 'hand' (kwik) has nothing of the //mV(-kV)// which was the target of the set. With this you may begin to get an idea of why I say that the answer to your question would depend on the nature of the 23 pan-Americanisms or pan-IEisms involved. The pan-Americanisms I had in mind are not quite as ragged and unconstrained as several of the forms Greenberg listed in this particular set, but still there are a number of possible reasons for whatever phonetic similarity they share which should be investigated before we place any stock in them as indicators of a possible genetic connection. I had originally intended to publish an appendix of the more commonly repeated pan-Americanisms in the book, but was advised against that by several reviewers (and by the Press, who were pressing me on the book being too long) -- it probably would have just given ammunition to wild imaginations, anyway, so perhaps it was good I didn't do that. On the whole, though, they are something like Greenberg's 'hand' set, only sometimes more possibly onomatopoeic, sometimes with greater semantic latitude, and so on, and generally not as plausible as the 'hand' example, which is one of the better ones (the best?). Let me move on now to the nature of the languages in which a block of pan-IEisms may be compared. There really is no analogue in IE studies to this phenomenon; perhaps the closest is something like the handful of Wanderw?rter across Northern Eurasia -- but these are not really to be identified specifically as IE things, rather as similarities found across a number of families, presumably due to diffusion, though perhaps some have other explanations, too. If there were an Old World analogue in these to the pan-Americanisms, it would probably play itself out at the level of Nostratic or Proto-World hypotheses -- that is, where the evidence for genetic relationship, in spite of daring hypotheses, is not compelling. In such a context, similarities found among the set of languages compared may just be accidental or due to diffusion, onomatopoeia, or a random collection of these and other factors. Since we don't yet know whether the compared languages are related, we also don't know whether it is possible that some of these may prove to be legitimate cognates, inherited from an earlier common ancestor and as such evidence of relationship, or are due to other things. So it goes in the Americas. We have a handful of forms thought to recur in (more or less) similar shape in a number of different Native American families -- and it is important to emphasize that "pan-American" doesn't mean that these show up even in most of the language families, just in more than a couple --, but we really don't know to what they are attributed. Now to the question of whether a block of 23 pan-IEisms found as a group in Germanic and only Germanic might be evidence of closer kinship among the Germanic languages than other IE languages, this really has us standing on different soil. That is, if we are within a language family for which we have pretty good evidence of genetic relationship and are trying to sort out the subgrouping arrangements (which languages are more closely related to one another within this family), then this is not at all like the American Indian situation. However, even within this clearer (or at least more narrowly circumscribed) situation, it is unlikely that a block of 23 forms found to be shared by all and only the Germanic languages would suffice for adequate subgrouping, for showing that these languages belong together in a branch as opposed to all other IE languages. If they were pan-IEisms, then I take it it's OK to assume they are probably legitimate cognates, since individual borrowings mostly didn't make it to all the branches (nor did accidental similarities), and we're pretty good at weeding out accidents and other stuff based on the known sound correspondences. This being the case, the fact that some set of 23 shows up as a block in each of the Germanic languages but not necessarily in others could be an accident. That is, if they are legitimate IE cognates, then they had a legitimate chance to be preserved and show up in any of the branches, not just Germanic, and indeed, some would have to show up in a number of other branches, since otherwise they would not be considered "pan-IEisms." This being the case, the set of 23 would simply be a subset of all those that were available for showing up. Of course, it is possible that the set indeed reflects Germanic as a group, but this could be shown only on the basis of sound correspondences, and then it wouldn't really matter whether Germanic preserved the whole set of 23 or whether some Germanic languages managed to lose or replace some of them. In short, I don't see how a shared block does anything more than any other cognates, whether shared by all or only some, to establish the subgrouping. It was an interesting question; thanks for asking. I suspect others might have some different feelings about it. As I see it, within IE, the question hinges on whether blocks of lexical items are sufficient by themselves for establishing subgrouping (family branching) -- I don't think so. Lyle Lyle Campbell (Professor) Dept. of Linguistics University of Canterbury Private Bag 4800 Christchurch, New Zealand Fax: 64-3-364-2969 Phone: 64-3-364-2242 From alderson at netcom.com Thu Apr 23 15:23:08 1998 From: alderson at netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 11:23:08 EDT Subject: Nostratic & Indo-European mailing lists Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- With some trepidation, I wish to announce to the broad historical linguistics community that I have taken over ownership of the Nostratic and Indo-European mailing lists previously hosted by Bobby Bryant of the University of Texas. These two lists serve rather different purposes. The Indo-European list is intended for the discussion of topics centered on languages of the IE family and the cultures that speak or have spoken them. This is fairly narrowly construed: External connections, for example, should be referred to the Nostratic list. The Nostratic list is intended for the discussion of the ramifications of the Nostratic hypothesis (whether we mean by this Pedersen, Cuny, Illi^c-Svity^c, Bomhard, or the "Michigan school", or a variant such as Greenberg's Eurasiatic) including the discussion of similar hypotheses when they illuminate points of theory (although we do not in general duplicate discussions on HISTLING). We have always been broad-minded as to allowable discussions--Basque historical linguistics has figured prominently in some discussions, for example. Ground rule #1: I am not nearly as patient as Bobby Bryant. Uncollegial behaviour will not be tolerated, and messages without scholarly content will not be forwarded to the list. These lists is not publicly owned or sponsored; I am providing places for those interested in these topics to discuss them, on my own time and at my own expense. The mail system from which I will run the new list lacks certain facilities of the listserver software. If I were simply to relay all incoming e-mail to the list, there would be no protection from commercial solicitations unrelated to the purpose of the list, so there will have to be a human component in mail delivery. Because of this, mail will not be delivered to subscribers immediately, but will be sent out in batches after 17:00 Pacific time (= GMT/BST - 08:00). There is no digest option; each message will be sent separately. The volume of the Nostratic list, even at its peak, has never been particularly high; that on the Indo-European list is generally lower. I have already sent announcements of the re-constitution of these lists to most of the subscribers; a few have failed to be delivered because of restrictions on the subscribers' mail systems. I would like to invite those interested in these topics (both present subscribers who have not received mail from me, and those newly interested in subscribing) to send e-mail to the these addresses: For Indo-European: indoeuropean-request at xkl.com For Nostratic: nostratic-request at xkl.com Until 31 May 1998, everyone who has not UNSUBSCRIBED will continue to receive mailings from the list. After that date, only those who (RE-)SUBSCRIBE will get the mailings. Rich Alderson From mcv at wxs.nl Fri Apr 24 01:01:42 1998 From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 21:01:42 EDT Subject: Pan-Americanisms In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Lyle Campbell wrote: > Let me start by repeating that the term is not mine; I read it >somewhere as a student (I thought in writings of Swadesh's), but have never >been able to find it again. I'd be grateful to anyone who could (re)locate >the source of the term. Yes, sorry, I got that wrong in my short resume (and I *had* read the footnote where you say so). > You ask if a block of 23 "pan-Indo-Europeanisms" found in Germanic >as a group would be significant (for demonstrating a closer relationship)? >The answer, I would say, has to do with the fact that in IE and in the >Americas we are on rather different ground, or, better said, there are more >straightforward considerations and more convoluted considerations, and each >is important to the overall stance that should be taken in answering a >question such as yours. The answer would depend on the nature of the 23 >things compared and on the nature of the languages in which they are >compared (though probably "no" in both instances). Let's take up the >nature of the items compared first. > The so-called pan-Americanisms are a pretty messy, shaggy, muddled >lot (probably of something between 25 and 100 forms, depending on who is >looking); There was a tacit assumption in my first message, that I'm glad to see confirmed here, namely that the number of "pan-Americanisms" is a rather small one. As a matter of fact, I had originally ended my message saying "But what about a block of 23 (or rather: 230) "pan-Indo-Europeanisms" found as a group in Germanic and Germanic only?", but in the end I changed my mind and deleted the parenthetical remark because it sounded cryptic without further explanation, and because I didn't know for a fact whether the number of pan-Americanisms was indeed roughly a factor 10 smaller than the number of IE roots (1000+ in Pokorny). If we pretend for a minute that "pan-Americanisms" can be treated the same way as "pan-Indo-Europeanisms", i.e. if we pretend they are cognates at some level, then I think it would be statistically justified to compare a block of 23 pan-Americanism in Hokan with a block of 230 pan-Indo-Europeanisms in Germanic. I am aware of the rule which says that "shared retentions are not valid evidence for subgrouping; only shared innovations provide support" ("American Indian Languages", p. 258 [which I should have quoted in my resume, because it's a central point in the argument]), and which is also the point Benji Wald was making in his reaction to my message. In my view, this is only a rule of thumb, and in exceptional circumstances it can safely be ignored. I think that if we did find a group of languages which has retained the same 25% or more of the original vocabulary, that should be taken as strong indication that the group is closely related (in the same sub-group). Of course, there is usually no need to do so, because languages that closely related will show a large amount of other evidence for their close relationship. But, as Mark Rosenfelder says in his excellent Web article "How likely are chance resemblances between languages?" : "The brain is no good at probabilities" (under the heading: "Why are we so easy to fool?"). I know my brain is no good at them, so maybe I'm totally wrong about my equation of the 23 Hokan with 230 Germanic look-alikes. As to the nature of the pan-Americanisms themselves, Lyle's characterisation of them as a "messy, shaggy, muddled lot" (and further explanation, deleted for brevity) casts doubts on whether we *can* compare them with "pan-Indo-Europeanisms" (i.e. cognates) even in principle. Maybe it would be better to avoid the term until somebody figures what they really are, which is probably best done anyway by treating each item individually and not worry about them as a whole. In that sense, I'm still not happy with "pan-Americanism" as a reason for dismissal of items in Haas' list: if (and only if) regular sound correspondences can be established between two or more languages, based on sufficient and valid data [and that's what I gather is the real weakness of Haas' list: too few illustrations of the proposed sound-correspondences, and some of them clearly onomatopoeic or borrowed], then the fact that for some of the words wide-spread look-alikes exist is not in itself reason to reject those forms. After all, we don't reject PIE *swek^s and *septm just because they are Wanderwoerter (or possibly borrowings into PIE itself), occurring all over the place (Semitic, Egyptian, Berber, Kartvelian, Etruscan, Basque, i.e. "pan-Mediterraneanisms"). [I should add that I feel the same in principle about another reason for dismissal in that paragraph, viz. "little phonetic similarity": if the sound law is real, it shouldn't matter how dissimilar the reflexes are (I feel tradition-bound to insert a reference to Armenian here)]. ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl Amsterdam From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk Sun Apr 26 18:48:34 1998 From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 14:48:34 EDT Subject: Q: HL textbook Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Does anybody know of a university-level textbook of historical linguistics earlier than W. P. Lehmann's 1962 textbook? Larry Trask COGS University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9QH England larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk From fcosw5 at mbm1.scu.edu.tw Mon Apr 27 12:45:39 1998 From: fcosw5 at mbm1.scu.edu.tw (Steven Schaufele) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 08:45:39 EDT Subject: stats on vocab coincidences? Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear fellow historical linguists, If memory serves, two or three years ago somebody did some sort of statistical study on the odds of vocabulary correspondences occurring between any two languages purely by chance. Does anybody remember what the results of this study were, or where i could find out? I'm in the middle of a struggle to enlighten someone trying to argue for Hebrew-English affiliation purely on the basis of lexical coincidences. Best, Steven -- Steven Schaufele, Ph.D., Asst. Prof. of Linguistics, English Department Soochow University, Waishuanghsi Campus, Taipei 11102, Taiwan, ROC (886)(02)2881-9471 ext. 6504 fcosw5 at mbm1.scu.edu.tw http://www.prairienet.org/~fcosws/homepage.html ***O syntagmata linguarum liberemini humanarum!*** ***Nihil vestris privari nisi obicibus potestis!*** From jhewson at morgan.ucs.mun.ca Mon Apr 27 21:52:38 1998 From: jhewson at morgan.ucs.mun.ca (John Hewson) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 17:52:38 EDT Subject: Q: HL textbook In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- On Sun, 26 Apr 1998, Larry Trask wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > Does anybody know of a university-level textbook of historical > linguistics earlier than W. P. Lehmann's 1962 textbook? There was a general introduction for undergraduates published by the Welsh scholar T. Hudson-Williams that in its own way was a little gem. It tabulated much of the data from Meillet's _Introduction_. T. Hudson-Williams. 1935. A Short Introduction to the Study of Comparative Grammar (Indo-European) (Reprinted 1951). Cardiff: University of Wales Press. John Hewson, FRSC tel: (709)737-8131 University Research Professor fax: (709)737-4000 Memorial University of Newfoundland St. John's NF, CANADA A1B 3X9 From manaster at umich.edu Tue Apr 28 13:21:44 1998 From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 09:21:44 EDT Subject: stats on vocab coincidences? In-Reply-To: <3544D3DC.258D@mbm1.scu.edu.tw> Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- This was done by Bender, Marvin L. 1969 Chance CVC Correspondences in Unrelated Languages. Language 45:519-531. I was able to use his results to produce a new argument for the validity of the connection, often denied, between Haida and the other Nadene languages in my paper Sapir's classifications: Nadene. Anthropological Linguistics 38:1-38 (1996). I don't how robust Bender's findings are (that is, how they fare if one does the same statistics on other languages than the ones he did or if one varies the 100-word pseudo-Swadesh list he used). Hence, I do not know whether the argument is a very strong one. I of course have other arguments for Haida-Nadene, so this does not concern me too much, but still I would be interested in any other references to this subject. One other thing of relevance: In William Baxter and AMR, Review of Donald Ringe (1992). Diachronica 13:371-389 (1996), we show that there are pairs of related languages which have fewer matches of initial consonants than is the case in some pairs of unrelated languages. This does not deal with the general problem of spurious matches, because it is is restricted to one position only, but on the other hand, we consider not just phonetically similar consonants but all possible correspondences in this one position. A. On Mon, 27 Apr 1998, Steven Schaufele wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > Dear fellow historical linguists, > > If memory serves, two or three years ago somebody did some sort of > statistical study on the odds of vocabulary correspondences occurring > between any two languages purely by chance. Does anybody remember what > the results of this study were, or where i could find out? I'm in the > middle of a struggle to enlighten someone trying to argue for > Hebrew-English affiliation purely on the basis of lexical coincidences. > > Best, > Steven > -- > Steven Schaufele, Ph.D., Asst. Prof. of Linguistics, English Department > > Soochow University, Waishuanghsi Campus, Taipei 11102, Taiwan, ROC > > (886)(02)2881-9471 ext. 6504 fcosw5 at mbm1.scu.edu.tw > > http://www.prairienet.org/~fcosws/homepage.html > > > > ***O syntagmata linguarum liberemini humanarum!*** > > ***Nihil vestris privari nisi obicibus potestis!*** > From C.Bowern at student.anu.edu.au Wed Apr 29 13:31:57 1998 From: C.Bowern at student.anu.edu.au (Claire Bowern) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 09:31:57 EDT Subject: Q: HL textbook Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- We used Terry Crowley's "Introduction to Historical Linguistics" for a second year university course. There's a third edition which was published recently. We supplemented it with a reading brick from various other authors. Crowley tends to demonstrate his points with languages other than Indo-European ones, and there's quite a bit on Austronesian from memory. I can give you the full reference details if you're interested. Claire Bowern >On Sun, 26 Apr 1998, Larry Trask wrote: > >> ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >> Does anybody know of a university-level textbook of historical >> linguistics earlier than W. P. Lehmann's 1962 textbook? > From rjanda at midway.uchicago.edu Thu Apr 30 02:14:52 1998 From: rjanda at midway.uchicago.edu (Richard Janda) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 22:14:52 EDT Subject: Earlier textbooks than Lehmann 1962 Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Let's not forget Sturtevant's 1917 (!) _Linguistic Change: An Introduction to the Historical Study of Language_, reprinted in a Phoenix Books (U. of Chicago Press) edition in 1961 and subsequently (at least as late as 1973). As Hamp's introduction states, "This book is quite out of date...", but its quaintness is offset by some good qualities. Labov 1972, for example, praises Sturtevant's views on sound-change. +- Rich Janda From Georg at home.ivm.de Thu Apr 30 12:11:00 1998 From: Georg at home.ivm.de (Ralf-Stefan Georg) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 08:11:00 EDT Subject: Earlier textbooks than Lehmann 1962 Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- And let's not forget about that classic by Hermann Paul: Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte, T?bingen 1880. To qualify it as up to date would be a little bit exaggerated but every modern reader will certainly be surprised to learn how much of the methodological and theoretical points illustrated there still can be quoted today without much amendments. And it contains the all-time favourite quote of every devoted historical linguist: "Es ist eingewendet, dass es noch eine andere wissenschaftliche Betrachtung der Sprache g"abe, als die geschichtliche. Ich muss das in Abrede stellen." Stefan Georg Heerstrasse 7 D-53111 Bonn FRG +49-228-69-13-32 From rjanda at midway.uchicago.edu Thu Apr 30 18:24:19 1998 From: rjanda at midway.uchicago.edu (Richard Janda) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 14:24:19 EDT Subject: Paul 1880 vs. 1886 vs. 1920...; Bloomfield 1933/1965 Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Actually, the passage in Paul about the only scientific linguistics being historical is not in Paul 1880 (the 1st edition), since it arose in response to reviews like Misteli's of 1882 (in the _Zeitschrift fuer Voelkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft_ 13:376-409). The statement in question is thus also not (I think) in Strong's rather daunting English translation, even though an edition appeared in 1889, while Paul's remarks are in every edition starting with the 2nd of 1886. Bynon 1977 has a translation in a footnote, however. As for myself, I am more moved by Paul's short Preface to the 5th and last edition (1920) of the _Prinzipien..._ in his lifetime, in which he mentions that he "seit Jahren ausserstande... [ist], Ge- ] drucktes oder Geschriebenes zu lesen" and so "beduerfte... bei der Revision fremder Hilfe" (for which he thanks Fraeulein Dr. Deditius & Herr(n) Dr. Bluemel). Who now is so dedicated to the consulting and editing of original manuscripts as to risk his or her eyesight?!? Moreover, though Paul's lapidary words are excellent for exem- plifying the period when linguistics was historical linguistics, they certainly show how far he was from contemporary physical scien- tists and modern scientists of all sorts in his insistence that, essen- tially, you don't have a scientific understanding of a system unless you know the history of every piece of it. No sane geologist would today agree that understanding, say, the cliffs of Dover requires one to know the origin of every one of its molecules (or atoms, or elec trons [electra?], or quarks).... What would have happened without de Saussure--or Bloomfield? Which takes us back to Larry Trask's original question: It should be mentioned that Holt, Rinehart, & Winston (with Harry Hoijer as ed- itor, I believe), separately published the historical-linguistic chapters of Bloomfield 1933 (_Language_) as _Language History_, though this admittedly came out in 1965. I wonder whether the increase in books on historical linguistics alone after 1962 (or, better, 1969) doesn't partly reflect the fact that, until that time, most textbooks automatically included rather large sections on historical linguistics, already, whereas the generative works of the era tended to be so resolutely synchronic that a new need (and market) opened up for diachrony. What say ye? Rich Janda From karhu at umich.edu Thu Apr 30 15:25:52 1998 From: karhu at umich.edu (Marc Pierce) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 11:25:52 EDT Subject: Earlier textbooks than Lehmann 1962 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- While we're remembering classics, how about Bloomfield's Language? This was the textbook used in the first historical linguistics class I took (albeit supplemented with a substantial coursepack and list of readings). Marc Pierce On Thu, 30 Apr 1998, Ralf-Stefan Georg wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > And let's not forget about that classic by Hermann Paul: Prinzipien der > Sprachgeschichte, T?bingen 1880. To qualify it as up to date would be a > little bit exaggerated but every modern reader will certainly be surprised > to learn how much of the methodological and theoretical points illustrated > there still can be quoted today without much amendments. And it contains > the all-time favourite quote of every devoted historical linguist: "Es ist > eingewendet, dass es noch eine andere wissenschaftliche Betrachtung der > Sprache g"abe, als die geschichtliche. Ich muss das in Abrede stellen."