Syllabicity

[CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU]

Pat writes, in response to my rude remarks about kitty litter:

>But more seriously, yes, I would also claim that these markers had semantic
>meaning. The IE plural morpheme -*s, I believe, derives from early *s{h}o,
>'clan, herd'. This means that its addition caused a compound of the form N +
>'clan/herd = animate group'. So the result would have been, in our example,
>something like 'cat-group'. Now my use of "semantic" may be original (not
>necessarily better, of course), but I claim that CAT in 'a cat' and CAT in
>'cats = cat-group' are *not* semantically different only differently
>employed. Now I know you will not like this employment of "semantic" so tell
>me what terminology you prefer to make the distinction I am attempting to
>make between core meanings (dog/cat) and derived meanings (cat/cats).

Several remarks:

1.  It is not clear that there actually was an "IE plural morpheme -*s",
although there may have been.  But all that we find are morphemes meaning
"nominative+plural", "dative+plural" etc.  It's not clear that these are
actually divisible, as e.g. the various morphemes of agglutinating languages
such as Turkish.  But let this one pass for now.

2.  There are a few established terminologies.  The plural morpheme of English
(we definitely do have one) can be called "bound" because it occurs only when
connected to the "free" morpheme of a root.  It can be said to have
"grammatical meaning", or be called a "grammatical morpheme".  There are not my
terms; they're standard.  What's not standard is to say that plural -s does not
have "semantic" meaning, since (in normal usage) *all* meaning is "semantic".

><snip>

>Leo comments:

>> First, the idea that the family words contain an agent suffix, though old,
>> is without basis.

>Pat surpisedly responds:

>Now, this may be a case properly characterized as "weaseling". Obviously,
>your "without basis" relies on the qualification "AGENT". I cannot believe
>that you would believe that the IE words for 'father, mother, sister,
>brother, etc.' *cannot* be analyzed as N/V + -*ter, suffix.  Now you may
>wish to dispute whether -*ter in these cases is *agentive* but that puts you
>in the rather dubious position of arguing that IE had, at least, **two**
>suffixes: -*ter, agentive, and -*ter, meaning unknown, employed to mark
>nuclear family members. Not a position I would care to defend!

But you must, if you speak English.  We have several morphemes which have
merged as -er in English but maintain separate meanings:

	1.  Agentive -er (speak + -er).  This is borrowed in several Germanic
languages from Latin -a:rius.

	2.  Implement -er (bind + -er).  Perhaps one in origin with the above;
I'm not sure.

	3.  Comparative -er (old + -er).  This had two forms in Proto-Germanic:
-iz- and -az-, reflecting PIE -e/os- (note the ablaut).  The two have now
merged.  The -iz-form is responsible for the umlaut in _elder_.

	4.  We have a homonym -or in words of Latin origin such as _creator_.
This suffix has agentive meaning.  Despite its separate origin and discrete
spelling, a case could be made for including it under No. 1.

And then of course, we have -er words which do *not* contain any of the above,
such as _cider_ and _spider_.  So what is wrong with saying that the element
seen in _father_, _mother_, _brother_, and _daughter_ (but not _sister_, where
the -t- is a secondary development) is different from the agentive suffix?

>Pat responds:

>So far as I can remember, *p6te:{'}r is the only IE root listed in Pokorny
>that has the form *C6CV:C (if you know of another, at least, admit it is
>rare?). That, by itself, should alert us to the suspicion that something
>unusual is going on here.

Indeed.  And it should tell us in particular that we are not dealing with the
agentive suffix, since the alleged verbal root is rare or impossible.  Ah, but
as in independent, indivisible *word* there would be no problem.

>Secondly, if we analyze family member terminology
>as consisting of Root + suffix (agentive or no), *p6- is a strangely formed
>IE root --- in fact, it cannot be a Normalstufe. *p6- is listed as a
>zero-grade form of *pa:-, which suggests that whatever *p6- in *p6te:{'}r
>comes from, it probably had the earlier form *pe/oH-.

Problem: Pokorny's *pa:- means 'feed; pasture'.  Add an agent suffix to that
and you get 'shepherd', not 'father'.  And this aside from the problem of the
weak grade of the alleged root.

>The (I hope you will
>be willing to admit) analogous *ma:te{'}r does not show zero-grade.

True.  But it still remains to be shown that it "analogous".

>This is
>a novel situation, and I have proposed a novel scenario to explain it; sui
>generis, so, of course, unprovable. I would be interested to learn how you
>propose to explain it.

It's a problem only if you insist on the agent suffix.  Nominal items show an
astonishing variety of ablaut grades in clearly related, otherwise identical
forms.

>[ Moderator's comment:
>  The accent in *meH_2'te:r differs from than in *pH_2te:'r, doesn't it?
>  --rma ]

Not in PIE.  Attic Greek has a rule by which oxytones with the pattern CV:CV:'C
switched to CV:'CV:C.  Pre-Greek must have been *ma:te:'r.  The non-initial
accent also shows in the operation of Verner's Law in German: OE _faeder_,
_mo:dor_ from a form with suffix accent beside _bro:thar_ from a form with root
accent.

BTW, Pokorny derives says that _mother_ "beruht auf dem Lallwort _ma:_", which
makes better sense anyway.

[stuff omitted]

>Pat summarizes:

>To me, that we all admit it is "secondary", decides the issue conclusively.
>IMHO, for it to be phonemic, it would have to be *primary*.

Not hardly.  By the same token, you would have to say that /c^/ in English
_chin_ is secondary, since it split from Germanic /k/ preserved in words such
as _cold_ (and in German _Kinn_).  The store of phonemes in a a language varies
over time: some are lost through merger (or dropping of the sound), new ones
are created.  That's why English and German do *not* have the same number of
phonemes, even though they were once the same language.

[stuff omitted]

>Leo regrets:

>> Pat, I regret to have to say so again, but you simply do not understand what
>> a phoneme is.  Phonemes are minimal distinctive units of *sound*, not of
>> *meaning*.  Do study up on this.

>Pat, testily (with tongue in cheek, difficult and dangerous):

>I think your definition of "phoneme" is fine for you. I prefer Larry Trask's
>quoted definition: "the smallest unit which can make a difference in
>_meaning_ (empahsis added)". Perhaps your exasperation at my adherence to
>this definition has caused you to misstate, seemingly as my position:
>"Phonemes are minimal distinctive units of *sound*, not of *meaning*." I
>have not stated this nor do I believe it for the languages under
>discussion --- as I think you know.

I don't have Larry's dictionare.  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!

>Leo continues:

>> As for ablaut, e:o ablaut is attested for traditional lengthened grade e:
>> and for traditional "original" e: i.e. eH.  Beside Gk. _pate:r_ 'father' we
>> find both _phra:to:r_ and _phra:te:r_ 'member of a clan' (orig. 'brother').
>> And for Gothic _saian_ 'sow' < *seH- we find reduplicated preterite
>> (originally perfect) _sai-so_ < _*se-soH-_.

>Pat responds:

>You have left out the accents: _phra:{'}to:r_ and _phra:{'}te:r_.  Now the
>phonological environments are apparently identical, and there is no
>grammatical difference between the two either. So, the "Ablaut" is
>presumably a deliberate *secondary* device to provide some *semantic*
>differentiation. Not the best example in my opinion -- a Greek example of
>something like vrddhi.

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.

>To _sai{'}so:_: for this example to be significant to my point, you would
>have to argue that in IE *se:i- the [e:] is *original* (not the result of
>*e/oH) which, on the basis of "_*se-soH_", I presume you would not assert.

>For you to make the point I thin you are attempting to make, you need to
>identify a primary IE [e:] which undergoes Ablaut in situations analogous to
>[e/o].

I don't follow your logic at all.  Could you explain?

[stuff omitted]

> Pat, on a new subject:

>>> I do not believe that the earliest Nostratic had what we would
>>> properly call pronouns. I believe all pronouns are only nouns in a
>>> specialized use.

>Leo acknowledges:

>> Typologically, this is acceptable; certainly it seems right for Japanese.
>> But the Japanese "pronoun" words look and act like nouns in every way, which
>> cannot be said of the IE set.

>Pat differs:

>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.

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.

Leo

Leo A. Connolly                         Foreign Languages & Literatures
connolly at latte.memphis.edu              University of Memphis