Syllabicity

[Patrick C. Ryan]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear Leo and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: <CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU>
Sent: Friday, May 28, 1999 2:42 AM

>> Pat responded:

>> I am well aware of this usage and terminology.

Leo asked:

> Is there some reason why you don't adhere to it?  Some of your arguments seem
> to depend on your *not* accepting it.  Why don't you?

Pat answered:

I hope none of my arguments depend on individual usages of words (shades of
Hegel!).

And actually, I cannot think of a really good reason for me to continue a
non-standard usage of the word 'semantic'; henceforward, unless I
inadvertently regress, I will refer to lexical and grammatical differences.

 <snip>

 Pat continued:

>> However, I fail to see how the points you have presented relate meaningfully
>> to the point I am attempting to make.

>> I claimed above that -*ter, the common component of 'father, mother,
>> brother, daughter', is not coincidental but a regular component of basic
>> nuclear family terminology. On the basis of words like *g{^}en6-ter-
>> (procreator, father), I believe it likely that it should be interpreted
>> as an agentive. But even if it were not agentive -*ter, it is beyond the
>> bounds of reasonable scepticism to suppose that its multiple attestations in
>> family member terminology is not analyzable as a suffix.

>Leo objected:

> My objection, originally, was precisely to the notion that it was an agent
> suffix.  I didn't mean to deny that there was a suffix, although I do wonder
> whether that is the best analysis.  A suffix on what?

Pat answers:

In these matters, it is always legitimate to "wonder". But I believe the
roots can, in most cases, be plausibly identified: ye{'}n6ter is, I admit,
difficult.

<snip>

Leo continued:

> If the words were formed that way!  But _papa_ ia every bit as much a
> Lallwort as _mama_.  Parents read amazing things into baby's babbling.

Pat answered:

>> And frankly, I am at a loss to see any problem with a reduced grade of
>> the root preceding a suffix (agentive -*ter), which normally takes the
>> stress-accent. Am I missing something?

Leo countered:

> I don't know.  Why did you bring that up?

Pat answers:

Perhaps I misread something you wrote. I thought you had mentioned a
difference of accent or unexpected stem-form.

>> Pat, withdrawing:

>> I refuse to get into another futile discussion of Lallwo{"}rter.  Actually,
>> one of the interesting arguments for monogenesis is the intriguing
>> similarity of <lallen> all over the world.

Leo commented:

> That say as much about babies and little about languages, or monogesis
> thereof.

Pat answers:

I do not think 'withdrawing' is the correct characterization. I do not
subscribe to the current theory of Lallwo{"}rter as I believe you do, and
here we must simply agree to disagree since neither of us will be persuaded
by the other.

<snip>

>>> Leo continued on a different topic:

>>> I don't have Larry's dictionary.  But I'll say this point blank: what he
>>> gives is merely a characteristic of phonemes.  Morphemes must consist of
>>> one or more phonemes (despite the problem of "zero allomorphs").  It is
>>> because of this that phonemes are the smallest units capable of *signaling*
>>> meaning.  But they are units of *sound*.  It might be helpful if you
>>> included Larry's *entire* comment, for what you're citing is simply *not* a
>>> definition of a phoneme.  See any manual of linguistics which actually
>>> discusses the things!

>> Pat, for Leo's edification:

>> phoneme . . . n. In many theories of phonology, a fundamental (often *the*
>> fundamental) unit of phonological structure, an abstract *segment* which is
>> one of a set of such segments in the phonological system of a particular
>> language or speech variety, ___often defined as 'the smallest unit which can
>> make a difference in meaning'___.

Leo commented:

> Larry is cautious and trying to include as many theories as possible.  But
> "unit of phonological structure" refers precisely to the *sound* system.  I
> have never seen the phoneme *defined* anywhere as he does in the final
> clause, although it happens to be a true statement, it's a characterization
> rather than a definition.  Unfortunately, it is misleading.  In some of your
> earlier stuff, you seem to have taken it to mean that phonemes actually
> *have* meaning.  And quite certainly you're wrong when you claimed that lack
> of a difference in meaning must mean that the difference in sound *must* be
> irrelevant.  While I've quarreled enough with Lehmann, his idea that [e e:
> {e}] became separate phonemes when they were no longer predictable, because
> of changes in the accentual system, is good structuralist theory, and not
> original with him.  What happens, in a nutshell, is that the different vowels
> are no longer predictable but instead signal whatever it was that the
> difference in accent signaled, while it existed.

Pat answers:

I do believe there is a strong possibility that, in the very earliest stages
of language, phonemes did have actual meanings but even by the time of CV
roots, this association (if it ever existed a la sound symbolism) had been
lost in terms of the basic meaning of these monosyllables (though it might
linger on almost as a grace-note to the meaning in the form of nuances or
emotional interpretations).

Now, evidently, my early training in linguistics differed from your own
since, as another wrote recently, this definition of phoneme has to be with
the (once fashionable?) idea of minimal pairs.

>> Leo responded re ablaut:

>>> I have no idea whether it was a deliberate anything.  All I know is that
>>> short e alternates with short o, and that the two traditional kinds of long
>>> e: alternate with long o:.  The "lengthened grade" variety also alternates
>>> with short e/o; the "natural long" ones deriving from vowel + laryngeal
>>> alternate with traditional schwa.  Once established, it could be exploited.

>> Pat commented:

>> And "exploited" it was, to provide a nuance.

Leo responded:

> Over time, often more.  But that was over time.

<snip>

Leo, on "original" e:'s:

> Indeed not.  We must be talking past each other on this.  But lengthened
> grade does show ablaut.  The word for 'foot' has Doric Greek nom. sing
> _po:s_, which supposedly must reflect lengthened o: (other Gk. _pous_ can
> derive from *_pod-s_.  And the Germanic forms have generalized the o: form:
> Gothic _fo:tus_, OE _fo:t_, OHG _fuoz_.  Meanwhile, Latin has _pe:s_, which
> could be from either *_ped-s_ or *pe:d-s_.  Will that do?

Pat, puzzled:

Then how did "original" e: creep into the discussion? Do you believe that
there could be two morphemes in IE, *CeC and *Ce:C, that differed
**lexically** when *Ce:C is not the result of earlier *CeHC?

>>>> Pat differed:

>>>> IE "pronouns" in every significant way look and act like nouns --- with
>>>> the sole exception that the inflections seem to be more conservative.

>>>> Outside of a very few simple forms like *me, *te, *se, etc., which might
>>>> slip in under the rubric of nominal, simple nominal and verbal CV-roots,
>>>> which had wide semantic ranges, were *differentiated* by additional
>>>> elements at a very early time --- at least in the languages from which IE
>>>> derives.  If we are unwilling to look beyond IE, then we must say,
>>>> principally, that the simplest nominal and verbal root-form is CVC.

>> Leo responded:

>>> But there you have it!  The IE pronouns neither look nor act like nouns!
>>> Pushing it back to Nostratic doesn't change anything there, since you're
>>> saying that they must have been different there too.

>> Pat, hopefully not patronizingly, responded:

>> A pronoun is a pro-noun. It can be put in any position syntactically in
>> which a noun can be employed. To say that pronouns do not "act like nouns"
>> is completely unjustified!

Leo objected:

> Not so.  The morphology speaks for itself, so I'll do the syntax.  If they
> could, you could say:

> *I want to meet the new her.
> *I want to meet secretary.
>         *Poor he/him has to work on Saturday.

Pat objected:

I have heard equivalent sentences but, I admit, only in humor.

Leo continued:

> But you can't.  Neither can you use interrogative pronouns like nouns, or
> demonstratives, or indefinites -- there are a great many things called
> "pronouns", and they behave differently from nouns in *many* languages.

> No le veo.  'I don't see him.'   *No veo le.
> No veo a Carlos.  I don't see Charly.'   *No veo a le.

> So no, pronouns need *not* have the syntax of nouns.  They act different.

Pat, more or less agreeing:

But do you not think that where their employments differ, one of the major
reasons is the typical brevity of many pronominal elements, and their
encliticity?

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN (501) 227-9947; FAX/DATA (501)312-9947 9115 W. 34th St.
Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803 and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ek, at ek hekk, vindga meipi, nftr allar nmu, geiri undapr . . . a ~eim
meipi er mangi veit hvers hann af rstum renn." (Havamal 138)