From sarima at friesen.net  Fri Dec  1 02:07:07 2000
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 18:07:07 -0800
Subject: Motivating the Root Restrictions of PIE
In-Reply-To: <001301c05965$3ad23ec0$d16263d1@texas.net>
Message-ID: <THU.30.NOV.2000.180707.0800.>

At 12:01 PM 11/28/00 -0600, David L. White wrote:
>         Yes, I am serious.  And yes, what I posit is typologically weird,
>but what more normal system motivates the root restrictions?  Are we to
>imagine that these were invented out of sheer phonological perversity?  It
>is, obviously, a matter of the relative claims of typology versus
>motivation.

I do not think it is quite that simple.

Many of my ideas on the phonetics of PIE came from a symposium I read - I
think it was "The New Sound of PIE" or something like that.  In addition to
several articles supporting some variant of the glottalic hypothesis, there
were several proposing various less radical alternatives.  As I remember it
(vaguely), some of these articles addressed the issue of motivation of the
root restrictions within their respective models.  The glottalic approach
does not have a monopoly on providing a possible answer to the basis for
these constraints.

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Dec  1 05:49:14 2000
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 00:49:14 EST
Subject: Celtic Germanic relationship
Message-ID: <FRI.1.DEC.2000.004914.EST.>

In a message dated 11/30/2000 11:23:14 PM, brent at bermls.oau.org writes:

<< <Eg., the PrtGrmc word for "iron" is a Celtic loan, as are several other
    terms (ruler and servant, for instance) and the form of these loans
    indicates that they were borrowed before the first Germanic sound-shift,
    since it underwent that change.>

  Do these loans provide evidence for all three consonant grades?
  The only words that come to mind are *i:sarn- (iron) and *ri:k- (power),
  which only provide evidence for PIE *g -> PGmc *k.>>

Just a note that the fact that those words underwent a sound shift does not
mean necessarily that they were not borrowed after the sound shift.

Note that these words may have been subjected to the "phonotactics" of the
borrowing language.  Larry Trask mentioned an example recently of how complex
the conversion may be:

<<A Latin noun is normally borrowed into Basque in its accusative
singular form.  Assuming that the accusative of <incubus> would
have been <incubum>, the expected Basque treatment of this would
be *<ingubu>, without nasalization, or *<ingumu>, with nasalization.
But I don't know what inflectional class <incubus> belonged to.>>

Thus the word "incubus" would be expected to go through a sound
transformation as it enters the language rather than remaining in its foreign
form.  So that Celtic words in Germanic may also have gone through a
conversion irrespective of when the sound change occurred.

With respect to the word iron, we have clear evidence that iron was known
before iron metalurgy was introduced.  In fact, use of meteoric and surface
iron (gathered from eroding streams) appears in Asia Minor at least a
thousand years before the "iron age."  I can't look it up right now, but
there may be evidence of the incidental use of iron in the bronze age in
Denmark.  In any case, familiarity with the metal might be enough to give it
a name, whether or not it was being turned into something.  And so that name
could well seriously predate the iron age.

Another point-of-view worth mentioning is the one which sees the "consonant
shifts" in Germanic as archaisms rather than innovations.  In which case, the
time of borrowing would be almost indeterminable. Or the word could have been
common and then undergone changes in the respective languages in the reverse
direction, ie, as a change in Celtic rather than in Germanic.

Regards,
Steve Long


From BMScott at stratos.net  Fri Dec  1 06:52:23 2000
From: BMScott at stratos.net (Brian M. Scott)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 01:52:23 -0500
Subject: Celtic Germanic relationship
In-Reply-To: <20001130061309.A74794@bermls.oau.org>
Message-ID: <FRI.1.DEC.2000.015223.0500.>

>> Eg., the PrtGrmc word for "iron" is a Celtic loan, as are several
>> other terms (ruler and servant, for instance) and the form of these
>> loans indicates that they were borrowed before the first Germanic
>> sound-shift, since it underwent that change.

BJE> Do these loans provide evidence for all three consonant grades?
BJE> The only words that come to mind are *i:sarn- (iron) and *ri:k- (power),
BJE> which only provide evidence for PIE *g -> PGmc *k.

What about Goth. <andbahts>, OHG <ampahti>, ON <amba'tt> (specialized
to 'bondswoman'), etc., from Celt. <ambactus> 'Dienstmann' (here with
Latin ending)? Or OHG <Walh> from the Celtic tribal name <Volcae>?
They appear to offer evidence for PIE *k -> PGmc *h.

Brian M. Scott


From jrader at Merriam-Webster.com  Fri Dec  1 15:06:50 2000
From: jrader at Merriam-Webster.com (Jim Rader)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 10:06:50 -0500
Subject: Turkish
In-Reply-To: <l03130316b64c1407ba2a@[209.147.211.21]>
Message-ID: <FRI.1.DEC.2000.100650.0500.>

I think Prof. Schulze has addressed the matter in his post of 29
Nov.  If I may quote him, "Nogays (Kipchak)  can be spotted in the
Dobrucha [i.e., Dobru(d)ja, Dobrogea] area esp. north of Constantia
in Romania[;] they came to this place in the 19th century (after the
Crimea[n] war) from the eastern parts of the Crimea[n] peninsula
(due to Russian pressure)."

I assume the Nogay movement to Dobrudja was more or less part
of the massive emigration of Muslim peoples out of the North
Caucasus in the 19th century.  After the final "pacification" of the
Caucasus by Russia in the 1860's, approximately half a million
Muslim Caucasians, predominantly West Circassian speakers,
emigrated to the Ottoman Empire.  According to Rieks Smeets,
_Studies in West Circassian Phonology and Morphology_, "At first,
large groups [of Caucasian migrants] were sent to the Balkans in
order to help the Ottomans in the war they were losing to the
rebelling Balkan peoples, who were supported by Russia.
Ultimately, practically all emigrants from the Caucasus found a
place scattered throughout the Asiatic areas of the Ottoman
Empire.  Nowadays [1984] we can find their descendants in
Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and also--but only in very small
numbers--in Yugoslavia."

Jim Rader

> On a Hammond map of European ethnic groups c. 1910
> I saw Nogays in both Daghestan and also between the mouth of the Danube and
> Crimea

> [snip]
> >The Nogay are a Turkic-speaking people of
> >the North Caucasus.  If there are any in the Balkans, I don't know
> >about it--Balkanologists on the list have anything to say?

> >Jim Rader
> [snip]

> Rick Mc Callister


From edsel at glo.be  Fri Dec  1 15:34:58 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 16:34:58 +0100
Subject: Turkish
Message-ID: <FRI.1.DEC.2000.163458.0100.>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" <mcv at wxs.nl>
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2000 7:53 AM

> On Tue, 28 Nov 2000 11:07:24 +0100, "Eduard Selleslagh" <edsel at glo.be>
> wrote:

>> As opposed to Bosnia-Hercegovina (Bosna-Hersek in Turkish; Hercegovina <
>> Hersek Novi)

> Isn't it rather Herceg-ov-ina (like Vojevod-ina), with <herceg> <
> German <Herzog>?

> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
> mcv at wxs.nl

[Ed Selleslagh]

I'm not entirely sure, but you are probably right: 1) I may have confounded
matters with another related item: the city of Hercegnovi, 2) I wrote Hersek
where I should have written Herceg /xertseg/, the Slav (Serbo-Croatian, not the
Turkish) form, in 'Herceg-novi'. Whether Herceg < Ger. Herzog, I don't know.


From HSTAHLKE at gw.bsu.edu  Fri Dec  1 14:25:06 2000
From: HSTAHLKE at gw.bsu.edu (Herb Stahlke)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 09:25:06 -0500
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <FRI.1.DEC.2000.092506.0500.>

This is very much a minor note to this thread, but last summer in
my HEL course, a Saudi student who is specialized in early Islamic
scholarship mentioned that Arabic documents dealing with the 8th
c. Muslim invasions of the Iberian Peninsula mention fighting
against Goths.  I wonder what the term might have referred to at
that time.

Herb Stahlke

Someone wrote:

> On the continent, Germanic migrants into the Roman provinces were generally
> linguistically assimilated within a few generations -- beyond some loanwords,
> little trace of Gothic remains in Iberian Romance, for instance.  In fact, it
> was probably extinct or moribund by the time of the 8th-century Muslim
> invasions.  It lasted much better in the Crimea!


From edsel at glo.be  Fri Dec  1 16:20:36 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 17:20:36 +0100
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <FRI.1.DEC.2000.172036.0100.>

----- Original Message -----
From: <JoatSimeon at aol.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2000 8:14 AM

> In fact, when it emerges into the light of documentary day, Old English is a
> remarkably conservative West Germanic language still mutually comprehensible
> with the ancestors of Netherlandish, Frisian, and Low German, not to mention
> the nascent Scandinavian tongues.  Which is why English missionaries were so
> important in the conversion of the continental Germans.

[Ed Selleslagh]

I don't know that much about the conversion of the Germans, but I always
learned that in the (Frankish and Ingwaeonic) Low Countries most missionaries
were Irish, like the legendary (possibly mythical) Sint Brandaen (St. Brendan).
I wonder if they spoke some Low-Germanic language as well. There are also other
traces of Irish influence in legends, e.g. that of the Irish princess (later
declared martyr-saint) Dympna (Dumna), patron saint of the mentally ill,
treated in families in the Flemish town of Geel.

On the other hand, it is quite true that it is hard to determine whether some
texts are OE or Old Dutch (e.g. the famous pre-1100 'Hebban olla vogala nestas
bigunnan, hinase hic enda thu' text found in Oxford, I think). The main problem
here is the extreme scarcity of Old Dutch texts: the Franks and their
Flemish/Dutch descendants wrote mostly in Latin (fortunately sometimes with
glosses).

Ed.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Fri Dec  1 09:03:18 2000
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 04:03:18 EST
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <FRI.1.DEC.2000.040318.EST.>

In a message dated 11/30/00 7:33:11 PM Mountain Standard Time,
Tristan at mail.scm-rpg.com.au writes:

<< The Romano-British influence was pretty non-existant language wise, I do not
 a lot about how they affected Anglo-Saxon culture.

-- hard to say, since many of the institutions -- war-band organization, for
instance -- were in common.

One should also note that on the Continent, Christianity survived.
Anglo-Saxon England became as purely pagan as Scandinavia.

>I doubt those languages preserved as little of pervious languages than Old
>English did.

-- there's a very early strata of Dravidian loanwords in Sanskrit; even in
the Rig-Veda.  It's the strongest single indication that IE languages spread
from Central Asia/Iran into India, rather than vice-versa.  Although there
are plenty of others.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Fri Dec  1 09:06:38 2000
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 04:06:38 EST
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <FRI.1.DEC.2000.040638.EST.>

In a message dated 11/30/00 7:59:59 PM Mountain Standard Time,
rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu writes:

>Are you only including words documented in written sources before the Norman
>conquest?

-- more or less.  The written form of Old English was, as far as one can
tell, quite close to the spoken form, at least in the Wessex area.

>Scanning Buck and Partridge, I get the impression that there were many more.

-- more in some dialects at some time.  Eg., shepherd's counting vocabulary
in many parts of northern and western England is transparently Welsh... but
the form of the numerals shows that these are loans from medieval Welsh, not
survivals from Brythonic!

>BTW: what percentage of Old English and Briton vocabulary consisted of close
>cognates?

-- not many. By the 6th century CE, Celtic and Germanic were no closer than
either was to Latin, and most cognates wouldn't have been detectable to
speakers of either group.


From summers at metu.edu.tr  Fri Dec  1 05:42:12 2000
From: summers at metu.edu.tr (Geoffrey SUMMERS)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 07:42:12 +0200
Subject: [Fwd: [ArchTheoMeth] genes and languages--Kurds and Georgians]
Message-ID: <FRI.1.DEC.2000.074212.0200.>

This came from the Archaeology and Theory list. There have been several
responses on that list, including an objection to the position that
Georgian and Basque are related.

Geoff

> Subject: [ArchTheoMeth] genes and languages--Kurds and Georgians
> Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 12:37:17 +0900
> From: "Mark Hall" <hall at nbz.or.jp>
> Reply-To: ArchaeologyTheoryMethod at egroups.com
> To: <ArchaeologyTheoryMethod at egroups.com>, <EuropeanArchaeology at egroups.com>,
>     <NEAsianStudies at egroups.com>

> Since it has come up repeatedly on this list and others, the equating of
> genes, pots, peoples and languages, an interesting article that hasn't seen
> much press is:

> Comas, Calafell, et al. (2000) Georgian and Kurd mtDNA sequence analysis
> shows a lack of correlation between languages and female genetic lineages,
> AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY Vol. 112, 5-16.

> In a quick summary, using 360 base pairs from the mtDNA sequence, they
> looked at the mtDNA from 45 Georgians and 29 Kurds.  Georgians are
> Kartvelian speakers while the Kurds are Indo-Iranian speakers. The
> genetic analysis points only to minor differences between the Georgians
> and Kurds and the rest of the European populations and very different
> from the Basque population (which Georgians are often linked to).  Their
> conclusion is the linking of European mtDNA with the Indo-European
> languages is seriously questioned.

> Best, Mark Hall

--
Geoffrey SUMMERS
Dept. of Political Science & Public Administration,
Middle East Technical University,
Ankara TR-06531, TURKEY.

Office Tel: (90) 312 210 2045
Home Tel/Fax: (90) 312 210 1485
The Kerkenes Project Tel: (90) 312 210 6216
http://www.metu.edu.tr/home/wwwkerk/


From mcv at wxs.nl  Sat Dec  2 02:36:37 2000
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 03:36:37 +0100
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <SAT.2.DEC.2000.033637.0100.>

In Collinge's "The Laws of Indo-European", under "Siever's Law II"
(i.e. the development of PIE *gwh), reference is made to a work by
Seebold 1967 ("Die Vertretung idg. *gwh- in Germanischen", KZ
81.104-133).  In Collinge's summary table, it is stated that "*/gwh/"
gives /b/ in initial position (except before /u/).  What is this
about?  Pokorny doesn't seem to recognize this development, and the
only root with initial *gwh- that I found in Pokorny and that I was
able to link to initial *b- in Germanic would be *gwhedh- "bitten,
begehren".  (I thought if anybody here knows, I might spare myself the
inconvenience of getting hold of the appropiate issue of Kuhn's
Zeitschrift ...)

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl


From Tristan at MAIL.SCM-RPG.COM.AU  Sat Dec  2 04:19:10 2000
From: Tristan at MAIL.SCM-RPG.COM.AU (Tristan Jones)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 23:19:10 -0500
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <FRI.1.DEC.2000.231910.0500.>

This message was originally submitted by Tristan at MAIL.SCM-RPG.COM.AU to the
INDO-EUROPEAN list at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG.

                 ----------------- Message ------------------

>In Britain not only did the local Celtic and Romance speeches disappear,
>but the Anglo-Saxon that emerged after the conversion to Christianity was
>singularly lacking in both Romance and Celtic vocabulary.  About 14 Celtic
>loan-words in all, and no more Latin loans than the continental Germanic of
>the period.

That is it in itself is suprising, we must ask this question, Was Latin or a
dialect of it spoken by the common people (not just the elite) in Britain
around 5th century, like in Gaul, where a similar although might be smaller
mirgation of Germanic speakers arrived around fall of Roman Empire. I think
Latin was an language of elite only in Britain, would things be different if
a Brito-Romance language was spoken by the common people instead of Celtic
languages.

>Yet there's less Celtic influence on Old English than there is Algonquian
>Indian influence on the English of New England!  Indian place-names and
>loan-words are more common there, despite what we know was an extremely
>brusque dispossession of the previous population and very limited contact
>between the incomers and the indigenous people.

Same here in Australia, there are many Aboriginal words from many languages
that have influenced Australian English and many Aboriginal place names as
well.

>We also know that there was a very substantial drop in the population of
>post-Roman Britain.  Estimates for Britannia in the late Roman period --
>4th century CE -- range as high as 3.5 million or more.

>By the time of the Norman conquest (a period for which we have unusually
>good historical-demographic documentation) England had about 1.5 million
>people; and that was after several centuries of what's generally agreed
>upon to be steady expansion.

Means Britian's population in that era could have dropped from around 2.5
million people (most likely estimate) to about 1 million and possibly a very
low Celtic speaking population if we want the Anglo-Saxons to be about
30-50% the population order to compeltely wipe out the Celtic language and
replace it with West Germanic. We must ask the question how could a large
population decline that far? what were the causes of it?

I know I hate asking this sort of question, however I must ask it
Did the Anglo-Saxon arrivals slaughter and do genocide on Celtic peoples of
Britanna before settleing in new areas.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Dec  2 05:33:48 2000
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 00:33:48 EST
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <SAT.2.DEC.2000.003348.EST.>

In a message dated 12/1/00 10:01:05 PM Mountain Standard Time,
HSTAHLKE at gw.bsu.edu writes:

<< a Saudi student who is specialized in early Islamic scholarship mentioned
that Arabic documents dealing with the 8th c. Muslim invasions of the Iberian
Peninsula mention fighting against Goths.  >>

-- operating from memory, I seem to recall that a number of Gothic prisoners
of war were settled in western Anatolia around the time of Justinian, and
formed a unit in the Byzantine armed forces for some time.


From roz-frank at uiowa.edu  Sat Dec  2 15:27:11 2000
From: roz-frank at uiowa.edu (roslyn frank)
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 09:27:11 -0600
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <SAT.2.DEC.2000.092711.0600.>

At 04:06 AM 12/1/00 EST, JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

>In a message dated 11/30/00 7:59:59 PM Mountain Standard Time,
>rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu writes:

>>Are you only including words documented in written sources before the Norman
>>conquest?

>-- more or less.  The written form of Old English was, as far as one can
>tell, quite close to the spoken form, at least in the Wessex area.

>>Scanning Buck and Partridge, I get the impression that there were many more.

>-- more in some dialects at some time.  Eg., shepherd's counting vocabulary
>in many parts of northern and western England is transparently Welsh... but
>the form of the numerals shows that these are loans from medieval Welsh, not
>survivals from Brythonic!

Can anyone provide other bibliographic references concerning this
shepherd's counting vocabulary?

Thanks,
Roz Frank


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Dec  2 05:31:49 2000
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 00:31:49 EST
Subject: Celtic Germanic relationship
Message-ID: <SAT.2.DEC.2000.003149.EST.>

In a message dated 12/1/00 8:16:41 PM Mountain Standard Time, X99Lynx at aol.com
writes:

>Just a note that the fact that those words underwent a sound shift does not
mean necessarily that they were not borrowed after the sound shift.

-- it usually does.


From mcv at wxs.nl  Sat Dec  2 12:58:53 2000
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 13:58:53 +0100
Subject: Celtic Germanic relationship
In-Reply-To: <17352982877.20001201015223@stratos.net>
Message-ID: <SAT.2.DEC.2000.135853.0100.>

On Fri, 1 Dec 2000 01:52:23 -0500, "Brian M. Scott"
<BMScott at stratos.net> wrote:

>>> Eg., the PrtGrmc word for "iron" is a Celtic loan, as are several
>>> other terms (ruler and servant, for instance) and the form of these
>>> loans indicates that they were borrowed before the first Germanic
>>> sound-shift, since it underwent that change.

>BJE> Do these loans provide evidence for all three consonant grades?
>BJE> The only words that come to mind are *i:sarn- (iron) and *ri:k- (power),
>BJE> which only provide evidence for PIE *g -> PGmc *k.

>What about Goth. <andbahts>, OHG <ampahti>, ON <amba'tt> (specialized
>to 'bondswoman'), etc., from Celt. <ambactus> 'Dienstmann' (here with
>Latin ending)? Or OHG <Walh> from the Celtic tribal name <Volcae>?
>They appear to offer evidence for PIE *k -> PGmc *h.

On the other hand, a word like Celt. (*bhle:wos >) *bli:wos > Gmc.
*bli:waz "lead" (German <Blei>) offers no evidence for *b -> *p (nor
does *ambaktos -> *ambahtaz).

If we compare the probable phonological systems of (Proto-)Celtic and
Proto-Germanic at the time of (most of) the borrowings, we have, on
the one hand in Celtic, a system where PIE *d (etc.) and *dh (etc.)
have merged as [d] (maybe alternating with continuant/fricative [D]),
and PIE *t has acquired (judging by later Celtic developments)
aspiration, i.e. is realized as [th].  In Germanic there is still a
three-way contrast, with *d > [t] (unaspirated), *dh > [d]
(alternating with [D]), and *t > [th] (aspirated).  The final step of
the shift, frication of [th] to [T], and subsequently transfer of the
aspiration to [t] < *d and split of the [d] ~ [D] allophones, was
probably still to come.

In this situation, we would expect Celtic *d to be borrowed in
Germanic as either *d or *t (depending on phonological context), while
Celtic *t (=[th]) was borrowed as Germanic *th (> *T).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl


From edsel at glo.be  Sat Dec  2 12:50:15 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 13:50:15 +0100
Subject: Celtic Germanic relationship
Message-ID: <SAT.2.DEC.2000.135015.0100.>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott at stratos.net>
To: <Indo-European at xkl.com>
Sent: Friday, December 01, 2000 7:52 AM
Subject: Re[2]: Celtic Germanic relationship

> What about Goth. <andbahts>, OHG <ampahti>, ON <amba'tt> (specialized
> to 'bondswoman'), etc., from Celt. <ambactus> 'Dienstmann' (here with
> Latin ending)? Or OHG <Walh> from the Celtic tribal name <Volcae>?
> They appear to offer evidence for PIE *k -> PGmc *h.

[Ed Selleslagh]

In Dutch we still have the word <ambacht>, which in toponyms (e.g. Veurne
Ambacht in West-Flanders) means the area of authority of an 'amman'
(<ambachtman), a kind of medieval sheriff. [ch = ach-laut].

The other meaning is 'handicraft', and a modern 'ambachtsman' is an artisan, a
craftsman.

Ed.


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Dec  2 18:18:42 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 12:18:42 -0600
Subject: Pagans in AS England, etc.
Message-ID: <SAT.2.DEC.2000.121842.0600.>

> One should also note that on the Continent, Christianity survived.
> Anglo-Saxon England became as purely pagan as Scandinavia.

        This is actually a serious problem for the traditional
"Germanophilic" interpretation of the AS conquest, since though pagan
burials are common in the SE, they are rare to non-existent in most of what
later became Wessex, Mercia, and Northumbria, despite the fact that these
areas were, at least nominally, pagan.  It seems then that most of the
population of these areas consisted of Christian Britons, which would also
explain why there were no violent popular pagan relapses in these areas,
though there were in the SE.  These are precisely the areas where apparent
Celticisms (more precisely Brittonicisms), which are often very difficult to
explain as internally motivated, appear during the Middle English period.
        On a related point, it is not a problem for my views, or a surprise,
that the population of eastern England should appear to be genetically
closer to the Danes than to the Welsh (even if this is not to some extent
due to the Danes themselsves).  As I have noted before, Celticisms in ME
appear in the North and West (broadly defined so as to include a good part
of the Midands), and there is absolutely no significant linguistic evidence
for "Celtic survival" in the SE and East Anglia.  Also, it shoud be noted
that the idea that the inhabitants of England should, if I am right, show
genetic similarity to the Welsh involves a subtle circularity, since it is
only true if the modern inhabitants of Wales are descendants of "English"
Britons driven off to Wales during the AS conquest, which is precisely what
is (among other things) at issue.
        I should also make it clear that I do not regard the Anglo-Saxons as
being like the Normans in being only a land-owning aristocracy spread thinly
across the land.  It is clear that even in the North and West there were
Anglo-Saxon colonies, which is to say that the Anglos-Saxons exerted control
over the land in much the same way that the Romans did, through a
combination of land-owning aristocracy and colonizing peasantry. This does
not mean, in either case, that the original inhabitants were exterminated or
expelled, or even numerically dominated.

                                                        Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Dec  2 19:46:26 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 13:46:26 -0600
Subject: Mutual Comprehensibility of Middle West Low Germanic
Message-ID: <SAT.2.DEC.2000.134626.0600.>

        It is my vague impression that Middle English, esp. Kentish, which
is very conservative, would have been mutually comprehensible with Middle
Dutch.  Any opinions?

                                                         Dr. David L. White


From ibonewits at neopagan.net  Sun Dec  3 16:14:14 2000
From: ibonewits at neopagan.net (Isaac Bonewits)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 11:14:14 -0500
Subject: Hittite class article
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.111414.0500.>

An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education tells of a successful
Hittite teacher: http://chronicle.com/free/2000/12/2000120101t.htm

"Students in Davidson College's "Beginning Hittite" class are
learning an ancient language while alternately bent over computer
keyboards and clay tablets."

cheers,
Isaac B.
--
*******************************************************************
* Isaac Bonewits <bonewits at warwick.net> <http://www.neopagan.net> *
* Snailmail: Black Dirt PG, ADF, Box 372, Warwick, NY 10990-0372  *
*******************************************************************


From bronto at pobox.com  Sun Dec  3 23:30:43 2000
From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 15:30:43 -0800
Subject: yan tan tethera pethera pimp
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.153043.0800.>

roslyn frank wrote:
> Can anyone provide other bibliographic references concerning
> this shepherd's counting vocabulary?

Brief mention in Karl Menninger, <Zahlwort und Ziffer: eine
Kulturgeschichte der Zahlen> (1957-8), translated by Paul Broneer as
<Number Words and Number Symbols: a Cultural History of Numbers> (MIT
Press 1969, Dover 1992); see pp 124-5 of the English edition.

--
Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Mon Dec  4 15:05:08 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 10:05:08 -0500
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.20001202075153.0076bf84@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.100508.0500.>

	Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia of Mythology & Folklore [or some
similar title] has a dated but interesting entry on it with bibliography

>Can anyone provide other bibliographic references concerning this
>shepherd's counting vocabulary?

>Thanks,
>Roz Frank

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From cristim at smart.ro  Sun Dec  3 19:29:27 2000
From: cristim at smart.ro (Cristian Mocanu)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 21:29:27 +0200
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.212927.0200.>

I'd like to make a brief contribution as to the Anglo-Saxon and Irish
missionaries to the Continental Germans.
Among the Anglo-Saxon missionaries to Germany and the Lower Countries, the
most famous is, undoubtedly, St. Boniface, former Abbott of Exeter, apostle
of Thuringia and martyred by the Frisians around 754 AD. There were others,
including St.Willibrord and some whose name I cannot recall now.
    Concerning the Irish missionaries to the continent, they had an extreme
importance for the spread and maintenance of Christianity. St. Columban and
St. Gall were among the most important.
A lot of them were missionaries in the Saxon Kingdoms of England and
certainly learned their language. For the topic in discussion, the most
relevant case would be that of St. Fursey. Born in Tuam, Ireland, he spent
some years as missionary among the Saxons of East Anglia and was then
instrumental in the conversion of the Franks, being well received by Clovis
himself.
    As for St. Brendan, according to Martin Wallace's "Book of Celtic
Saints" (Appletree Press, Dublin, 1995), there is no evidence in Dutch
documents or tradition of his presence in the Lower Countries. However, the
well-known Mediaeval story known as "Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis" had,
according to the above-mentioned source, a very early version in Flemish.The
popularity enjoyed by St.Brendan and the "Navigatio" in the Lower Countries
is, by no means, separable from the presence of Irish monk-scholars at the
beginnings of the local Christianity.
Incidentally, a good website for biographies of Saints, including those in
the 2-nd half of the first millenium AD, which tend to be less known, is
that of the Catholic Encyclopaedia:
www.newadvent.com/cathen/

         Best regards,
          Cristian


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Sun Dec  3 22:11:00 2000
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 17:11:00 -0500
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.171100.0500.>

On Fri, 1 Dec 2000 04:06:38 EST, JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:
>  Eg., shepherd's counting vocabulary
> in many parts of northern and western England is transparently Welsh ...
> but the form of the numerals shows that these are loans from medieval
> Welsh, not survivals from Brythonic!

Or, Brythonic in what is now England managed to go through all or some of
the same changes as in Wales (consonant lenition, vowel shifts) as in Wales
before its speakers forgot their language and learned Anglo-Saxon. E.g. an
Anglo-Saxon record says that the Selwood forest in Wessex was called Silva
Magna in Latin and Coitmaur in "British", whereas the old Common Celtic
word for "big" was "mo:r-" (and in Gaelic still is).


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Dec  3 21:57:52 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 16:57:52 -0500
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
In-Reply-To: <b1.3f1249d.2759e3bc@aol.com>
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.165752.0500.>

	The ruling class of post-Roman pre-Islamic Hispania was Visigothic.
Their attempts to maintain their own culture and keep themselves apart from
the bottom 95% or so of the population did not endear them to the vast
majority, who appear to have sat out the Islamic invasion.

>In a message dated 12/1/00 10:01:05 PM Mountain Standard Time,
>HSTAHLKE at gw.bsu.edu writes:

><< a Saudi student who is specialized in early Islamic scholarship mentioned
>that Arabic documents dealing with the 8th c. Muslim invasions of the Iberian
>Peninsula mention fighting against Goths.  >>

>-- operating from memory, I seem to recall that a number of Gothic prisoners
>of war were settled in western Anatolia around the time of Justinian, and
>formed a unit in the Byzantine armed forces for some time.

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Mon Dec  4 01:27:43 2000
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 20:27:43 EST
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.202743.EST.>

In a message dated 12/3/00 3:01:12 PM Mountain Standard Time,
Tristan at MAIL.SCM-RPG.COM.AU writes:

>Did the Anglo-Saxon arrivals slaughter and do genocide on Celtic peoples of
>Britanna before settleing in new areas.

-- they wouldn't have to.  Simple general vandalism and terror would have
about the same effect and be a lot less work than physically killing enormous
numbers of people.  Hunger and disease are more efficient, although it _is_
possible to slaughter huge numbers with hand weapons; we've seen a recent
example of that in Rwanda.

One has to keep in mind that preindustrial subsistence-peasant economies are
inherently fragile; they're always on the verge of a demographic crash.

Losing one harvest means severe hunger; losing two or three means mass
famine, and the epidemic disease which always accompanies it; and both are
made worse if people feel compelled to flee their homes.

If the loss of a couple of harvests is accompanied by the loss of capital
assets -- working livestock, seed grain, wagons, tools, herds, farm buildings
-- you get a catastrophe which may take centuries to recover from.
Populations can crash to a small percentage of their original size.
Successful farming requires a fair degree of physical security; you may be
able to hide your cattle for a short while, but you can't move fields,
grain-stores, plows or barns.

There are numerous examples of this in European and Middle Eastern history;
eg., the enormous population lossess suffered in Central Europe during the 30
Years War, or in Ireland during the mid-17th century.  Again, it's not battle
and massacre which do the real damage; it's the aftermath of lost food
production and refugee movements.

Historical sources from the late Roman period indicate widespread
depopulation in coastal areas subject to repeated raids by Saxon pirates --
along the coast of Brittany and around the mouth of the Loire, for example,
where settlement was abandoned except for a few defended sites.

Judging from those sources, and from the extensive defensive works the Romans
put up along the "Saxon Shore" in Britain, together with archaeological
evidence from the source areas of the "Saxons" (the modern Netherlands,
Frisia, Schleiswig and southern Denmark) there must have been at least
hundreds, and possibly several thousand, war-boats operating in the area
throughout the fourth and fifth centuries.  Besides sea-born attacks on Roman
territory, raiding against other Germanic tribes was incessant.

It was a fairly close analogue of the Viking period, although the ship
technology was less advanced.  Still, the vessels recovered from the period
were quite large -- up to 60 feet and better -- and capable of carrying 40-80
people each.  They could also make it from the mainland to Britain quite
quickly, and once there travel far up the rivers.  Say 20 round trips a year,
or over a thousand people moved per vessel.

And Britannia was getting it from both directions; Irish ("Scotti") pirates
raided and laid waste all along the western shores, and Irish Gaels made
settlements in the vacated territories in the wake of the reivers.

The one in Argyle which later became the core of the Scottish kingdom of
Dalradia was the best known, but there were smaller nests all along the coast
of the Roman province southward.

So the Romano-Britons were being squeezed from both directions, and by
Pictish raiders coming overland and along the coasts from the north.  There
was a massive eruption in the late 4th century that saw devastation as far
south as London, and another shortly thereafter; and after 406 CE, the
central government structure broke down completely.

Most of the more Romanized portions of the province were utterly defenseless;
they'd been demilitarized for centuries.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Mon Dec  4 01:31:30 2000
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 20:31:30 EST
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.203130.EST.>

In a message dated 12/3/00 3:45:11 PM Mountain Standard Time,
roz-frank at uiowa.edu writes:

>Can anyone provide other bibliographic references concerning this
>shepherd's counting vocabulary?

-- article in the July edition of _British Archaeology_, to which the
following reply was made in the October issue (#48):

"The Brythonic branch of Celtic spoken in Britain at the time of the
Anglo-Saxon settlement subsequently divided into three branches - Breton,
Cornish and Welsh. Had the sheep-counting numerals been an independent
survival from the P-Celtic speech of northern Britain, they might be expected
to retain aspects of the original system. The inclusion in the sheep-counting
scores of features which, although occurring in Modern Welsh, are not found
in the cognate Celtic languages, and which can be shown in fact to have
developed only in Middle Welsh, shows that the scores must share a common
ancestor with Modern Welsh but not with Cornish and Breton.

The strongest evidence for this comes from the second decade of the scores
listed by Mr Gay. Welsh numerals of the second decade are formed by adding to
the two fixed points of `deg' (ten), and `pymtheg' (fifteen), and this is the
method also employed by the sheep-counting scores. It is not, however, the
system found in Cornish and Breton, whose only fixed point is `ten', and it
appears that this was also the case in Old Welsh. Moreover, the use in Welsh
of the preposition ar in the formation of the second-decade numeral is a
later innovation which again is echoed in the sheep-counting numerals.

Various dialects in northern England do retain hints of the British language,
but these traces are confined to a few individual words in the vocabulary,
such as the use in Yorkshire of the term `brat' for a rough working apron,
derived from the British term bratt (cloak). The sheep scores must be
attributed to more recent contacts with Celtic speakers, such as the Welsh
lead miners of Yorkshire."


From mcv at wxs.nl  Mon Dec  4 02:45:07 2000
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 03:45:07 +0100
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
In-Reply-To: <b1.3f1249d.2759e3bc@aol.com>
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.034507.0100.>

On Sat, 2 Dec 2000 00:33:48 EST, JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

>In a message dated 12/1/00 10:01:05 PM Mountain Standard Time,
>HSTAHLKE at gw.bsu.edu writes:

><< a Saudi student who is specialized in early Islamic scholarship mentioned
>that Arabic documents dealing with the 8th c. Muslim invasions of the Iberian
>Peninsula mention fighting against Goths.  >>

>-- operating from memory, I seem to recall that a number of Gothic prisoners
>of war were settled in western Anatolia around the time of Justinian, and
>formed a unit in the Byzantine armed forces for some time.

Most likely, the reference was to the conquest of the Visigothic
Kingdom of Spain by the Umayyad Caliphate (711).

(Peninsular) Spaniards are still called "Goths" (Godos) in the Canary
Is. and parts of Spanish America.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Mon Dec  4 10:53:43 2000
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 05:53:43 -0500
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.055343.0500.>

On Fri, 1 Dec 2000 23:19:10 -0500, Tristan Jones
<Tristan at MAIL.SCM-RPG.COM.AU> wrote:
> Means Britian's population in that era could have dropped from around 2.5
> million people (most likely estimate) to about 1 million and possibly a
> very
> low Celtic speaking population if we want the Anglo-Saxons to be about
> 30-50% the population order to compeltely wipe out the Celtic language and
> replace it with West Germanic. ...
> I know I hate asking this sort of question, however I must ask it
> Did the Anglo-Saxon arrivals slaughter and do genocide on Celtic peoples
> of Britanna before settleing in new areas.

Likelier the cause was natural causes. As I wrote in a recent message, there
is evidence that in AD535 something, likeliest a massive volcanic eruption
in Indonesia, darkened the sky so badly across the world that AD535 and
AD536 harvests were wiped out, causing massive famine.

I have also seen speculation about a Tunguska-type asteroid or comet
fragment impact in the English Midlands about this time. I read in a
separate source that in the 19th and early 20th century: peat diggers in
Ashton Moss and White Moss northeast of Manchester found under the peat
fallen forests of big trees all lying in the same direction, some broken off
their stumps, some showing fire damage, and some Roman pottery and coins on
the old ground surface.


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sun Dec  3 23:07:45 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 17:07:45 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.170745.0600.>

> That is it in itself is suprising, we must ask this question, Was Latin or a
> dialect of it spoken by the common people (not just the elite) in Britain
> around 5th century, like in Gaul, where a similar although might be smaller
> mirgation of Germanic speakers arrived around fall of Roman Empire. I think
> Latin was an language of elite only in Britain, would things be different if
> a Brito-Romance language was spoken by the common people instead of Celtic
> languages.

        Yes, in my view.  England would probably now be Romance territory.
But it is quite clear that, outside of the London area which was especially
hard hit by Anglo-Saxons, Latin/Romance was not established among the common
people.  This is shown among other things by the fact that the quality of
British Latin in this period is unusually good, indicating that it was
insulated from "vulgarizing" developments on the Continent, where Latin
really was established.  British Latin was a language learned in schools.

> Means Britian's population in that era could have dropped from around 2.5
> million people (most likely estimate) to about 1 million and possibly a
> very low Celtic speaking population if we want the Anglo-Saxons to be about
> 30-50% the population order to compeltely wipe out the Celtic language and
> replace it with West Germanic. We must ask the question how could a large
> population decline that far? what were the causes of it?

        It probably couldn't.  If there was a cause, it was probably the
plague of Justinian, which strangely enough seems to have somehow missed the
Anglo-Saxons (strongly indicating minimal contact across the frontier).  But
this is too late (around 550) to have had any effect on weakening the
Britons before the fisrt phase of the Conquest.  It was only after the
plague of Justinian had done its work that the AS conquest resumed.  Prior
to that, most observers would probably have guessed that the island was
likely to be partitioned indefinitely between the two sides, like Cyprus or
Hispaniola.

> I know I hate asking this sort of question, however I must ask it
> Did the Anglo-Saxon arrivals slaughter and do genocide on Celtic peoples
> of Britanna before settleing in new areas.

        Almost certainly not.  Enslavment (or enserfment) is much more
profitable than extermination/expulsion, and is the general practice of
conquerors.  People do not risk their lives so that they can spend the rest
of them looking at the back siide of an ox.

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Mon Dec  4 01:34:13 2000
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 20:34:13 EST
Subject: Mutual Comprehensibility of Middle West Low Germanic
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.203413.EST.>

In a message dated 12/3/00 5:37:12 PM Mountain Standard Time,
dlwhite at texas.net writes:

<<  It is my vague impression that Middle English, esp. Kentish, which
 is very conservative, would have been mutually comprehensible with Middle
 Dutch.  Any opinions? >>

-- with Frisian perhaps, but I wouldn't have thought with Netherlandish, at
that date. (14th century?).


From ruschep at nevada.edu  Mon Dec  4 02:14:25 2000
From: ruschep at nevada.edu (Philip Rusche)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 18:14:25 -0800
Subject: Mutual Comprehensibility of Middle West Low Germanic
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.181425.0800.>

I have never heard that Kentish was particularly conservative.  It might
have been more conservative grammatically than northern dialects, but its
vowel system went through a number of changes in the OE period and in the ME
period it tended to voice its fricatives (at least /f/ and /s/) initially.

Whether this would make it mutually intelligible with Middle Dutch or not, I
do not know, but I wouldn't think they would be and have never seen any
evidence that says they were.  Most of the Middle Dutch I have worked with
though has been from 14th- and 15th-century manuscripts and this might be
later than you are thinking of.

Philip Rusche

> It is my vague impression that Middle English, esp. Kentish, which
> is very conservative, would have been mutually comprehensible with Middle
> Dutch.  Any opinions?

>                                                          Dr. David L. White


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Mon Dec  4 05:41:50 2000
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 00:41:50 EST
Subject: Elite Dominance/Practicality
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.004150.EST.>

In a message dated 12/1/2000 11:00:14 PM, cristim at smart.ro writes:
<< Again to the best of my knowledge, apart from the Slavs, the following
language groups were represented in the Pannonian plains (roughly
post-Trianon Hungary) at some stage during the period between 300 and 1000
A.D.:
-Turkic and other Altaic languages: Avaric (see below), Bulgar, Cuman, Hunic,
Pechenegue.

-Germanic languages: Eastern Gothic, Gepidic, Baiuvaric ( questionable)

-Uralic languages: Hungarian

-Romance languages: Old (or Common) Romanian (Urrumaenisch, according to the
terminology used by Puscariu,1916).>>

Just a quick note. Add in (first millenium AD):
- Celtic inscriptions were found in Pannonia dating from the 4th century AD.
The Boii are placed in Pannonia as their new home by Ptolemy in the 2d
century AD.
- Iazyges Sarmatians held the land just east of the big bend in the Danube in
Pannonia about 250 AD and for some time afterward.
- Early "Germanic" tribes listed by Roman and Greek geographers (e.g.,
Scordisi).
- Dacian. (Many old maps of the Empire put the west border of the province
Dacia at about the river Tisza.)  I believe Thracian inscriptions have also
been found, 4th c. AD.  These may have been associated with Legion settlements.
- Classic Latin (as opposed to Old Rumanian).
- Byzantine Greek
- Frankish?

<<The actual fact of the possible co-existence of some (or most) of these
languages on a small territory should not , in my opinion, be judged by
comparison with some or another American state. Rather, we should think that
the period we are discussing is that of the great migration of peoples:some of
the above cited populations were just "passing through", others stayed for
smaller or longer periods of time, some others wandered back and forth in
search of better grazing fields etc. Furthermore there was no question yet of
a centralized state, standardized languages etc. >>

Well, really what you have is a major thoroughfare going through the region -
the Danube and a number of important river junctions - and that would have
attracted diverse people to "set up shop" simply on the basis of economics.
In such a situation, the advantage might go to those who could speak many of
the languages at any moment in time.  Or to those who adopted a more
universal language that could transcend the differences between languages.
There was a period of time when Latin would have satisfied that function.
But with its passing as the universal tongue, the region would have been ripe
for another common language and Magyar might have supplied it - without the
Magyars ever forcing anyone to speak the language.

Regards,
Steve Long


From CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU  Mon Dec  4 02:12:18 2000
From: CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU (CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 20:12:18 -0600
Subject: Celtic Germanic relationship
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.201218.0600.>

>From:	IN%"Indo-European at xkl.com"  3-DEC-2000 17:36:54.83
>Subj:	RE: Re[2]: Celtic Germanic relationship

>On Fri, 1 Dec 2000 01:52:23 -0500, "Brian M. Scott"
><BMScott at stratos.net> wrote:

>>>> Eg., the PrtGrmc word for "iron" is a Celtic loan, as are several
>>>> other terms (ruler and servant, for instance) and the form of these
>>>> loans indicates that they were borrowed before the first Germanic
>>>> sound-shift, since it underwent that change.

>>BJE> Do these loans provide evidence for all three consonant grades?
>>BJE> The only words that come to mind are *i:sarn- (iron) and *ri:k- (power),
>>BJE> which only provide evidence for PIE *g -> PGmc *k.

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal replied:

>>What about Goth. <andbahts>, OHG <ampahti>, ON <amba'tt> (specialized
>>to 'bondswoman'), etc., from Celt. <ambactus> 'Dienstmann' (here with
>>Latin ending)? Or OHG <Walh> from the Celtic tribal name <Volcae>?
>>They appear to offer evidence for PIE *k -> PGmc *h.

The former could as well be attributed to a long-standing synchronic rule of
Germanic: /-kt- -gt-/ -> [xt].

>On the other hand, a word like Celt. (*bhle:wos >) *bli:wos > Gmc.
>*bli:waz "lead" (German <Blei>) offers no evidence for *b -> *p (nor
>does *ambaktos -> *ambahtaz).

This one is thorny for several reasons: Celtic /b/ typically reflects PIE /bh/
rather than rare /b/, and it is far from clear whether (traditional) PIE voiced
stops and voiced aspirates would already have merged in (pre)-Celtic at the
time of the borrowing.  Nor is it clear that _Blei_ was actually borrowed from
Celtic: PIE _*bhleHiwo-_ (e-coloring laryngeal) would produce exactly the right
outcome and relate neatly with _Blech_ 'sheetmetal' < _*bhlHi-go-_, which
cannot be Celtic.

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


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sun Dec  3 22:50:15 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 16:50:15 -0600
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.165015.0600.>

        I believe Polome wrote his dissertation (Brussels) on this subject.
You might want to see what he said.

                                                       Dr. David L. White


From CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU  Mon Dec  4 02:23:39 2000
From: CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU (CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 20:23:39 -0600
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.202339.0600.>

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:

>In Collinge's "The Laws of Indo-European", under "Siever's Law II"
>(i.e. the development of PIE *gwh), reference is made to a work by
>Seebold 1967 ("Die Vertretung idg. *gwh- in Germanischen", KZ
>81.104-133).  In Collinge's summary table, it is stated that "*/gwh/"
>gives /b/ in initial position (except before /u/).

The idea is not original with Seebold, but was already proposed in the 19th
century, though I do not remember by whom.  I thought I could spare you by
referring you to Seebolds _Vergleichendes etymologisches Woerterbuch der
germanischen starken Verben_, but a quick survey of the entries does look as if
_bitten_ is the only strong very showing this development.  So I guess there's
no substitute for checking the original article.  Of course, it's no surprise
that Pokorny doesn't accept it, since he doeasn't accept much of anything after
1900.

Regards

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


From xavier.delamarre at free.fr  Mon Dec  4 20:45:31 2000
From: xavier.delamarre at free.fr (Xavier Delamarre)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 21:45:31 +0100
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
In-Reply-To: <m3ng2tc9uda503tvd9a3ig9723h4f29rak@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.214531.0100.>

le 2/12/00 3:36, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal à mcv at wxs.nl a écrit :

> In Collinge's "The Laws of Indo-European", under "Siever's Law II"
> (i.e. the development of PIE *gwh), reference is made to a work by
> Seebold 1967 ("Die Vertretung idg. *gwh- in Germanischen", KZ
> 81.104-133).  In Collinge's summary table, it is stated that "*/gwh/"
> gives /b/ in initial position (except before /u/).  What is this
> about?  Pokorny doesn't seem to recognize this development, and the
> only root with initial *gwh- that I found in Pokorny and that I was
> able to link to initial *b- in Germanic would be *gwhedh- "bitten,
> begehren".  (I thought if anybody here knows, I might spare myself the
> inconvenience of getting hold of the appropiate issue of Kuhn's
> Zeitschrift ...)

> =======================
> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
> mcv at wxs.nl

It is Seebold's personnal invention that IE *gwh- becomes Germanic b-. His
edition of Kluge's "Etym. Wörterb. der deutschen Spr." (22. Auflage, 1989)
uses the law aboundently, e.g. _bähen_ < *ghwre:- (p 54), _bitten_ <
*ghwedh-, OIr. guidid etc. (p. 88).

It has been rejected by some linguists (Polomé) but accepted by others like
Calvert Watkins (see his "IE Roots" : Eng. bane < OEng. bana < germ. *bano:n
< IE *gwhen- 'strike', and his "How to kill a Dragon", 423).

I find the law very convincing.

The discovery in the last decades that IE *ghw- becomes b- in Germanic and
w- in Gaulish is the best proof that IE comparative grammar is not a dead
science and can still undergo improvements.

XD


From dlwhite at texas.net  Mon Dec  4 16:50:40 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 10:50:40 -0600
Subject: Thorn and Edh in OE
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.105040.0600.>

        'Tis a minor matter, but it is not true (as was pointed out long ago
by Stockwell and Barritt in their rejoinder to Hockett), that in OE thorn
and edh are used indiscriminately.  The general pattern (which unfortunately
is not strong enough to be a rule) is that thorn is used initially and edh
is used after vowels.  (Usage vacillates even more than usual in
environments not captured by one of these formulations.)
Even Kuhn, a veritably rabid anti-Hibernicist generally, was forced to
admit, soto voce, that this distribution probably reflects influence from
Irish spelling, where a distinction between intial and post-vocalic
environments is usual (and for various obscure reasons necessary).  It
appears that the original rule was to use "th" initially and "d"
post-vocalicaly, and that when thorn and edh replaced these, they inherited
this distribution.
        The odd thing is that in Irish post-vocalic "d" should, under
ordinary circumstances, spell /dh/, not /th/.  But cases like "peccad"
versus "peccath" show that there was some confusion on this point.  It seems
that, in final position, "d" was accepted as a spelling for /th/ in Irish.
This is made more likely by the fact that the "d" spellings are younger,
which would, if taken literally, indicate that the opposite of final
devocing had occurred.  Given the example of other languages, this does not
seem likely.


From dlwhite at texas.net  Mon Dec  4 22:46:10 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 16:46:10 -0600
Subject: Coifi
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.164610.0600.>

        Before I get reaked over the coals for not knowing something that I
do know, speaking of Germanic priests, and whether or not they existed,
there is always Coifi of Bedean fame.  On this I have two questions:

        1)  Since the early Germans presumably did not have priests (except
for mixed "chieftain"-priests as in Iceland, but Coifi was clearly not one
of these), what is Coifi doing there?  (And I seem to recall, however
vaguely, that he is not the only pagan priest mentioned by Bede.)
        2) Since OE presumably did not have /oi/, what is the /oi/ in his
name doing there?  He should have been "Cafi", with long /a/.  Or perhaps
"Coefi", but even then Germanic /o/ exists only in foreign borrowings or
where restored by analogy.

        So something is not quite right here ...

                                                        Dr. David L. White


From cristim at smart.ro  Sun Dec  3 18:36:21 2000
From: cristim at smart.ro (Cristian Mocanu)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 20:36:21 +0200
Subject: Herceg
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.203621.0200.>

    A quick note on Herceg in Serbo-Croatian:
  Germ.Herzog<Hung.herceg<S.-Cr.herceg.
                                      Cristian


From bronto at pobox.com  Sun Dec  3 21:28:01 2000
From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 13:28:01 -0800
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (was: minimal pairs ex: PIE e/o
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.132801.0800.>

Robert Whiting <whiting at cc.helsinki.fi> wrote:
> . . . you may have noticed that IPA is the International PHONETIC
> Alphabet, not the *International PHONEMIC Alphabet. . . .

And yet this here booklet "The Principles of the International Phonetic
Association" (1949, reprinted 1974) contains both narrow (phonetic) and
broad (phonemic) transcriptions in IPA.

--
Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Mon Dec  4 10:44:16 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 10:44:16 +0000
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.104416.0000.>

Gabor Sandi writes:

> On the other hand, the same phoneme occurs in each member of the following
> pairs of words, despite the obvious differences in pronunciation:

> lick - fall  : both have the phoneme /l/, even though one is "clear", the
> other is "dark" (this is true for England - I believe that in the US, both
> /l/'s have a "dark" pronunciation)

Indeed.  In North America, and in much of Scotland, /l/ is always dark,
while in Wales and in Ireland it is always clear.

Phonetically intriguing, however, is the southeast of England, in which
syllable-final /l/ is entirely delateralized and realized as something
resembling [o].  So, 'field' is [fiod], 'milk' is [mIok], 'hill' is [hIo],
and 'feel' is [fio].  However, 'feeling' is still [filIN], with a clear [l],
and so I suppose we must still analyze this [o] as an allophone of /l/.

> calm - kitten        : both have /k/, even though one is velar, the other
> palatal

Agreed.  I can see no plausible alternative to regarding both sounds as
allophones of /k/.

> pet - spin   : both have  /p/, even though one is aspirated, the other not

More complicated.  The ordinary contrast between /p/ and /b/ is neutralized
in this position.  Our orthography writes <p>, and our intuitions --
at least among those of us who are literate -- is that this voiceless
unaspirated [p] is still /p/.  But there is another analysis, in which
this [p] is assigned instead to the phoneme /b/.  Hardly anybody has
ever seen this second analysis as attractive, but I don't think we can
simply dismiss it as plainly wrong.

Here is a proposal -- not too serious.  English syllable-initial /s/
can only ever be followed by a voiced consonant: /b d g v l m n w/, and
possibly one or two others, such as /y/.  But this following voiced
consonant is always partly or wholly devoiced by the preceding /s/.

As far as I can see, this analysis can only be falsified by an accent
in which the initial cluster of 'sphere' is phonetically distinguished
from the initial cluster of 'svelte', thus requiring us to set up both
/sf-/ and /sv-/.

> However, [x] and [ç] are beginning to go their separate ways in German, and
> to act like separate phonemes, just as bilabial [f] and laryngeal [h] do in
> Japanese (see my argument in the previous message). If you won't take my word
> for it, read the most recent edition of Duden's German Grammar, in which
> there is a very interesting discussion of exactly this issue. The main piece
> of evidence is from recent loanwords like Chalikose [çaliko:zE] and
> Chanukka [xanuka], showing that, at least before initial /a/, there is now a
> potential contrast, and we have a nascent phonemic contrast on our hands.

This is *extremely* interesting.  Many thanks for the report.

> <RW>I'm surprised that you haven't included /x/ as an English fricative.
> Although once present and then lost, is has surely been borrowed back in
> words like 'ach', 'loch' and names like 'Bach'.

> <GS>Actually, I'd rather include the phone [x] as the allophone of /h/ in
> word-final position. Of course, if you consider channukkah and chutzpah as
> part of English, /x/ will have to be included as a new phoneme.

I'm not convinced of this.  The sound [x] is used only by a minority
of speakers, mainly well-educated speakers -- Scotland excepted -- and
I think we might more plausibly regard its presence as a sign that the
word containing it is regarded as foreign and as incompletely anglicized.
After all, educated speakers often pronounce loanwords from French in
a self-consciously more-or-less French manner: 'genre', 'croissant',
'joie de vivre', and others.  But I don't think anybody would want
to take this observation as evidence that English has acquired a few
new phonemes.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Mon Dec  4 12:36:24 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 12:36:24 +0000
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (PS)
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.123624.0000.>

This is a follow-up to my earlier posting, on foreign words and
names.

It is noteworthy that there are at least two ways of treating
foreign words and names: nativization and retention of foreign
phonological features.  These often compete.

For example, take the Spanish name 'Don Juan'.  In Britain, the
tradition is to anglicize this name, and so to pronounce the last
part as 'JOO- at n'.  This is obvious in Byron's poem 'Don Juan', in
which the name is constantly rhymed with things like 'new one' and
'true one'.  In the US, the tradition is to retain the Spanish
pronunciation as far as possible, and hence to say 'HWAHN', or,
these days, 'WAHN'.  But the second pronunciation has been steadily
gaining ground in Britain, and it is now recommended by John Wells
in his pronouncing dictionary as the preferred UK pronunciation,
though the traditional 'JOO- at n' is still listed as a permissible,
but disfavored, alternative.

Similar is 'Don Quixote', where the British tradition is 'KWIKS- at t',
while the US one is 'kee-HOH-tay'.  Astoundingly, John Wells
recommends the first not only for Brits but even for Yanks.
I think he must be wrong here.  I never, ever, heard 'KWIKS- at t'
before I came to Britain, and I didn't believe it when I did
hear it.  Even so, my US dictionary gives 'KWIKS- at t' as a second-
choice pronunciation.  Does anybody in the US really say this?
And do most Brits really still say 'KWIKS- at t'?  Not at my university,
I think.

Another example is the name 'Goethe', which is a little harder to
anglicize.  In my experience, most academics use a German-style
pronunciation.  However, John Wells recommends for Brits what I will
write as 'GUR-t@', except, of course, that the <r> there is not
pronounced.  Amazingly, he gives 'GAY-t@' -- something like 'gator' --
as the preferred US pronunciation, even though I don't think I ever
heard this in my 25 years in the States.  Can any Yanks confirm this?
My US dictionary gives *only* the German-style pronunciation, which
is what I usually heard in the States, except that my high-school
English teacher called him 'GUR-thee', a pronunciation I have never
heard from anyone else.

In the other direction, the tradition in Spain has usually been to
hispanize foreign names.  So, for example, the name 'Shakespeare'
has traditionally been pronounced 'shah-keh-speh-AH-reh', with five
syllables, stress on the fourth syllable, and completely Spanish
phonology apart from the retention of the non-native esh.  In recent
years, however, it has come to be regarded as more fashionable to
reproduce the English pronunciation as closely as possible, typically
producing something like 'SHEH-keh-speer'.  Some years ago, a
distinguished Spanish academic appeared on TV, and he used the
traditional five-syllable version.  He was widely laughed at,
even though he was merely expressing a preference for the traditional
policy over the modern one.  But I have the impression that the
traditional policy is very much on the way out in Spain, on the
whole anyway.  Yet Spaniards, in my experience, still pronounce
'Mozart' as though it were a Spanish <Mozar>, with theta, final
stress, and no /t/.  Is this still the norm in Spanish?

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Sun Dec  3 22:00:52 2000
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 17:00:52 -0500
Subject: [Fwd: [ArchTheoMeth] genes and languages--Kurds and Georgians]
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.170052.0500.>

Geoffrey Summers <summers at metu.edu.tr> forwarded a message about
mitochondrial DNA (= mtDNA) and how it might be related to language; a
researcher compared mtDNA in Kurds and Georgians (= Kartvelians).

I read that mtDNA is transmitted from the mother only and reflects the
maternal line. If people A has a continuous habit of taking women from
people B, then B's mtDNA will come along with it. Also, mtDNA can't change
when a people is conquered by outsiders and so gradually learns another
language. People have been moving about so much that in any area their
racial types will be thoroughly mixed by now.

Sorry about this diversion into biology, but: They say that mtDNA comes
from the mother only. But I read that a spermatozoon has a few mitochondria
strapped round the base of its tail to give it power to swim. If so, how
often at fertilization does mtDNA from those mitochondria from the father,
get into the new individual? If so, that may upset studies based on mtDNA
types.


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Mon Dec  4 10:02:24 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 10:02:24 +0000
Subject: Kurds and Georgians [and Basques]
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.100224.0000.>

Geoffrey Summers writes:

[quoting]

>> The
>> genetic analysis points only to minor differences between the Georgians
>> and Kurds and the rest of the European populations and very different
>> from the Basque population (which Georgians are often linked to).  Their
>> conclusion is the linking of European mtDNA with the Indo-European
>> languages is seriously questioned.

> This came from the Archaeology and Theory list. There have been several
> responses on that list, including an objection to the position that
> Georgian and Basque are related.

Indeed.  A possible link between Basque and Kartvelian was pursued vigorously
during the period 1930-1960, and more feebly until about 1980.  The big name
here is Karl Bouda, though Georges Dumezil, Rene Lafon and Jan Braun also did
a lot of work on the topic.  All but Braun in fact tried to relate Basque not
just to Kartvelian, but to *all* the Caucasian languages -- even though the
several Caucasian families have never been shown to be related to one
another.

All this work was a hopeless failure.  Nothing of interest ever turned
up.  We have only the odd chance resemblance, like Basque <gu> 'we' and
Old Georgian <gw->, the first-plural agreement prefix in verbs.  Beyond
this, we find only laughers, like Georgian <kordzi> 'callus' and the
17th-century Basque hapax <ikorzirin> 'calluses on the hands of
workmen'.

Even the tiny handful of people still doggedly pursuing a Basque-
Caucasian link have given up on Kartvelian, and are now confining
their attention to North Caucasian -- still with no interesting results.

So far as I know, the only people still trying to relate Kartvelian to
anything at all are the Nostraticists, or some of them, who want to
put Kartvelian -- but not Basque -- into their Nostratic super-family.
Greenberg has so far committed himself to nothing with Kartvelian,
and appears to be reserving judgement, though he does suggest that
Kartvelian might be a distant relative of his Eurasiatic grouping,
though not a member of it.

The Basque-Kartvelian comparisons are all deeply flawed.

First, all are ahistorical.  They work with the modern languages,
and not with reconstructions.  In the Basque case, this was inevitable,
since Dumezil, Bouda and Lafon all did their work before Pre-Basque
was reconstructed.  Braun worked later, but ignored the reconstruction.
As a result, the "cognates" on offer are frequently ridiculous.

Second, they are all based squarely on miscellaneous resemblances,
with no phonological rhyme or reason.  A partial exception here is
Lafon, who really did try to set up some systematic correspondences
between Basque and Georgian, but without success.

In 1950, the great Basque linguist Luis Michelena, who was in fact
deeply sympathetic to a possible Basque-Caucasian link, published
a brief but scathing dismissal of the work of Bouda, the chief
malefactor here.  Michelena, in his usual terse and dry style,
demonstrated that Bouda's "comparisons" were strictly comic-book
stuff, underpinned by no linguistics at all.  An English translation
of this article will be appearing in a volume of English translations
of Michelena's articles on Basque, probably in late 2001, from John
Benjamins.  I commend it to anyone who is interested in seeing how
real linguistics differs from the accumulation of miscellaneous
resemblances.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Dec  5 10:59:54 2000
From: richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Richard Coates)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 10:59:54 +0000
Subject: yan tan tethera pethera pimp
In-Reply-To: <3A2AD7A3.7DC8A0B4@pobox.com> from "Anton Sherwood" at Dec 03,
 2000 03:30:43 PM
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.105954.0000.>

> roslyn frank wrote:

>> Can anyone provide other bibliographic references concerning
>> this shepherd's counting vocabulary?

Skeat, [Rev] Walter W. (1910) The sheep counting score. In Adelaide L.J.
Gosset (ed.) (1911) Shepherds of Britain: scenes from shepherd life.
London: Constable, 194-200.

Ellis, Alexander J. (1878) The Anglo-Cymric score. Transactions of the
Philological Society, 316-72.

Wills, Barclay (1938) Sheep-washing, marking and counting. In his
Shepherds of Sussex. London: Skeffington, 168-175.

White, James (1937) Sheep counting. Sussex County Magazine 9, 305-7.

I think the common view is now that this is likely to have been introduced to
England by Welsh drovers no earlier than the Middle Ages.

Richard Coates

--
Richard Coates
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QH, UK

Tel.: +44 (0)1273 678030 (secretary Jackie Gains)
Fax:  +44 (0)1273 671320
Email: richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Website: www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/richardc/index.html


From cjustus at mail.utexas.edu  Tue Dec  5 18:42:33 2000
From: cjustus at mail.utexas.edu (Carol F. Justus)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 12:42:33 -0600
Subject: yan tan tethera pethera pimp
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.124233.0600.>

This North Country (Welsh) counting system is dealt with (Justus, 1999,
Pre-decimal structures in counting and metrology. In: Numeral Types and
Changes Worldwide, ed. by Jadranka Gvozdanovich, 55-79. Berlin: de
Gruter.) in the context of more recent discoveries about early counting
systems in the Ancient Near East (see website with links:
http://www.dla.utexas.edu/depts/lrc/numerals/numerals.html).

Unfortunately, de Gruyter is a copyright provision that does not allow
this article to be put on the website, but others are there, and others
still in the process of being put up.

CFJ

Anton Sherwood wrote:

> roslyn frank wrote:

>> Can anyone provide other bibliographic references concerning
>> this shepherd's counting vocabulary?

> Brief mention in Karl Menninger, <Zahlwort und Ziffer: eine
> Kulturgeschichte der Zahlen> (1957-8), translated by Paul Broneer as
> <Number Words and Number Symbols: a Cultural History of Numbers> (MIT
> Press 1969, Dover 1992); see pp 124-5 of the English edition.


From dlwhite at texas.net  Tue Dec  5 18:59:15 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 12:59:15 -0600
Subject: Welsh Counting
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.125915.0600.>

> In a message dated 12/3/00 3:45:11 PM Mountain Standard Time,
> roz-frank at uiowa.edu writes:

>> Can anyone provide other bibliographic references concerning this
>> shepherd's counting vocabulary?

        The matter is treated in Klehmola(2000) "The Origins of the Northern
Subject Rule:  A Case of Early Contact", in "Celtic Englishes II, where it
is argued that both things are indeed the result of Brittonic sub-stratatal
influence.  From this work it appears that the major work on the subject is
Barry(1969) "Traditional Enumeration in the North Country", FoL 7:  75-91.
        According to Klehmola, even Barry has to admit that "the swing
toward importation [from Welsh] may have become more dogmatic than the
available evidence can justify, and indeed this has found support
principally because of the diffculties of the survival theory rather than on
acount of any positive information which has been put forward".
        Since "the difficulties of the survival theory" are critically
dependent on the evidence of Old Welsh, we must ask what exactly this is,
and more to the point whether it is enough to exclude both of the following
possibilities:
        1) That during Old Welsh times what might be called the northern and
southern Brittonic systems of counting were in competition, with only the
southern happeneing to be attested in Old Welsh, which is so scantily
attested that it is often treated for practical purposes as close to
non-existent.
        2) That the northern system might have been imported into Wales and
Welsh with the same migration (of sorts) from northwestern England that
brought Taliesin and the Gododdin.  That there were extensive Dark Age
contacts between the two areas is not controversial.

        Futhermore it may be noted the counting system in question, though
it is called the "sheep-counting numerals", is in fact used primarily by
women and children in the home environment.  This is suspicious, and
indicative of Brittonic survival, for two reasons:
        1) Dying languages typically survive longest in the home
environment.  For a counting system often used in counting games to survive
as a fossilized relict after the dying language had died out even here would
not be surprising.
        2) For English women and children to have much contact with Welsh
miners, on the other hand, or to borrow their counting system from them,
_would_ indeed be surprising.  Both opportunity and motivation are notably
lacking.

                                                        Dr. David L. White


From BMScott at stratos.net  Tue Dec  5 04:56:44 2000
From: BMScott at stratos.net (Brian M. Scott)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 23:56:44 -0500
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.20001202075153.0076bf84@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.235644.0500.>

rf> Can anyone provide other bibliographic references concerning this
rf> shepherd's counting vocabulary?

About three years ago Carol Justus gave a paper on it (or better, on
them) at the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo;
I seem to recall that she saw in them traces of early IE schemes of
number collection.  I don't know whether she's published any of this,
but failing a better recommendation you could try her at
<cjustus at mail.utexas.edu>.

Brian M. Scott


From jrader at Merriam-Webster.com  Tue Dec  5 20:26:59 2000
From: jrader at Merriam-Webster.com (Jim Rader)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 15:26:59 -0500
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
In-Reply-To: <04331812516214@m-w.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.152659.0500.>

The record in question from which the name <Coit Maur> is drawn
is Asser's Latin life of King Alfred, composed in the late 9th
century.  Asser was a Welshman and most likely substituted
traditional Welsh names for the places he mentions in Wessex and
elsewhere in Lloegr, so he is not a reliable source for Brythonic
outside of Wales.  This point was made a long time ago by
Jackson in _Language and History in Early Britain_.

Also, the vocalism of the Common Celtic word for "big" is not
necessarily <mo:r->, though the pre-Celtic etymon has been
reconstructed as such (by Lambert and others).  The attested word
has <a> in all early forms, e.g., Gaulish <-maros> in proper
names,  Old Irish <ma:r>, Welsh <mawr>.  Old Irish also has
<mo:r>, the only form retained in later Irish and Scottish Gaelic (I
think), but this may be due to the influence of the comparative
<mo:>.  At any rate, conventional wisdom is that I-E <a:> and <o:>
fell together in Common Celtic in non-final syllables.

Jim Rader

> Or, Brythonic in what is now England managed to go through all or some of
> the same changes as in Wales (consonant lenition, vowel shifts) as in Wales
> before its speakers forgot their language and learned Anglo-Saxon. E.g. an
> Anglo-Saxon record says that the Selwood forest in Wessex was called Silva
> Magna in Latin and Coitmaur in "British", whereas the old Common Celtic
> word for "big" was "mo:r-" (and in Gaelic still is).
>[Anthony Appleyard]


From rayhendon at satx.rr.com  Tue Dec  5 13:19:12 2000
From: rayhendon at satx.rr.com (Ray Hendon)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 07:19:12 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.071912.0600.>

----- Original Message -----
From: "David L. White" <dlwhite at texas.net>

>Enslavment (or enserfment) is much more profitable than extermination/
>expulsion, and is the general practice of conquerors.  People do not risk
>their lives so that they can spend the rest of them looking at the back siide
>of an ox.

>From my limited study of Saxons, Jutes and Angles, slavery (in the Roman
sense of definition) was not practiced among these peoples.  Their "slaves"
were local people who had been such bad farmers that they could not take
care of their families and had to assign themselves to another member of the
tribal group.  Furthermore, their "slaves" were not doomed to be permanently
enslaved.  They could dig themselves out of slavery and resume their normal
life as a citizen if they prospered under the domain of their master.

Furthermore, I am not certain, but it looks to me as if the farming and
hunting conditions of England were not especially suited for slave
ownership.  Slaves were tradtionally used in enterprises where the
production of the slave was so high as to be able to support not only the
physical needs of the slave but have a substantial surplus for the owner to
enjoy.  This is the reason that farms in early New England were unsuitable
for slaves.  Large farms with highly productive soil or mines with valuable
mineral deposits might be suitable for slaves, but not small land parcels of
typical AS farms and woodlands.

One other note on the process of the AS incursion and the development of
English: It is quite apparent that the AS people brought their women with
them, so that the language of the new-born would be that of the mother.  If
they had taken local wives, then the Celtic language would have had a much
longer life and would seemingly influence the new language that would
ultimately develop from the migration.

To me these suppositions and inferences point to the Celts being either
killed or completely displaced by the invaders.  But I am open to other
possibilities.


From hwhatting at hotmail.com  Tue Dec  5 09:46:30 2000
From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 10:46:30 +0100
Subject: Polish in Turkey
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.104630.0100.>

On Thu, 16 Nov 2000 10:09:52 +0000 Larry Trask wrote:

>There are a few other
>odds and ends.  When I was living in Turkey, I was told that there
>was a single Polish-speaking village somewhere in the middle of
>the country.  I never got to see it, but anyway I doubt that Polish
>was already spoken in Anatolia before the Ottoman conquest.

I remember being told about this village when I was hearing a Summer Course
in Polish history in Krakow 1989. The teacher (I forgot his name) told us
that these people are descendants of Poles taken as prisoners of war in the
17th century, when Poland was constantly at war with the Ottoman empire.
Best regards,
Hans-Werner Hatting


From thorinn at diku.dk  Tue Dec  5 20:59:47 2000
From: thorinn at diku.dk (Lars Henrik Mathiesen)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 20:59:47 -0000
Subject: [Fwd: [ArchTheoMeth] genes and languages--Kurds and Georgians]
In-Reply-To: "anthony.appleyard@UMIST.AC.UK"'s message of Sun, 3 Dec 2000
 17:00:52 -0500
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.205947.0000.>

> Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 17:00:52 -0500
> From: "anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk" <anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK>

> Sorry about this diversion into biology, but: They say that mtDNA comes
> from the mother only. But I read that a spermatozoon has a few mitochondria
> strapped round the base of its tail to give it power to swim. If so, how
> often at fertilization does mtDNA from those mitochondria from the father,
> get into the new individual? If so, that may upset studies based on mtDNA
> types.

I just looked it up in a human biology textbook. In normal
fertilization, the sperm doesn't penetrate the egg cell as such ---
the membranes of the sperm head and the oocyte merge to let the sperm
nucleus inside, but the tail and its mitochondria are left outside.

I doubt that anything viable results if those parts of the sperm do
enter the oocyte, so the answer to the question is probably 'never.'

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)


From edsel at glo.be  Thu Dec  7 05:41:42 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 00:41:42 -0500
Subject: Herceg
In-Reply-To: <000101c05d70$d3fa7220$f902a8c0@smart.ro>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.004142.0500.>

At 20:36 3/12/00 +0200, you wrote:
>    A quick note on Herceg in Serbo-Croatian:
>  Germ.Herzog<Hung.herceg<S.-Cr.herceg.
>                                      Cristian

I suppose you meant the arrows to point the other way?

Ed. Selleslagh


From tmcfadde at babel.ling.upenn.edu  Tue Dec  5 16:48:37 2000
From: tmcfadde at babel.ling.upenn.edu (Thomas McFadden)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 11:48:37 -0500
Subject: Mutual Comprehensibility of Middle West Low Germanic
In-Reply-To: <01c501c05d97$ec7f8980$d63dd883@nevada.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.114837.0500.>

In grammatical terms, Kentish is, to my knowledge, considered
the most conservative dialect of ME.  The distinction between dative and
accusative case in particular was maintained into the 14th century in some
texts (e.g. the Ayenbite of Inwyt), i.e. about 2 centuries after it was
pretty much gone elsewhere.  Cynthia Allen wrote a book that goes into the
loss of case marking in OE and ME in quite a bit of detail, looking
through several individual texts.  There are further references there on
Kentish conservativeness.

Allen, Cynthia. 1995.  Case Marking and Reanalysis.  Oxford: Clarendon
Press.

On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, Philip Rusche wrote:

> I have never heard that Kentish was particularly conservative.  It might
> have been more conservative grammatically than northern dialects, but its
> vowel system went through a number of changes in the OE period and in the ME
> period it tended to voice its fricatives (at least /f/ and /s/) initially.


From edsel at glo.be  Thu Dec  7 06:26:10 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 01:26:10 -0500
Subject: Mutual Comprehensibility of Middle West Low Germanic
In-Reply-To: <01c501c05d97$ec7f8980$d63dd883@nevada.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.012610.0500.>

At 18:14 3/12/00 -0800, you wrote:
>I have never heard that Kentish was particularly conservative.  It might
>have been more conservative grammatically than northern dialects, but its
>vowel system went through a number of changes in the OE period and in the ME
>period it tended to voice its fricatives (at least /f/ and /s/) initially.

>Whether this would make it mutually intelligible with Middle Dutch or not, I
>do not know, but I wouldn't think they would be and have never seen any
>evidence that says they were.  Most of the Middle Dutch I have worked with
>though has been from 14th- and 15th-century manuscripts and this might be
>later than you are thinking of.

With some guesswork, far less than half of it, I suppose. Older (say
pre-1200) MD texts are pretty scarce, and OD is extremely rare. 14th
century Dutch is already sufficiently comprehensible to modern Dutch
speakers, especially to those who can speak modern West-Flemish dialects
which are the most conservative ones, and in addition, MD is based upon
Middle West-Flemish dialect (e.g. Brugge, Damme).

Ed. Selleslagh


From mcv at wxs.nl  Tue Dec  5 18:14:26 2000
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 19:14:26 +0100
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
In-Reply-To: <B651A6E1.288%xavier.delamarre@free.fr>
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.191426.0100.>

On Mon, 04 Dec 2000 21:45:31 +0100, Xavier Delamarre
<xavier.delamarre at free.fr> wrote:

>It is Seebold's personnal invention that IE *gwh- becomes Germanic b-. His
>edition of Kluge's "Etym. Wvrterb. der deutschen Spr." (22. Auflage, 1989)
>uses the law aboundently, e.g. _bdhen_ < *ghwre:- (p 54), _bitten_ <
>*ghwedh-, OIr. guidid etc. (p. 88).

>It has been rejected by some linguists (Polomi) but accepted by others like
>Calvert Watkins (see his "IE Roots" : Eng. bane < OEng. bana < germ. *bano:n
>< IE *gwhen- 'strike', and his "How to kill a Dragon", 423).

>I find the law very convincing.

>The discovery in the last decades that IE *ghw- becomes b- in Germanic and
>w- in Gaulish is the best proof that IE comparative grammar is not a dead
>science and can still undergo improvements.

Thanks.

As I may have mentioned here earlier, I have been investigating the
possible ramifications of hypothesizing that not only *k/*g/*gh had
labialized (*kw/*gw/*ghw) and palatalized (*k^/*g^/*gh^) variants, but
that this was originally the case for *all* (pre-)PIE consonants.

One interesting possibility is **pw, which would have mostly merged
with *kw (for obvious reasons, a labialized labial would have been a
highly marked phoneme), but with *p in (pre-)Germanic.  This could be
the case in the words "liver", "four", "-leven, -lve", "oven", "wolf"
and some others ("leave", "sieve", etc.).  The existence of a parallel
development *ghw (I prefer to spell it this way) > Gmc. *b would be
most interesting.  To be fully parallel with **pw -> *f, there should
be quite a number of exceptions to the "law" (that it's controversial
is therefore a good thing in principle).  I'm not too pleased with
"bane", however, being from the same root as *gunT- "Kampf, Schlacht",
which means a putative **bhwen- (for PIE *ghwen) "to kill" is out of
the question.  Not that it matters for judging the etymology by its
own merits...

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl


From petegray at btinternet.com  Tue Dec  5 20:49:15 2000
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 20:49:15 -0000
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.204915.0000.>

There seem to be so many good counter-examples, where *gwh > Germanic w,
that I confess I am surprised the alternative view exists.  Is there perhaps
a specific set of circumstances in which it is alleged that *gwh > b, or is
an idea that can be safely scrap-heaped?

In addition to snow, warm, and kidney, I find, for example:
*gwhen  Skt hanmi  Gothic winne (pain) or wunns and the probably related
English "wound" < *gwhntis

*gwhemer  "swelling"  Latin femur, OE wenn "tumour"

*gwhoksos  Greek phoksos, OHG wahs "sharp"

*gwhesl  "gall"  English weld (conjectured Gothic wizdils, based on late
Latin uisdil-)

and some others.

Why is this outcome questioned?

Peter


From petegray at btinternet.com  Tue Dec  5 20:57:17 2000
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 20:57:17 -0000
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.205717.0000.>

XD said
>I find the law very convincing... (that IE *ghw- becomes b- in Germanic and
w- in Gaulish)

Please give examples, other than the contested "bane" and the isolated
"bitten".    The semantic connection of bdhen with *gwhre: seems a little
odd - but perhaps that is a failing in my German.  I believe one means "to
toast" and the other "to sense, feel".

Peter


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Tue Dec  5 15:41:53 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 10:41:53 -0500
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes
In-Reply-To: <E142t6W-00030V-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.104153.0500.>

	I'm not so sure about both <l>'s being "dark" in American English.
They are usually very different from one another.
	Initial <l> is closer to dark /l/ but not as velar as the /l/ I've
often heard among Scots
	Final <l> is usually delateralized to the point that words such as
<caw> & <call> are pronounced the same; e.g. <sail> /seiw/, <sell> /sEw/,
<girl> /g at RO/ [O = my feeble attempt at a vowel derived from /w/]
	It's my impression that final dark /l/ is more of a Northeastern
phenomenon and more common among older speakers
	All in all, it's similar to the situation of <l> in Brazilian
Portuguese, although in Brazil, final <l> may be closer to /u/ than /w/
	There are, of course, many regional differences.
	In the South, for a lot of people final <l> is silent; e.g. <gulf>
/g at f/, call /ka:/ --although this is more common in "closed" syllables
	You also hear final <l> as something between /l/ & /r/; e.g. <call>
as "carl"

>Gabor Sandi writes:

>> On the other hand, the same phoneme occurs in each member of the following
>> pairs of words, despite the obvious differences in pronunciation:

>> lick - fall  : both have the phoneme /l/, even though one is "clear", the
>> other is "dark" (this is true for England - I believe that in the US, both
>> /l/'s have a "dark" pronunciation)

>Indeed.  In North America, and in much of Scotland, /l/ is always dark,
>while in Wales and in Ireland it is always clear.

[snip]

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From jaswhite at earthlink.net  Tue Dec  5 21:22:19 2000
From: jaswhite at earthlink.net (Jim White)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 15:22:19 -0600
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (PS)
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.152219.0600.>

Goethe Street in St. Louis is locally pronounced 'GOthE' rhyming with
'both he'.  The author is usually 'GURt@', with the 'r' very slight.

Larry Trask wrote:

> Another example is the name 'Goethe', which is a little harder to
> anglicize.  In my experience, most academics use a German-style
> pronunciation.  However, John Wells recommends for Brits what I will
> write as 'GUR-t@', except, of course, that the <r> there is not
> pronounced.  Amazingly, he gives 'GAY-t@' -- something like 'gator' --
> as the preferred US pronunciation, even though I don't think I ever
> heard this in my 25 years in the States.  Can any Yanks confirm this?
> My US dictionary gives *only* the German-style pronunciation, which
> is what I usually heard in the States, except that my high-school
> English teacher called him 'GUR-thee', a pronunciation I have never
> heard from anyone else.

--
Jim White


From mcv at wxs.nl  Wed Dec  6 07:14:48 2000
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 08:14:48 +0100
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (PS)
In-Reply-To: <E142ur2-0002fh-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <WED.6.DEC.2000.081448.0100.>

On Mon, 04 Dec 2000 12:36:24 +0000, larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry
Trask) wrote:

>In the other direction, the tradition in Spain has usually been to
>hispanize foreign names.  So, for example, the name 'Shakespeare'
>has traditionally been pronounced 'shah-keh-speh-AH-reh', with five
>syllables, stress on the fourth syllable, and completely Spanish
>phonology apart from the retention of the non-native esh.  In recent
>years, however, it has come to be regarded as more fashionable to
>reproduce the English pronunciation as closely as possible, typically
>producing something like 'SHEH-keh-speer'.

Or something like Che'spir.

>Some years ago, a
>distinguished Spanish academic appeared on TV, and he used the
>traditional five-syllable version.  He was widely laughed at,
>even though he was merely expressing a preference for the traditional
>policy over the modern one.  But I have the impression that the
>traditional policy is very much on the way out in Spain, on the
>whole anyway.  Yet Spaniards, in my experience, still pronounce
>'Mozart' as though it were a Spanish <Mozar>, with theta, final
>stress, and no /t/.  Is this still the norm in Spanish?

I think I've also heard initial stress.  On Catalan radio, I think
it's /mozart/, with /z/, stress varies.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl


From edsel at glo.be  Thu Dec  7 08:49:58 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 03:49:58 -0500
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes
In-Reply-To: <E142t6W-00030V-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.034958.0500.>

[snip]
>Phonetically intriguing, however, is the southeast of England, in which
>syllable-final /l/ is entirely delateralized and realized as something
>resembling [o].  So, 'field' is [fiod], 'milk' is [mIok], 'hill' is [hIo],
>and 'feel' is [fio].  However, 'feeling' is still [filIN], with a clear [l],
>and so I suppose we must still analyze this [o] as an allophone of /l/.

>Larry Trask

[Ed]
As a non-specialist, I thought this is a pretty general phenomenon in IE
languages, if you allow some variation (syllable-final dark l becoming -o,
u, or -w):
French: Gaule [go:-l@] from Lat. Gal-lia, and many other words and
formations (e.g. cheval/chevaux [-vo:] instead of chevals).
Brazilian Portuguese: Canaval [karnava-u or -w]
Polish and some other Slavic lgs. : l > barred l [w] (cf. Serbo-Croat
Sloboda , Czech svoboda)
Spanish: Hoz from Lat. falc-em (via Foz or Halcem?)
Dutch: Koud (Eng. cold, Ger. kalt) and many other words and names (e.g.
Boudewijn --  Baldwin)
etc.

The only difference with the 'SE English phenomenon' is that these
languages, except Br. Port. (even though very acceptable to most, albeit
regionally),  have 'legalized' it.
I must say though, that I have often observed similar pronunciations (like
in 'solder') in New England USA.

Ed. Selleslagh


From douglas at nb.net  Tue Dec  5 13:14:00 2000
From: douglas at nb.net (Douglas G. Wilson)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 08:14:00 -0500
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (PS)
In-Reply-To: <E142ur2-0002fh-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.081400.0500.>

Naive impressions of a Yankee:

>For example, take the Spanish name 'Don Juan'.  In Britain, the
>tradition is to anglicize this name, and so to pronounce the last
>part as 'JOO- at n'.  This is obvious in Byron's poem 'Don Juan', in
>which the name is constantly rhymed with things like 'new one' and
>'true one'.  In the US, the tradition is to retain the Spanish
>pronunciation as far as possible, and hence to say 'HWAHN', or,
>these days, 'WAHN'.  But the second pronunciation has been steadily
>gaining ground in Britain, and it is now recommended by John Wells
>in his pronouncing dictionary as the preferred UK pronunciation,
>though the traditional 'JOO- at n' is still listed as a permissible,
>but disfavored, alternative.

I've never heard Byron's /dZu at n/, except with respect to Byron's work or as
a joke.

>Similar is 'Don Quixote', where the British tradition is 'KWIKS- at t',
>while the US one is 'kee-HOH-tay'.  Astoundingly, John Wells
>recommends the first not only for Brits but even for Yanks.
>I think he must be wrong here.  I never, ever, heard 'KWIKS- at t'
>before I came to Britain, and I didn't believe it when I did
>hear it.  Even so, my US dictionary gives 'KWIKS- at t' as a second-
>choice pronunciation.  Does anybody in the US really say this?
>And do most Brits really still say 'KWIKS- at t'?  Not at my university,
>I think.

I've NEVER heard /kwIks at t/. I've heard /kwiksout/ as a joke only.
"Quixotism" is /kwIks at tIz@m/, however.

>Another example is the name 'Goethe', which is a little harder to
>anglicize.  In my experience, most academics use a German-style
>pronunciation.  However, John Wells recommends for Brits what I will
>write as 'GUR-t@', except, of course, that the <r> there is not
>pronounced.  Amazingly, he gives 'GAY-t@' -- something like 'gator' --
>as the preferred US pronunciation, even though I don't think I ever
>heard this in my 25 years in the States.  Can any Yanks confirm this?
>My US dictionary gives *only* the German-style pronunciation, which
>is what I usually heard in the States, except that my high-school
>English teacher called him 'GUR-thee', a pronunciation I have never
>heard from anyone else.

Those who lack umlauts use something like /g at rt@/ or else /gEt@/ in my
experience. I don't remember hearing /geit@/. I think these are more or
less reasonable attempts to approximate the German vowel, and not
grotesqueries like /kwiks at t/.

-- Doug Wilson


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Tue Dec  5 16:01:32 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 11:01:32 -0500
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (PS)
In-Reply-To: <E142ur2-0002fh-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.110132.0500.>

[snip]
>Similar is 'Don Quixote', where the British tradition is 'KWIKS- at t',
>while the US one is 'kee-HOH-tay'.  Astoundingly, John Wells
>recommends the first not only for Brits but even for Yanks.
>I think he must be wrong here.  I never, ever, heard 'KWIKS- at t'
>before I came to Britain, and I didn't believe it when I did
>hear it.  Even so, my US dictionary gives 'KWIKS- at t' as a second-
>choice pronunciation.  Does anybody in the US really say this?

	Not that I ever heard. Not even from uneducated people. You do hear
"key-oh-dee" a lot, i.e. something like /kiowDi, ki'owDi/
	There is, however, quixotic /kwIksa:DIk/

>And do most Brits really still say 'KWIKS- at t'?  Not at my university,
>I think.

>Another example is the name 'Goethe', which is a little harder to
>anglicize.  In my experience, most academics use a German-style
>pronunciation.  However, John Wells recommends for Brits what I will
>write as 'GUR-t@', except, of course, that the <r> there is not
>pronounced.  Amazingly, he gives 'GAY-t@' -- something like 'gator' --
>as the preferred US pronunciation, even though I don't think I ever
>heard this in my 25 years in the States.  Can any Yanks confirm this?
>My US dictionary gives *only* the German-style pronunciation, which
>is what I usually heard in the States, except that my high-school
>English teacher called him 'GUR-thee', a pronunciation I have never
>heard from anyone else.

	It's still "GUR-tuh" /g at Rt@/, although I have heard ignorami say
"Go-eth"
	Midwesterners DO tend to pronounce German-American names with <oe>
as /e, eh/  as in "donkey shane" (danke schoen) but Goethe is still /g at Rt@/

>In the other direction, the tradition in Spain has usually been to
>hispanize foreign names.  So, for example, the name 'Shakespeare'
>has traditionally been pronounced 'shah-keh-speh-AH-reh', with five
>syllables, stress on the fourth syllable, and completely Spanish
>phonology apart from the retention of the non-native esh.  In recent
>years, however, it has come to be regarded as more fashionable to
>reproduce the English pronunciation as closely as possible, typically
>producing something like 'SHEH-keh-speer'.

	In Latin America /chespir/ with stress on first syllable is the
most common version. "chaquespeare" is an old fart pronunciation. It's also
used ironically and sarcastically as a noun in the same way that Americans
use Einstein. My Asturian student says the same usage occurs in Spain,
where he says it's /sheikspir, sheikespir/ with accent on first syllable.
There was a popular Mexican sitcom called "Chespirito" with a buffoon as
the main character

>Some years ago, a
>distinguished Spanish academic appeared on TV, and he used the
>traditional five-syllable version.  He was widely laughed at,
>even though he was merely expressing a preference for the traditional
>policy over the modern one.  But I have the impression that the
>traditional policy is very much on the way out in Spain, on the
>whole anyway.  Yet Spaniards, in my experience, still pronounce
>'Mozart' as though it were a Spanish <Mozar>, with theta, final
>stress, and no /t/.  Is this still the norm in Spanish?

My wife, who is Costa Rican, says /mosart/ with the stress on the final
syllable; but I've often heard it without the /t/
[snip]

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From edsel at glo.be  Thu Dec  7 10:06:25 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 05:06:25 -0500
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (PS)
In-Reply-To: <E142ur2-0002fh-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.050625.0500.>

[snip]
>Similar is 'Don Quixote', where the British tradition is 'KWIKS- at t',
>while the US one is 'kee-HOH-tay'.  Astoundingly, John Wells
>recommends the first not only for Brits but even for Yanks.
>I think he must be wrong here.  I never, ever, heard 'KWIKS- at t'
>before I came to Britain, and I didn't believe it when I did
>hear it.  Even so, my US dictionary gives 'KWIKS- at t' as a second-
>choice pronunciation.  Does anybody in the US really say this?
>And do most Brits really still say 'KWIKS- at t'?  Not at my university,
>I think.

[Ed]
On the other hand, 'Quixotic' seems to be pretty universal (pronounced
kwikzotik).

[snip]
>In the other direction, the tradition in Spain has usually been to
>hispanize foreign names.  So, for example, the name 'Shakespeare'
>has traditionally been pronounced 'shah-keh-speh-AH-reh', with five
>syllables, stress on the fourth syllable, and completely Spanish
>phonology apart from the retention of the non-native esh.  In recent
>years, however, it has come to be regarded as more fashionable to
>reproduce the English pronunciation as closely as possible, typically
>producing something like 'SHEH-keh-speer'.  Some years ago, a
>distinguished Spanish academic appeared on TV, and he used the
>traditional five-syllable version.  He was widely laughed at,
>even though he was merely expressing a preference for the traditional
>policy over the modern one.

[Ed]
He still has pretty fanatic followers. I know some personally.

> But I have the impression that the
>traditional policy is very much on the way out in Spain, on the
>whole anyway.  Yet Spaniards, in my experience, still pronounce
>'Mozart' as though it were a Spanish <Mozar>, with theta, final
>stress, and no /t/.  Is this still the norm in Spanish?

>Larry Trask

[Ed]
Here in the South (Alicante, Murcia) litteral application of Spanish
pronunciation rules (plus dropping of final occlusives) to foreign words is
still the norm. Even on (national) TV they do that almost all the time.
Sarajevo (with jota and bilabial b), sometimes even Basinton (Washington),
Nueva Yor (no k), etc. They simply cannot(?) say 'sh' and say 's' or
affricated 'ch' instead, insert epenthetic e's,  and can't distinguish long
and short vowels. Final m is always a nasalized final vowel (punto-co~ =
dot-com). etc.etc.The dynamic accent follows the same Spanish rules.

Among the native Castilian speakers, younger educated people (say post-1985
education) from Madrid, certain (far from all!) younger academics and
people with a lot of contacts outside Spain are the only ones, in my
experience, who try to pronounce English words properly (mainly because
they actually know some English). Catalans do their best, and and have the
advantage of their richer native phonemic inventory; contrary to
Castilians, they use dark l, for instance, and sh, etc..
Note that the upper class tends to send its children to 'English' boarding
schools, often located in (N.) Ireland (actually some died in the Omagh
bombing, on a bus trip).

Ed. Selleslagh


From bronto at pobox.com  Tue Dec  5 17:17:21 2000
From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 09:17:21 -0800
Subject: Don Keyshot
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.091721.0800.>

Larry Trask wrote:
> And do most Brits really still say 'KWIKS- at t'?
> Not at my university, I think.

There's a song (using that word somewhat loosely) by Magazine 60 in
which an Englishman repeatedly asks on telephone for "Mister Don
Quichotte" /'ki SOt/, and a woman replies with growing impatience "No
seqor, Don Quixote y Sancho Panza no estan aqum."  (There's also a sung
refrain, "Don Quixote y Sancho Panza / hoy tambiin siguen luchando")

Does anyone in fact say <Quichotte> (the French form) in English?

--
Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/


From connolly at memphis.edu  Thu Dec  7 16:40:36 2000
From: connolly at memphis.edu (Leo A. Connolly)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 10:40:36 -0600
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.104036.0600.>

petegray wrote:

> There seem to be so many good counter-examples, where *gwh > Germanic w,
> that I confess I am surprised the alternative view exists.  Is there perhaps
> a specific set of circumstances in which it is alleged that *gwh > b, or is
> an idea that can be safely scrap-heaped?

> In addition to snow, warm, and kidney, I find, for example:
> *gwhen  Skt hanmi  Gothic winne (pain) or wunns and the probably related
> English "wound" < *gwhntis

Without a Gothic dictionary at hand, I can only point out that the
parallel forms in other Germanic languages, such as OHG _wunna_, OE
_wyn_ 'joy' and OHG _wini(g)a_ 'Geliebte, wife' belong to PIE *_w(e)n-_,
seen also in Latin _Venus_, the famous goddess.  _Wound_ is plausibly
connected with Gk. _phonos_ 'blood, gore' < *_gwhon-_ but would reflect
the weak grade *_gwhn-to-_ (not **_gwhn-ti-_, else OE **_wynd_), where
syllabic _n_ yields Gmc. /un/.  The words mentioned would suggest that
PIE *gwh eventually yields Gmc. /w/ medially (snow, German Niere) or
before PIE o (Gmc. a) or Gmc. u of any origin, but not before _e_.

> *gwhemer  "swelling"  Latin femur, OE wenn "tumour"

Unlikely -- nn < *mr?

> *gwhoksos  Greek phoksos, OHG wahs "sharp"

The actual OHG form is _hwas(s)_ (OE _hwæs 'sharp'. Goth. _hwassaba_) <
PIE *_kwod-to-_, cf. German _wetzen_, Eng. _whet_ < *_kwod-eje/o-_.

> *gwhesl  "gall"  English weld (conjectured Gothic wizdils, based on late
> Latin uisdil-)

Semantically unacceptable, whatever the origin of _weld_.  And then, why
_gall_ with /g/?

> and some others.

Such as...

> Why is this outcome questioned?

Have to ask Seebold, but one reason is that it explains some Germanic
forms with be- that are otherwise difficult to handle.

Leo


From xavier.delamarre at free.fr  Thu Dec  7 17:51:13 2000
From: xavier.delamarre at free.fr (Xavier Delamarre)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 18:51:13 +0100
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
In-Reply-To: <000501c05eff$1c56dce0$584f01d5@xpoxkjlf>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.185113.0100.>

le 5/12/00 21:57, petegray à petegray at btinternet.com a écrit :

> XD said
>> I find the law very convincing... (that IE *ghw- becomes b- in Germanic and
>> w- in Gaulish)

> Please give examples, other than the contested "bane" and the isolated
> "bitten".    The semantic connection of bdhen with *gwhre: seems a little
> odd - but perhaps that is a failing in my German.  I believe one means "to
> toast" and the other "to sense, feel".

> Peter

I unfortunately can not help you : having moved recently all my linguistic
library (excepted celtology) is in boxes in the cellar. But I remember that
I was very convinced by his KZ article where you have to go and also to
browse his two dictionaries (Starke Verben & EWdS).

Other examples taken from Watkins' Dictionary of IE Roots :

*gwher- 'heat, warm' > *gwhr(n)- : brennen, brand

*gwhre:- 'to smell, breathe' : Germanic *bre:thaz, Eng. breathe etc.

I do not know what are the positions of Bammesberger and Meid on this
subject.

XD


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Fri Dec  8 18:35:05 2000
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2000 12:35:05 -0600
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <FRI.8.DEC.2000.123505.0600.>

Dear Miguel and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" <mcv at wxs.nl>
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 12:14 PM

> On Mon, 04 Dec 2000 21:45:31 +0100, Xavier Delamarre
> <xavier.delamarre at free.fr> wrote:

>> It is Seebold's personnal invention that IE *gwh- becomes Germanic b-.
>> His edition of Kluge's "Etym. Wvrterb. der deutschen Spr." (22. Auflage,
>> 1989) uses the law aboundently, e.g. _bdhen_ < *ghwre:- (p 54), _bitten_ <
>> *ghwedh-, OIr. guidid etc. (p. 88).

>> It has been rejected by some linguists (Polomi) but accepted by others
>> like Calvert Watkins (see his "IE Roots" : Eng. bane < OEng. bana < germ.
>> *bano:n < IE *gwhen- 'strike', and his "How to kill a Dragon", 423).

>> I find the law very convincing.

>> The discovery in the last decades that IE *ghw- becomes b- in Germanic
>> and w- in Gaulish is the best proof that IE comparative grammar is not a
>> dead science and can still undergo improvements.

> Thanks.

> As I may have mentioned here earlier, I have been investigating the
> possible ramifications of hypothesizing that not only *k/*g/*gh had
> labialized (*kw/*gw/*ghw) and palatalized (*k^/*g^/*gh^) variants, but
> that this was originally the case for *all* (pre-)PIE consonants.

<snip>

[PR]

The consonants in *gwhen-(6)-, 'beat', I believe to have originally been
early IE *gwVHVn- so that *gwh is not, as I believe Miguel would have it, a
velarization of *gh but rather the resolution of an accentually  occasioned
juxtaposition of *gw + *H.

This particular root is, I believe, found in Coptic hine, 'row', for which I
would amend the current hieroglyphic transcription of Xn(j) to *Xjn(j).

Possibly it may have a distant reflex in Arabic sha?an-un, 'disheveled hair,
a derivation of sha??a, 'scatter, disperse'.

As is well-known, there are a number of IE roots which have been assigned
the meaning 'beat'.

What I propose is that *gwhen- (*gwVHVn-) has the specific nuance of
'scattering by beating'; the application in Egyptian is the the sparying of
the water by the slapping of the oars.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ec at ec hecc, vindga meipi a netr allar nmo, geiri vnda~r . . . a ~eim
mei~i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rstom renn." (Havamal 138)


From ruschep at nevada.edu  Thu Dec  7 02:36:09 2000
From: ruschep at nevada.edu (Philip Rusche)
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 18:36:09 -0800
Subject: Coifi
Message-ID: <WED.6.DEC.2000.183609.0800.>

>         1)  Since the early Germans presumably did not have priests (except
> for mixed "chieftain"-priests as in Iceland, but Coifi was clearly not one
> of these), what is Coifi doing there?  (And I seem to recall, however
> vaguely, that he is not the only pagan priest mentioned by Bede.)
>         2) Since OE presumably did not have /oi/, what is the /oi/ in his
> name doing there?  He should have been "Cafi", with long /a/.  Or perhaps
> "Coefi", but even then Germanic /o/ exists only in foreign borrowings or
> where restored by analogy.

The spelling "Coifi" and other examples of <oi> in early OE is discussed in
Campbell's Old English Grammar, section 198.  He explains them as early
spellings of the i-mutation of long o (though he says in the case of some
personal names like Coifi the etymology is less than clear), and that they
appear mostly in early MSS of Bede.  More usual is <oe> and later <e>.

Philip Rusche


From ek at idiom.com  Thu Dec  7 05:55:35 2000
From: ek at idiom.com (ek)
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 21:55:35 -0800
Subject: [Fwd: [ArchTheoMeth] genes and languages--Kurds and Georgians]
In-Reply-To: <20001205205947.16370.qmail@tyr.diku.dk>
Message-ID: <WED.6.DEC.2000.215535.0800.>

I do recall that 'probably never' was the answer from several years ago,
although more recently (perhaps within the past 5 or 6 years) I read that
this was being questioned, and that perhaps paternal mitochondria do get in
more often than previously supposed.

Unfortunately, I do not recall the specifics of where i read this. With
luck, someone else here has read the same or something similar and can
provide a proper reference.

Eva

[ moderator snip ]

> I just looked it up in a human biology textbook. In normal
> fertilization, the sperm doesn't penetrate the egg cell as such ---
> the membranes of the sperm head and the oocyte merge to let the sperm
> nucleus inside, but the tail and its mitochondria are left outside.

> I doubt that anything viable results if those parts of the sperm do
> enter the oocyte, so the answer to the question is probably 'never.'

> Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)


From April.Mcmahon at sheffield.ac.uk  Thu Dec  7 09:32:56 2000
From: April.Mcmahon at sheffield.ac.uk (A.M.S.Mcmahon)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 09:32:56 -0000
Subject: [Fwd: [ArchTheoMeth] genes and languages--Kurds and Georgians]
In-Reply-To: <20001205205947.16370.qmail@tyr.diku.dk>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.093256.0000.>

Dear All,
             The rate of incorporation of male mitochondria into the
female cytoplasm at fertilisation is small.  What seems to happen
is that some do get in, but they are then preferentially degraded.
There is some evidence (e.g. from Maynard-Smith's group,
published 1998/99; but it's patchy so far) that a proportion of about
1:1000 times they stick around long enough to recombine.
   There's a more substantial point here, and possibly a moot one,
on the difference between a molecular history / phylogeny on the
one hand, and the history of the population(s) those molecules find
themselves in on the other.

        Best,
           April McMahon
(and Rob McMahon, my local off-list geneticist)

[ moderator snip ]

> I just looked it up in a human biology textbook. In normal
> fertilization, the sperm doesn't penetrate the egg cell as such ---
> the membranes of the sperm head and the oocyte merge to let the sperm
> nucleus inside, but the tail and its mitochondria are left outside.

> I doubt that anything viable results if those parts of the sperm do
> enter the oocyte, so the answer to the question is probably 'never.'

> Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT
> marked)

Professor April McMahon
Head of Department
Department of English Language and Linguistics
University of Sheffield
Sheffield, S10 2TN, UK

+44 (0)114 222 0238

E-mail  April.McMahon at shef.ac.uk


From cristim at smart.ro  Thu Dec  7 12:36:31 2000
From: cristim at smart.ro (Cristian Mocanu)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 14:36:31 +0200
Subject: Kurds and Georgians [and Basques]
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.143631.0200.>

    Just a brief question/comment here. Of course, I aggree any
Basque-Caucasian, or specifically Basque-Georgian connection is complete
nonsense,but shouldn't we add on the list of co-incidental similarities, the
one concerning "Ivir","Iviria", a name used by foreigners to designate the
country known to its natives as "Sakartvelo" (=Georgia) and  "Iberian (s)"?
I believe this coincidence was also used by the followers of this theory.
                                             Regards,
                                              Cristian


From allingus2 at superonline.com  Thu Dec  7 13:21:32 2000
From: allingus2 at superonline.com (Kamil Kartal, allingus Translation Services)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 15:21:32 +0200
Subject: Polish in Turkey
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.152132.0200.>

Hi friends,
The village is in Istanbul, the northwes Anatolian side, throught the
Bosphorus shore.  It is  POLONEZKOY (KOY = village),
but the story is not true.  I will try to find details for you and turn back
again soon, but before then, it is a
fantastic, unique, and very modern summer village.  People there, are
speaking Turkish as mother lang.
Regards,
Kamil Kartal - Istanbul

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hans-Werner Hatting" <hwhatting at hotmail.com>
Sent: 05 Aral}k 2000 Sal} 11:46

> On Thu, 16 Nov 2000 10:09:52 +0000 Larry Trask wrote:

>> There are a few other
>> odds and ends.  When I was living in Turkey, I was told that there
>> was a single Polish-speaking village somewhere in the middle of
>> the country.  I never got to see it, but anyway I doubt that Polish
>> was already spoken in Anatolia before the Ottoman conquest.

> I remember being told about this village when I was hearing a Summer Course
> in Polish history in Krakow 1989. The teacher (I forgot his name) told us
> that these people are descendants of Poles taken as prisoners of war in the
> 17th century, when Poland was constantly at war with the Ottoman empire.
> Best regards,
> Hans-Werner Hatting


From gordonselway at gn.apc.org  Thu Dec  7 09:24:58 2000
From: gordonselway at gn.apc.org (Gordon Selway)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 09:24:58 +0000
Subject: re Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.092458.0000.>

There have been related threads before.  I posted along the following lines to
them, and have not until now felt it worthwhile to submit the same material,
especially because I have still not unpacked relevant papers and books, and I
do not have a copy of Jackson to hand.

The Germanic/Celtic boundary on the western side of England seems to have
become fairly stable by the ninth or tenth century CE, and remained so for a
thousand years and more (apart from the Archenfield and Radnorshire).  There is
some evidence (toponyms exclusively, iirc, and based on earliest charter
records) that a Brittonic tongue was still being spoken in Worcestershire in
the eighth and ninth centuries.  One place-name is 'Walton', which might
suggest the language being Welsh, but 'Pensax' (nearer to the present
Anglo-Welsh border) [and not 'Pennersax'] suggests a Cumbric (or Cornish)
article.  There is a passing reference to some of this in a book on Hanbury
edited by Prof Christopher Dyer (arising from a class run in the village),
which amongst other things reports extensive Roman remains discovered by field
walking in an area where such things are allegedly uncommon.

Another approach (which has been brought forward in popular archaeological
programmes on TV in the UK) has to do with our skeletons (!).

One of the (now retired to Gloucestershire) local chiropodists identified
differences in bone structure among her patients.  Families which were long
established locally (she claimed) showed characteristics shared with people in
areas traditionally regarded as 'Celtic'.  More recent arrivals showed
characteristics which might be treated as 'Germanic' - there has been a large
shift in the distribution of surnames, as judged by the phone book, over the
last fifty years: even in Worcestershire 'Jones' was proportionately to 'Smith'
much more common than in most areas of England, while in Herefordshire typical
Welsh surnames are often the rule rather than the exception.

[A personal discursion: I now live in Worcestershire, but used to live in a
parish straddling the Herefordshire border, where as it happens there have been
people with a form of my surname for at least six hundred years.  The two
counties were bundled together under a single council in 1974, but separated
again for most local government purposes in 1998.

Whan an article on the bone signs appeared in the 'Hereford Times', I pointed
out at one meeting in Hereford, where the presence of a Worcestershire resident
might have been made political use of, that my own externally visible skeletal
characteristics (to do with finger and toe length) were 'local' rather than
'incomer'.  My surname is indeed one commonest in the lower Severn and Wye
valleys, and quite a bit of my recent ancestry is from that region, but as it
happens rather more of my recent forebears were from around the North Channel,
including from the areas in Galloway and north Antrim where Gaelic was most
recently spoken.

Most of this is, on my part, somewhat tongue in cheek, as no-one has so far as
I know examined my DNA (mitochondrial or otherwise).  And it may be that the
physical characteristics reflect different waves of incomers.  I mention that
because there are also apparently detectable differences between 'Germans' and
'Vikings'* (and as it happens my mother had a surname which might be of
'viking' origin, though definitely Scots).]

Back to the lower Severn, however.  Traditionally, the region became a
sub-kingdom of Wessex as a result of the battle of Deorham (north of Bath) in
577 CE, and was conquered by Penda of Mercia some two to three generations
later.  Joseph Wright's dialect investigations in the 19th century suggested
though that the boundary between south-western/western and midland forms of
English remained roughly the same as the pre-Penda boundary!

There seems to have continued to be some form of ecclesiastical organisation in
the region into the seventh century, and there is no evidence of any cultural
changes as revealed by the currently available archaeological record.  One of
the archaeological programmes already mentioned was about a 5th or 6th century
grave in Wiltshire (just outside the Severn catchment, but definitely in
Wessex), where the skeleton had 'Celtic' characteristics.  In any case, it has
been suggested that Cerdic might be Welsh (rather than Saxon), or at least hace
a Welsh mother, and that Wessex was culturally rather than genetically Saxon
(iirc).

And on the language following the mother, is there not mtDNA evidence of the
settlers of Iceland taking Irish/Scottish women with them, yet the language is
still north Germanic, and very conservatively so?

Sorry this has been much more anecdotal than I would wish.

* - skeletons from a post-battle burial at Repton (Derbyshire) can apparently
be distinguished by form, and not just by the pit they were buried in.

Gordon Selway
<gordonselway at gn.apc.org>


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Dec  7 14:25:53 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 09:25:53 -0500
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
In-Reply-To: <20103679620533@m-w.com>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.092553.0500.>

Can you give me a definition for this?
I've seen it maps accompanying Welsh folktales
Is it England, Britain, western Britain?
What is the etymology?
thanx

Lloegr

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Thu Dec  7 12:13:20 2000
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 07:13:20 -0500
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.071320.0500.>

On Tue, 5 Dec 2000 07:19:12 -0600, Ray Hendon <rayhendon at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> To me these suppositions and inferences point to the Celts being either
> killed or completely displaced by the invaders.  But I am open to other
> possibilities.

Manuscript A of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle does report these big killings:-

457: Here Hengest and AEsc fought with the British in the place which is
called Crayford and there killed 4000 men, and the British abandoned Kent
and with great fear fled to London Fort [= the Roman walled city].

491 Her AElle and Cissa besieged "Andredescester" [= Pevensey??] and slew
all who dwelt therein; no Briton was left [there] afterwards.

At 457 the victims were likely an enemy army rather than general population.
491 was likely a one-off outburst of anger agaist the inhabitants of a fort
which had resisted effectively for a while; classical literature records
similar at the fall of Troy.

Afterwards, there were likely Celtic families and Anglo-Saxon famiies in the
land, and the Anglo-Saxons held the army-type weapons and ruling positions
and taxed the Celts, and those Celts as generations passed gradually learned
Anglo-Saxon. Re survival of Romano-Celtic Christianity through the pagan
Anglo-Saxon period, see the English Anglo-Saxon type placenames containing
the element {eccles} (compare Welsh {eglwys} = "church") from Latin
{ecclesia}.

As I wrote before, the Celts may have been either killed or completely
displaced, but not at the hands of an army; see my previous messages.


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Dec  7 15:41:46 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 09:41:46 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.094146.0600.>

[ Moderator's note:
  The following material is quoted from Ray Hendon's message of 5 Dec 2000.
  --rma ]

> From my limited study of Saxons, Jutes and Angles, slavery (in the Roman
> sense of definition) was not practiced among these peoples.  Their "slaves"
> were local people who had been such bad farmers that they could not take care
> of their families and had to assign themselves to another member of the
> tribal group.  Furthermore, their "slaves" were not doomed to be permanently
> enslaved.  They could dig themselves out of slavery and resume their normal
> life as a citizen if they prospered under the domain of their master.

> Furthermore, I am not certain, but it looks to me as if the farming and
> hunting conditions of England were not especially suited for slave
> ownership.  Slaves were tradtionally used in enterprises where the
> production of the slave was so high as to be able to support not only the
> physical needs of the slave but have a substantial surplus for the owner to
> enjoy.  This is the reason that farms in early New England were unsuitable
> for slaves.  Large farms with highly productive soil or mines with valuable
> mineral deposits might be suitable for slaves, but not small land parcels
> of typical AS farms and woodlands.

        The Domesday book shows a quite high (or higher) proportion of
slaves in the SW, at a point where slavery had mostly died out in
(Christian) Europe.  East Anglia by contrast shows a high (or higher)
proportion of free farmers.  There are very real  regional differences here
that must be considered.  AS England was not monolothic after all.   The
survival of slavery in the SW can hardly represent anything other than the
survival of Late Roman social conditions in an area that was, even after the
AS Conquest, largely left as it was before.  In East Anglia the survival of
free farmers indicates what we might otherwise suspect:  that this area had
been heavily (and fairly recently, as time in history goes) colonized by
successful invaders, who took the land for themselcves and who (or whose
descendants) had not yet sunk into serfdom.

> One other note on the process of the AS incursion and the development of
> English: It is quite apparent that the AS people brought their women with
> them, so that the language of the new-born would be that of the mother.  If
> they had taken local wives, then the Celtic language would have had a much
> longer life and would seemingly influence the new language that would
> ultimately develop from the migration.

        Viereck adduces evience of "intermediate types" (between Saxon and
Briton) in early Northumbria, indicating what might have been guessed (by
the cynical) anyway:  that the Anglo-Saxons conquerors did not turn up their
noses at native women.   (Perhaps the feeling was mutual.)

> To me these suppositions and inferences point to the Celts being either
> killed or completely displaced by the invaders.  But I am open to other
> possibilities.

        Good, because the linguistic evidence (I am getting rater tired of
trying to reach an unequivocal conclusion from the non-linguistic evidence)
indicates that there must have been considerable Brittonic survival.

                                                        Dr. David L. White


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Thu Dec  7 19:56:45 2000
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 14:56:45 EST
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.145645.EST.>

In a message dated 12/6/00 9:34:33 PM Mountain Standard Time,
rayhendon at satx.rr.com writes:

<< From my limited study of Saxons, Jutes and Angles, slavery (in the Roman
 sense of definition) was not practiced among these peoples.

-- well, that's extremely odd, since the language has a word which translates
precisely as "slave", and slaves were an export from England in the
pre-conversion period, and as late as the Domesday Book about 10% of the
population are listed as slaves. (With the highest proportion in the western
shires).

In fact, slavery was a universal (but not overwhelmingly important)
institution in all the pre-Christian Germanic societies; slaves were
generally war-captives or their children.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Thu Dec  7 19:58:49 2000
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 14:58:49 EST
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.145849.EST.>

>From: "David L. White" <dlwhite at texas.net>

>Enslavment (or enserfment) is much more profitable than extermination/
>expulsion, and is the general practice of conquerors.

-- this would be news to the American Indians, the Tasmanians, the Australian
Aboriginies, the San hunters of southern Africa, and innumerable other groups.

Conquerors most of whom are farmers looking for land are an entirely
different proposition from conquerors who are a small military caste.


From maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Thu Dec  7 13:13:45 2000
From: maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Max Wheeler)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 13:13:45 +0000
Subject: Juan and Quixote [was: Don't touch my phonemes (PS)]
In-Reply-To: <5.0.0.25.0.20001205073419.009f03e0@127.0.0.1>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.131345.0000.>

--On Tuesday, December 5, 2000 8:14 -0500 "Douglas G. Wilson"
<douglas at nb.net> wrote:

> Naive impressions of a Yankee:

> I've never heard Byron's /dZu at n/, except with respect to Byron's work or
> as a joke.
>

> I've NEVER heard /kwIks at t/. I've heard /kwiksout/ as a joke only.
> "Quixotism" is /kwIks at tIz@m/, however.
>
> -- Doug Wilson

In British English, in my experience it's Don /dZu at n/ for Byron's poem, and
for Richard Strauss's tone poem (always so pronounced on BBC Radio 3); but
Don /xwan/ or /hwan/ for the archetypal figure (as originally in Tirso de
Molina's play) and metonymically for a man that behaves like him. I don't
know what they do when ENO sings Don Giovanni in English [but I don't
recall if his name actually gets sung]. BTW the Manx version of John is
<Juan>, which is pronounced /dZu at n/ in Manx English.

Similarly in British English Don /kwiks at t/ or /kwiksout/. Only those (few)
who know any Spanish would recognize /kixDte/ (or similar), and to use a
form like that in Br. English sounds pretentious. /kwiks at t/ ~ /kwiksout/
is, of course, a spelling pronunciation, but when this character became
familiar in the 17th century who was to know any better? Sancho Panza is
not surprisingly /santSou panz@/ not /..panTa/ or /..pansa/ or similar.

No normative intent in any of the above.

Max
____________________________________________________________
Max W. Wheeler
School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Falmer
BRIGHTON BN1 9QH, G.B.

Tel: +44 (0)1273 678975 Fax: +44 (0)1273 671320 Email:
maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk
____________________________________________________________


From thorinn at diku.dk  Thu Dec  7 19:23:46 2000
From: thorinn at diku.dk (Lars Henrik Mathiesen)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 19:23:46 -0000
Subject: Don Keyshot
In-Reply-To: <3A2D2321.8CECC82D@pobox.com> (message from Anton Sherwood on
 Tue, 05 Dec 2000 09:17:21 -0800)
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.192346.0000.>

> Date: Tue, 05 Dec 2000 09:17:21 -0800
> From: Anton Sherwood <bronto at pobox.com>

> There's a song (using that word somewhat loosely) by Magazine 60 in
> which an Englishman repeatedly asks on telephone for "Mister Don
> Quichotte" /'ki SOt/, and a woman replies with growing impatience "No
> seqor, Don Quixote y Sancho Panza no estan aqum."  (There's also a sung
> refrain, "Don Quixote y Sancho Panza / hoy tambiin siguen luchando")

> Does anyone in fact say <Quichotte> (the French form) in English?

I remember being very surprised when I first saw this name written,
after hearing some of the story in Danish from my grandfather --- I'd
thought it was something like Donkesjot.

As best I remember, these are the pronunciations that my grandparents'
generation used (born just after 1900):

	   Don Quixote = /%dQNke"SQt/
	   Don Juan = /%dQNSu"AN/
	   (SAMPA for Danish --- " is primary stress, % secondary)

I'm pretty sure these were originally supposed to be some sort of
French --- /-QN/ and /-AN/ are traditional Danish approximations for
French /-o~/ and /-a~/. There may even have been an /y/ in Juan, but
I'm not sure after all these years.

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)


From ek at idiom.com  Thu Dec  7 15:31:00 2000
From: ek at idiom.com (ek)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 07:31:00 -0800
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (PS)
In-Reply-To: <5.0.0.25.0.20001205073419.009f03e0@127.0.0.1>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.073100.0800.>

20 years ago, I had a British violin teacher who absolutely did say both
'JOO- at n'  and 'KWIKS- at t' , and according to her, that was common
pronumciation.

It hurt my ears, but she was not joking.
-Eva

-----Original Message-----
From: Indo-European mailing list [mailto:Indo-European at xkl.com]On Behalf
Of Douglas G. Wilson
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 5:14 AM

Naive impressions of a Yankee:

[ moderator snip ]


From jrader at Merriam-Webster.com  Thu Dec  7 15:24:08 2000
From: jrader at Merriam-Webster.com (Jim Rader)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 10:24:08 -0500
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (PS)
In-Reply-To: <3A2D5C8B.6F693ACB@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.102408.0500.>

Local pronunciations of street names and other toponyms in the
U.S. are interesting, but probably not very revelatory of general
educated pronunciation of such names in their appropriate context.
 In the working-class neighborhood where I grew up in Chicago,
Goethe in Goethe St. (or Ave.?) was pronounced GAY-thee
(voiceless <th>) and Mozart in Mozart St. with a voiced /z/--these
despite the fact that older residents, such as my grandmother, had
spoken and even read German as children--though their reading did
not extend much beyond Luther's catechism and the high culture of
classical music and poetry was quite outside their ken.

Jim Rader

> Goethe Street in St. Louis is locally pronounced 'GOthE' rhyming with
> 'both he'.  The author is usually 'GURt@', with the 'r' very slight.

[ moderator snip ]

> --
> Jim White


From ek at idiom.com  Thu Dec  7 15:25:13 2000
From: ek at idiom.com (ek)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 07:25:13 -0800
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (PS)
In-Reply-To: <3A2D5C8B.6F693ACB@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.072513.0800.>

There is also a Goethe street in chicago, pronounced as 3 syllables-
Go-E-the.

The author usually pronounced 'GURt@' as you say in St louis.

Eva

-----Original Message-----
From: Indo-European mailing list [mailto:Indo-European at xkl.com]On Behalf
Of Jim White
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 1:22 PM

Goethe Street in St. Louis is locally pronounced 'GOthE' rhyming with
'both he'.  The author is usually 'GURt@', with the 'r' very slight.

[ moderator snip ]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Dec  7 14:30:25 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 09:30:25 -0500
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes
In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.16.20000816215110.34b7d97a@online.be>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.093025.0500.>

/sa:d at R/ is the universal form for <solder> in US English AFAIK

>I must say though, that I have often observed similar pronunciations (like in
>'solder') in New England USA.

>Ed. Selleslagh

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From sonno3 at hotmail.com  Sat Dec  9 01:14:15 2000
From: sonno3 at hotmail.com (Christopher Gwinn)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2000 20:14:15 -0500
Subject: Lloegr
Message-ID: <FRI.8.DEC.2000.201415.0500.>

Loegr (or Loegyr)  refers generally to Lowland Britain - England in
particular. The Archaic Welsh form must have been *Loic[e]r. It denizens are
called Lloegrwys (which is from a Brittono-Latin *Loicr-enses).

I am not sure of the exact etymology [I still need to see Eric Hamp,
'Lloegr: the Welsh name for England', Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 4
(1982) 83-85 ], but if I had to take a guess, I would suppose that the name
could be analyzed as *loi-c-er- (where the -er- might be a relic of *rigia
"kingdom"), and that Loic- probably came from an Early Brittonic *log-i-c-
(perhaps related to Irish loig and Welsh llo, "calf," which are related to
Breton lu-e "idiot," allegedly from PIE *leig- / *loig-).

-Chris Gwinn


From cristim at smart.ro  Sat Dec  9 12:23:38 2000
From: cristim at smart.ro (Cristian Mocanu)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 14:23:38 +0200
Subject: Lloegr
Message-ID: <SAT.9.DEC.2000.142338.0200.>

According to both the "Travlang" Welsh-English online dictionary and
"British Phrasebook", (Lonely Planet Publications, Hawthorn, Vic.,
Australia, 1999, "Welsh" chapter by Richard Crowe), "Lloegr" is Welsh for
"England".
                                                  Regards,
                                                  Cristian


From Georg at home.ivm.de  Sat Dec  9 10:22:05 2000
From: Georg at home.ivm.de (Stefan Georg)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 11:22:05 +0100
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
In-Reply-To: <007d01c06145$b3be3a40$738d3b3f@patrickr>
Message-ID: <SAT.9.DEC.2000.112205.0100.>

>The consonants in *gwhen-(6)-, 'beat', I believe to have originally been
>early IE *gwVHVn- so that *gwh is not, as I believe Miguel would have it, a
>velarization of *gh but rather the resolution of an accentually  occasioned
>juxtaposition of *gw + *H.

>This particular root is, I believe, found in Coptic hine, 'row', for which I
>would amend the current hieroglyphic transcription of Xn(j) to *Xjn(j).

>Possibly it may have a distant reflex in Arabic sha?an-un, 'disheveled hair,
>a derivation of sha??a, 'scatter, disperse'.

Coptic and Arabic are not known to be Indo-European languages, nor is
there any evidence that Afro-Asiatic, the language family Coptic and
Arabic belong to, may be related, however distantly, to
Indo-European. It is, thus, not possible that an Indo-European root
may be "found" in Coptic.


From ruschep at nevada.edu  Sun Dec 10 02:33:51 2000
From: ruschep at nevada.edu (Philip Rusche)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 18:33:51 -0800
Subject: Historical Greek Grammar
Message-ID: <SAT.9.DEC.2000.183351.0800.>

Could someone please recommend to me a standard and up-to-date historical
grammar of Greek?  I am working with some Greek texts from the Middle Ages
and need some references for phonological changes (they are glosses, so I
don't need anything on morphology or syntax).  I have Gignac's Grammar of
Greek Papyri (1976) and Browning's Medieval and Modern Greek (1983), but
this is not my field and I do not know what the standard works are.

Please reply offline, if this is not appropriate for the IE list.  Thanks in
advance.

Philip Rusche
ruschep at nevada.edu


From Tristan at mail.scm-rpg.com.au  Sat Dec  9 02:33:56 2000
From: Tristan at mail.scm-rpg.com.au (Tristan Jones)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 13:33:56 +1100
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <SAT.9.DEC.2000.133356.1100.>

> Conquerors most of whom are farmers looking for land are an entirely
> different proposition from conquerors who are a small military caste.

Anglo-Saxons were not a small military caste, I do not know about the Gaelic
Irish in Scotland in same period. Anglo-Saxons were a mass mirgation fo both
males and females probably numbering at least 100,000 probably more. They
were fleeing a over crowded homeland more more spacious skies. Similar to
British when they invaded Australia and conqueroed the aborigines, they
sought to replace them and farm their land for themselves not to enslave
them


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Dec  9 03:53:26 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2000 21:53:26 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <FRI.8.DEC.2000.215326.0600.>

>> Enslavment (or enserfment) is much more profitable than extermination/
>> expulsion, and is the general practice of conquerors.

> -- this would be news to the American Indians, the Tasmanians, the Australian
> Aboriginies, the San hunters of southern Africa, and innumerable other
> groups.

        It makes a difference whether the conquered are farmers, are
regarded as of inferior race, have been so devastated by small-pox that they
can be pushed aside with no trouble, etc.  It would not be news to the
populations of most of the Roman Empire, Anatolia after Manzikert, the
Egyptians, northern Indians (who have repeatedly been conquered by intruders
from the NW but never exterminated or even much influenced), the Hutus in
Africa, etc.

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From rayhendon at satx.rr.com  Sat Dec  9 14:00:12 2000
From: rayhendon at satx.rr.com (Ray Hendon)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 08:00:12 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <SAT.9.DEC.2000.080012.0600.>

----- Original Message -----
From: <JoatSimeon at aol.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2000 1:56 PM

> In a message dated 12/6/00 9:34:33 PM Mountain Standard Time,
> rayhendon at satx.rr.com writes:

> << From my limited study of Saxons, Jutes and Angles, slavery (in the Roman
>  sense of definition) was not practiced among these peoples.

> -- well, that's extremely odd, since the language has a word which translates
> precisely as "slave", and slaves were an export from England in the
> pre-conversion period, and as late as the Domesday Book about 10% of the
> population are listed as slaves. (With the highest proportion in the western
> shires).

> In fact, slavery was a universal (but not overwhelmingly important)
> institution in all the pre-Christian Germanic societies; slaves were
> generally war-captives or their children.

The time period you refer to is after the Saxons, etc had become established
in England.  Before they came, however, their community groups did not have
a slave institution that was even remotely like the Roman counterpart.
First, "slaves" in Saxony were temporary--not permanent.  Recall in Rome
that once a person became a slave they, and all their children were slaves
until released by their owner, if ever.  The Saxons allowed slaverey for
their people to be wiped from the slate, so to speak, within seven
generations when full citizenship would be restored.  Personally, I think
their word for slavery would be closer to the English word for "bankrupt."
Also, the children of Saxon slaves were not necessairly slaves, whereas in
Rome they were.

Recall that the Pope who arranged to send the first Roman Catholic
missionaries to England did so when he observed the beauty of English
children for sale in a Roman slave market.  It looks to me as if the Saxons
adapted some Roman institutions, but England never became anything like Rome
in becoming completely dependent on slaves to do much of the grunt work.
The Saxons were used to doing things for themselves, like all
self-sufficient farmers, and slavery was not a viable way of working small
farms, pastures and woodlands in north-west Europe.  The Teutons were, in
general, much more egalatarian than the Romans, and they never seem to have
departed from this attitude.

You might know of another semantical oddity between Saxons and Romans: the
word "king," was not in the Saxon vocabulary, it seems,  until well after
the Roman incursions into Saxony.  I think it was Caesar who pointed out
that when he was negotiating with a Saxon "king" the Saxon objected to being
called that word.  He insisted that his position was that of "wise man."
The Saxons, it seemed, did temporarily appoint a person who had virtual
total power when war conditions came about, but a more precise definition of
this position would equate it with the Roman word "dictator," which itself,
of course, does not conform to the contemporary English word dictator.  We
use the word dictator in meaning more closely associated with the Roman word
for tyrant.  And unless conquored by another tribe, tyrants were not an
institution in pre-Roman Saxony.


From rayhendon at satx.rr.com  Sat Dec  9 14:08:13 2000
From: rayhendon at satx.rr.com (Ray Hendon)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 08:08:13 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <SAT.9.DEC.2000.080813.0600.>

----- Original Message -----
From: "David L. White" <dlwhite at texas.net>
Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2000 9:41 AM

>> To me these suppositions and inferences point to the Celts being either
>> killed or completely displaced by the invaders.  But I am open to other
>> possibilities.

>         Good, because the linguistic evidence (I am getting rater tired of
> trying to reach an unequivocal conclusion from the non-linguistic evidence)
> indicates that there must have been considerable Brittonic survival.

I think you are correct in pointing out that England was not monolithic, and
that some of the invading forces from the Continent did take local wives.
It would be hard to imagine otherwise.  But, I can't see how this was the
predominant mode of family-creation during the invasion.  If it were,
wouldn't we expect a more pronounced influence of Celt on English?  But, I
can see that things during that period do not lead to sweeping
generalizations.  As you point out, there can be no unequivocal conclusions.

Ray Hendon
San Antonio, TX


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Sat Dec  9 17:23:54 2000
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 12:23:54 -0500
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <SAT.9.DEC.2000.122354.0500.>

From: "David L. White" <dlwhite at texas.net>

> Enslavment (or enserfment) is much more profitable than extermination/
> expulsion, and is the general practice of conquerors.

On Thu, 7 Dec 2000 14:58:49 EST, JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

>-- this would be news to the American Indians, the Tasmanians, the Australian
>Aboriginies, the San hunters of southern Africa, and innumerable other groups.
>Conquerors most of whom are farmers looking for land are an entirely
>different proposition from conquerors who are a small military caste.

One job that the Anglo-Saxons would not have used Celtic or other slaves
for, was bread making. In a people without potatoes, and where metal money
was too scarce to use it to pay workmen and buy routine groceries, bread
was more important than now. A servant trusted with the job would eat his
fill of it and steal quantities of it, so the lady of the house made the
bread herself, and from that came the word "lady" fron Anglo-Saxon
{hlaefdige} = "she who kneads the bread". Thus also "lord" from Anglo-Saxon
{hlafweard} = "loaf-guard".


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Sat Dec  9 17:39:04 2000
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 12:39:04 -0500
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <SAT.9.DEC.2000.123904.0500.>

On Thu, 7 Dec 2000 14:58:49 EST, JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

> Conquerors most of whom are farmers looking for land are an entirely
> different proposition from conquerors who are a small military caste.

And both sorts bring white man's diseases, which in the Americas did much
of the genocide against the natives. The Quechua on the Peru and Bolivia
Altiplano managed to breed back from this disease loss and recover numbers
before white settlers could swamp them, because up there two miles above
sea level and only half an atmosphere of air to breathe, white settlers'
women had difficulty carrying a pregnancy through. Perhaps the same may
save the Tibetans on their high plateau from Chinese settler intrusion.


From rayhendon at satx.rr.com  Sun Dec 10 15:52:28 2000
From: rayhendon at satx.rr.com (Ray Hendon)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 09:52:28 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <SUN.10.DEC.2000.095228.0600.>

Thanks for your excellent comments.  It occurs to me now, after reading the
more recent comments about the fate of the Celts after the AS invasion, that
one thing we know was that many Celts were taken as prisoners after losing a
battle.  We also know that many of them were subsequently sold on the slave
market that enimated from Rome.

But, did the AS folk sell off a significant number of Celts as slaves?  By
exporting their booty of slaves to Rome and other large slave markets on the
continent, they could convert their invasion gains directly into gold.  This
fact would certainly have great appeal to the invaders, as gold currency was
now available to them but had not been available in any quantity in their
homeland.  Certainly this potential bonus of adventuring would make the
journey from the Germanic lands to England more appealing to those thinking
about migrating. If the incursion was successful, the members of the
invading party would not only end up with choice farmland, already
developed, but a chestful of cash from any slaves he could round up.

For economic reasons, then, I can see that there would be a great incentive
to lure potential invaders and increase the capturing and selling native
Celts.  And with the demand for slaves being robust, even after Rome fell,
the price would be high.  I just wonder if a significant number of Celts
left the British Isles in this manner and might be responsible for a large
part of the Celtic depopulation that ensued the AS invasion.

Ray Hendon
San Antonio, TX


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sun Dec 10 08:24:49 2000
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 08:24:49 -0000
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <SUN.10.DEC.2000.082449.0000.>

>> Enslavment is much more profitable than extermination

> -- this would be news to the American Indians, the Tasmanians, the Australian
> Aboriginies, the San hunters of southern Africa, and innumerable other
> groups.

Remember timing!  Enslavement, however attractive, was not an option in the
American midwest, nor in Australia.  If these countries had been invaded in the
15th century instead of when they were, things might have been different.

A better example might be Spanish America.  Did the Spanish still accept
slavery at the of the conquistadors?

Peter


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Dec  9 03:43:08 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2000 21:43:08 -0600
Subject: re Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <FRI.8.DEC.2000.214308.0600.>

> And on the language following the mother, is there not mtDNA evidence of the
> settlers of Iceland taking Irish/Scottish women with them, yet the language
> is still north Germanic, and very conservatively so?

        Not that I know of, though it is generally acknowledged, I believe,
that the Icelandic population has a "considerable" (whatever that means)
Irish element.  For now I note only that the modern Icelandic progressive,
which last I heard had never been explained, seems to be a calque on
progressives of the Irish type.  And there are things like supernatural
animals with white bodies and red ears (which scream Celtic to a Celticist)
in Icelandic sagas, I vaguely recall.
        Speaking of Celtic influences in supposedly pristine purely Germanic
societies, there is a book "Celtic Influence in Beowulf" by one Martin
Puhvel that members might want to check out.

                                                           Dr. Daivd . White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sun Dec 10 18:58:44 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 12:58:44 -0600
Subject: Northern Subject Rule
Message-ID: <SUN.10.DEC.2000.125844.0600.>

        As noted by Klehmola (and Venneman), one of the more striking
evidences for Brtittonic influence in English is the so-called "Northern
Subject Rule".  According to this, verbs with 3rd person plural subjects
show 3rd person agreement if no subject pronoun (which in English must
always by "they") is expressed.  Thus "They peel them and boils them".  This
sort of construal is very rare among languages of the world, and apart from
Hebrew and Arabic occurs, according to Klehmola) only in Welsh, Cornish, and
Breton.  In English, it occurs in the North, in more or less the same area
as the Brittonic counting systems noted, from the ME period on, though of
course (unlike most of the other features that attract attention) it has
never become incorporated into Standard English.  Since the evolution of
this rule in English cannot be convincingly motivated on internal grounds,
it is almost certainly due to Brittonic sub-stratal influence.  Whatever
non-linguistic arguments have been used to "prove" that there cannot have
been any substantial Brittonic survival in the North are therefore wrong.

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr  Sat Dec  9 00:04:46 2000
From: jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr (=?iso-8859-2?Q?Mate_Kapovi=E6?=)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 01:04:46 +0100
Subject: l > w (Don't touch my phonemes)
Message-ID: <SAT.9.DEC.2000.010446.0100.>

Ed. Selleslagh wrote:

>Polish and some other Slavic lgs. : l > barred l [w] (cf. Serbo-Croat
>Sloboda , Czech svoboda)

Actually, the "svoboda" form is the original form not the other way around.
No l > w here.


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 10 23:22:39 2000
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 23:22:39 -0000
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes
Message-ID: <SUN.10.DEC.2000.232239.0000.>

Larry Trask writes:

>> pet - spin   : both have  /p/, even though one is aspirated, the other not

>More complicated.  The ordinary contrast between /p/ and /b/ is neutralized
>in this position.  Our orthography writes <p>, and our intuitions --
>at least among those of us who are literate -- is that this voiceless
>unaspirated [p] is still /p/.  But there is another analysis, in which
>this [p] is assigned instead to the phoneme /b/.  Hardly anybody has
>ever seen this second analysis as attractive, but I don't think we can
>simply dismiss it as plainly wrong.

Okay, so we transcribe <spin> /sbIn/, <stem> /sdEm/, <skin> /sgIn/, etc.
with the /s/ devoicing the following stop. Let's see how well this scheme
works. Consistency requires us to write <pin> [phIn] as /bhIn/ where the /h/
devoices the preceding /b/. No problem, since English doesn't use *[bhIn] or
*[pIn], only [phIn] and [bIn]. Likewise we have <tin> /dhIn/, <kin> /ghIn/,
etc.

In final clusters /s/ may devoice the stop from either side: <lisp> /lIsb/,
<lips> /lIbs/. As Bob Whiting recently pointed out, final unvoiced stops are
aspirated in English. Hence they may be treated as allophones of voiced
stops here also: lip /lIbh/, bent /bEndh/, tick /dhIgh/, etc.

English doesn't consist of monosyllables, so we can't discard /p/, /t/, and
/k/ just yet. Medial position presents some complications. The glottalized
"closed" pronunciation of <button>, <rotten>, etc. has no audible
aspiration. On the other hand no dental stop is enunciated either; the stop
heard is glottal: /ra?n/ in closed, /radh at n/ [rath at n] in open pronunciation.
No problem here.

Phonetic [sb], [fd], etc. occur medially in compounds and borrowings such as
<busboy>, <wolf-dog>, <asbestos>. Our scheme gives:

   grass-bin  /grAsbIn/
   grass-pin  /grAsbhIn/
   grass-spin  /grAssbIn/

When /sb/ (for example) begins a syllable the stop is devoiced and there is
no potential contrast of the form /sbIn/ ~ */sbhIn/. When /sb/ straddles a
syllabic boundary the stop is not automatically devoiced. Any phonemic
analysis of English will run into the effect of syllabic boundaries. Also,
the traditional phonemic scheme with /p/ requires /ss/ as well, or
<grass-spin> can't be separated from <grass-pin>.

Compounds like <bedtowel> and <bet-towel> 'a towel for covering bets' must
be distinguished. In the first, the [d] is clearly prolonged (with respect
to its normal length in <headache>) before the aspiration. In <bet-towel>
silence is substituted for that [d]. This is not a "silent phoneme", of
course, but a manifestation of the glottal stop in this position. In
<bed-dowel> the [d] is prolonged as in <bedtowel> without the aspiration. In
<bet-dowel> the <t> is again silent while the [d] has its normal length.
Hence:

   bedtowel  /bEddhaw at l/
   bet-towel  /bE?dhaw at l/
   bed-dowel  /bEddaw at l/
   bet-dowel  /bE?daw at l/

In the case of <naptime> aspiration is clearly heard between the stops, so
there is no trouble with transcribing /nAbhdhaym/. Similar considerations
apply to other medial clusters of stops.

The real difficulty arises when we deal with compounds like <hothead> and
<roadhouse>. For simplicity, compounds like those above are chosen. We can
transcribe

   bed-howl  /bEdhaw at l/
   bed-owl  /bEdaw at l/

without running over previous transcriptions, but we are out of options for
their unvoiced counterparts unless we introduce a tap /t'/:

   bet-howl  /bEt'haw at l/
   bet-owl  /bEt'aw at l/

Similar taps /p'/ and /k'/ are required for <uphill>, <backhand>, etc. Hence
our scheme of writing /sbIn/ provides no net economy of phonemes. It also
complicates English morphology. The regular plural of nouns ending in
aspirated stops cannot be formed by adding /-s/ to the singular; instead
/-h/ must be replaced by /-s/:

   top  /dhabh/  ~  tops  /dhabs/
   bit  /bIdh/  ~  bits  /bIds/
   neck  /nEgh/  ~  necks  /nEgs/

Other complications are apparent in the earlier analysis. For example <bet>
in isolation is /bEdh/, but in combination it may become /bE?/ or /bEt'/. In
the traditional scheme [?] and [t'] are arguably allophones of final /t/ in
combination.

I agree that there is nothing "plainly wrong" with considering unvoiced
stops to be allophones of voiced stops in English. Phonemic analysis,
however, is not an end in itself. We construct phonemic systems in order to
do something further. For most purposes, we are probably better off
retaining unvoiced stops as English phonemes.

Doug Kilday


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sat Dec  9 15:59:33 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 10:59:33 -0500
Subject: Kurds and Georgians [and Basques]
In-Reply-To: <000101c06094$c394a960$f902a8c0@smart.ro>
Message-ID: <SAT.9.DEC.2000.105933.0500.>

[ moderator edited ]

>    Just a brief question/comment here. Of course, I aggree any
>Basque-Caucasian, or specifically Basque-Georgian connection is complete
>nonsense,but shouldn't we add on the list of co-incidental similarities, the
>one concerning "Ivir","Iviria", a name used by foreigners to designate the
>country known to its natives as "Sakartvelo" (=Georgia) and  "Iberian (s)"?
>I believe this coincidence was also used by the followers of this theory.
>                                             Regards,
>                                              Cristian

	Nonsense is a bit strong even if you disagree 100% with the
Basque-Caucasian proposal.
	The similarities could be more than coincidental even if they are
not genetic.
	One should consider the possiblility that the precursors of both
Basque and the Caucasian language families may have received loanwords from
the same sources.  It's even possible (although I imagine the odds are very
long) that the source of such loanwords may have died out in the parent
language. Although Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic automatically come to
mind, I suppose it's possible that some European pre-IE language family may
have contributed vocabulary.
	In any case, I'm sure that tracking down proposed "cognates" has
probably been one of the biggest spurs to investigating the phonology and
linguistic history of these languages.

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From edsel at glo.be  Mon Dec 11 07:21:50 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 02:21:50 -0500
Subject: Kurds and Georgians [and Basques]
In-Reply-To: <000101c06094$c394a960$f902a8c0@smart.ro>
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.022150.0500.>

At 14:36 7/12/00 +0200, you wrote:

>    Just a brief question/comment here. Of course, I aggree any
>Basque-Caucasian, or specifically Basque-Georgian connection is complete
>nonsense,but shouldn't we add on the list of co-incidental similarities, the
>one concerning "Ivir","Iviria", a name used by foreigners to designate the
>country known to its natives as "Sakartvelo" (=Georgia) and  "Iberian (s)"?
>I believe this coincidence was also used by the followers of this theory.
>                                             Regards,
>                                              Cristian

[Ed Selleslagh]

Actually, things are more subtle than has been told by several members of
this list. I don't want to elaborate too much because all this is largely
outside its scope. Let me just point out a few things:

-There are at least two periods in Basque-Caucasianism.

-During the first  period, not only lexical coincidences were considered
(and here most, except Bouda and a few others, agree that most similarities
are accidental or invalid; Dumézil is rather careful in this respect), but
also grammatical ones, in the first place the presence of ergativism and
multipersonal verbs. The latter aspect is not a laughing matter, although
alternative explanations may be found. The most confusing fact is that the
grammatical aspects point to NE Caucasian, while other aspects point rather
to other Caucasian groups.

-During the second period, or the renaissance of Basque-Caucasianism, which
is still going on, one of the theories with some foundation is that Basque,
a Pyrenean language possibly going back to the local, isolated, late
Palaeolithic or early Neolithic population, was actually more or less
heavily influenced by the more prestigious and influential Iberian (even
Strabo seemed to admire them), the latter being possibly a language of a
migrant group with links of some kind to the Caucasus. Most authors are
very careful in their wording and about which data are conjectural, backed
up by serious indications or proven. They often 'suggest' rather than
'pretend'.
A serious hint of that can be found e.g. in H. Haarmann's article "Basque
ethnogenesis...." in Fontes Linguae Vasconum.

-In Antiquity both Georgia and Mediterranean SE Spain were already called
Iberia, puzzling the writers of the time. In Spain the name seems to be
related to 'ibar', Basque (Iberian?) for 'river (valley)'(cf. the river
Ebro, Lat. Hiberus, another example of a river 'River'?). Note that ancient
Georgia also consisted essentially of two major river valleys parallel to
the Caucasus, so it could have been called 'ibar' by non-Kartvelians.

-It is very notable that Iberian (not really understood) and Basque have
quite a bit in common, especially toponyms and their structure and
elements, but also their general aspect, phonetics etc.. Both are (insofar
Iberian can be analyzed, that is) agglutinating SOV languages. Nonetheless,
most agree that they are probably not 'genetically' related, otherwise
Iberian would not remain so relatively opaque.

-Another remarkable thing: the presence of a number of E. Mediterranean
cultural words in Basque (and in Iberian when available), like 'ili/iri'
for (fortified) city (cf. 'ur(i)', Hebr. 'ir' , Ilion, etc). Of course,
many explanations are possible.

-There is a trail of cultural remnants (e.g. underground 'temples' or
sacred sites, decorative motifs, beliefs, ...) from the Dodecanesos via the
Mediterranean islands to Spain and the Basque country and up to the
Scottish islands, pointing to a maritime migration path. The Etruscans came
from Anatolia to Italy (Tuscany) by sea via Lemnos. Why can't the Iberians
have come to SE Spain from the Black Sea (via e.g. Crete, Malta, the
Balearic Islands...)?

-There is also a 'school' of Armenian-Basque comparitivists who pretend to
have found numerous, mainly lexical, coincidences. Since the two lgs.
belong to vastly different phylla, this can only be through loans, if
actually true. But it could point to a remote Caucasian link, albeit
probably a very indirect one, e.g. direct influence on Armenian, and
indirect influence on Basque via direct influence on those who would become
later the Iberian migrants.

So, a relationship of some sort cannot be excluded, but it is likely to be
a very complex indirect one. And clarifying it will probably require a much
better understanding of the Iberian language, although genetic
investigation into the migrations from the neighborhood of the Caucasus and
further study of the propagation mechanisms of the Cycladic culture  will
also play a major role.

Ed.


From cristim at smart.ro  Fri Dec  8 09:19:31 2000
From: cristim at smart.ro (Cristian Mocanu)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2000 11:19:31 +0200
Subject: Herceg
Message-ID: <FRI.8.DEC.2000.111931.0200.>

Ed Selleslagh wrote:

"I suppose you meant the arrows to point the other way?"

Yes, definitely. Terribly sorry for this typo.
                           Cristian


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Mon Dec 11 01:20:42 2000
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 19:20:42 -0600
Subject: Lloegr
Message-ID: <SUN.10.DEC.2000.192042.0600.>

Dear Chris and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Gwinn" <sonno3 at hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, December 08, 2000 7:14 PM

> Loegr (or Loegyr) refers generally to Lowland Britain - England in
> particular. The Archaic Welsh form must have been *Loic[e]r. It denizens
> are called Lloegrwys (which is from a Brittono-Latin *Loicr-enses).

> I am not sure of the exact etymology [I still need to see Eric Hamp,
> 'Lloegr: the Welsh name for England', Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 4
> (1982) 83-85 ], but if I had to take a guess, I would suppose that the
> name could be analyzed as *loi-c-er- (where the -er- might be a relic of
> *rigia "kingdom"), and that Loic- probably came from an Early Brittonic
> *log-i-c- (perhaps related to Irish loig and Welsh llo, "calf," which are
> related to Breton lu-e "idiot," allegedly from PIE *leig- / *loig-).

[PR]

More likely, IMHO, sources for the first (?) element might be the IE roots
for Gaelic

lugh, 'small, lynx, Lugh (sun-god)'

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ec at ec hecc, vindga meipi a netr allar nmo, geiri vnda~r . . . a ~eim
mei~i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rstom renn." (Havamal 138)


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Mon Dec 11 03:08:08 2000
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 21:08:08 -0600
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <SUN.10.DEC.2000.210808.0600.>

Dear Stefan and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Stefan Georg" <Georg at home.ivm.de>
Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2000 4:22 AM

>> The consonants in *gwhen-(6)-, 'beat', I believe to have originally been
>> early IE *gwVHVn- so that *gwh is not, as I believe Miguel would have it, a
>> velarization of *gh but rather the resolution of an accentually occasioned
>> juxtaposition of *gw + *H.

>> This particular root is, I believe, found in Coptic hine, 'row', for
>> which I would amend the current hieroglyphic transcription of Xn(j) to
>> *Xjn(j).

>> Possibly it may have a distant reflex in Arabic sha?an-un, 'disheveled
>> hair, a derivation of sha??a, 'scatter, disperse'.

[PR]
Either I inadvertently typed <?>, the glottal stop, or my 'ain (?) came out
as it. It should be 'ain.

> Coptic and Arabic are not known to be Indo-European languages,

[PR]
You jest! No one has ever suggested that Coptic and Arabic are IE languages!

> nor is there any evidence that Afro-Asiatic, the language family Coptic and
> Arabic belong to, may be related, however distantly, to Indo-European.

[PR]
In view of the existence of our sister-list, the Nostratic-List, and the
work of many researchers including Bomhard's work, this statement is purely
provocative.

Instead of a priori judgments on his (and incidentally my) work (not to
mention that of many others), why not try *showing* why Bomhard's and my
IE-AA comparisons are worthless as evidence, switching to the
Nostratic-List, of course, if you are up to it?

> It is, thus, not possible that an Indo-European root may be "found" in
> Coptic.

[PR]
So you say. And now I, and perhaps Bomhard, invite you to prove what you
say.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ec at ec hecc, vindga meipi a netr allar nmo, geiri vnda~r . . . a ~eim
mei~i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rstom renn." (Havamal 138)


From maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Mon Dec 11 14:35:48 2000
From: maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Max Wheeler)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 14:35:48 +0000
Subject: Historical Greek Grammar
In-Reply-To: <008101c06251$a212fbc0$d63dd883@nevada.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.143548.0000.>

Horrocks, Geoffrey, 1997, Greek. A history of the language and its
speakers, London/New York: Longman has relevant phonological information in
chap. 11 'Spoken Greek in the Byzantine Empire'.

Max

--On Saturday, December 9, 2000 18:33 -0800 Philip Rusche
<ruschep at nevada.edu> wrote:

> Could someone please recommend to me a standard and up-to-date historical
> grammar of Greek?  I am working with some Greek texts from the Middle Ages
> and need some references for phonological changes (they are glosses, so I

____________________________________________________________
Max W. Wheeler
School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Falmer
BRIGHTON BN1 9QH, G.B.

Tel: +44 (0)1273 678975 Fax: +44 (0)1273 671320 Email:
maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk
____________________________________________________________


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Mon Dec 11 16:08:00 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 11:08:00 -0500
Subject: Gothic/forwarded request
In-Reply-To: <f04310100b657b746ed4d@[195.247.65.175]>
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.110800.0500.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

[ Moderator's note:
  Due to the nature of this post, I have left off the usual "Reply-To:" which
  points back to the list.  If you wish your reply to include the Indo-European
  mailing list, you will have to address it so explicitly.
  --rma ]

Given that I know virtually nothing about the subject
I'm forwarding a request for information on Gothic
from Manuel García Gil <mgarciag at arrakis.es>
on behalf of his father

I have edited the request for the sake of brevity

Does Cyril Babaev have anything? If so, does anyone have his url?

From: mgarciag at arrakis.es
Date: Sat, 09 Dec 2000 23:09:14 +0100
Subject: Gothic Language

I'm looking for references on Gothic, as well as websites; particularly on
grammar and modern editions of the Silver Bible (Codex Argenteus)

Manuel García Gil

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From bronto at pobox.com  Mon Dec 11 05:24:06 2000
From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 21:24:06 -0800
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <SUN.10.DEC.2000.212406.0800.>

petegray wrote:
> A better example might be Spanish America.  Did the Spanish
> still accept slavery at the of the conquistadors?

well, Columbus reported on the potential value of the islanders as slaves.

--
Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/


From hwhatting at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 11 15:05:57 2000
From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 16:05:57 +0100
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.160557.0100.>

On Sun, 10 Dec 2000 08:24:49 -0000 Peter Gray wrote:

>A better example might be Spanish America.  Did the Spanish still accept
>slavery at the of the conquistadors?

Certainly they did. The problem (for the Conquistadores) was that the
American Indians (at least on the Caribean Islands) seem not to have made
good slaves. They died out under the combined pressures of slavery and
European induced diseases. As a substitute, slaves were imported from
Africa, whose descendants today form the majority of the inhabitants of the
Caribbean islands and a sizeable part of the population of some other
American countries.

More generally, it seems that it is difficult to turn hunter-gatherers and
people from "primitive" crop-planting cultures into slaves, which fact (and
not any scrouples about slavery, which became socially and politically
relevant only in the middle of the 19th century) seems to be the main reason
why North American Indians and Australian Aborigines were killed or driven
into reservations and not enslaved. Also, historically slaves (if they did
not become slaves because of debts or were already slaves by birth) were
enslaved in one place (by conquerors or simple bandits) and then transported
to another. People who were conquered and allowed to stay at their homes
normally became serfs - certainly dependent on their masters and forced to
work for them, but, as a rule, not sellable. This, BTW, is what happened in
big parts of Latin America - mostly in those areas which already knew
hierarchically organised agricultural societies before the arrival of the
European conquistadores.

On the other hand, in Africa wide areas were depopulated and quite complex
cultures (like the kingdom of Congo) were destroyed by the incursions of the
slave traders and their native collaborators.

As the Britons at the time of the arrival of the Saxons certainly lived in a
hierarchically organised agricultural society, the closest analogy is
probably to the population of the Aztec and Inca empires and to African
kingdoms like Congo. Of course, analogies are no substitute for facts. But
putting together these analogies and the facts discussed so far, it seems
that we have different situations in the areas on the SE coast first hit by
the Saxons (plundering, enslavement and selling of the slave to the
continent, expulsion, and killing) and further inland, where the Celts were
turned into serfs and kept their language, religion, and culture for some
time still.

One note on the "Celtic traces in the language" issue: one thing about
French which is cited in language histories over and over again is the small
number of Gaulish substrate words in the language. Normally, "alouette"
("lark") and some agricultural terms are quoted. On the other hand, French
phonology (and to a lesser degree grammar) is regularly described as heavily
influenced by the Gaulish substrate. But nobody doubts that the population
of France was basically Celtic, with only a minority of Roman settlers (and
a later smattering of Franks). So the small number of Celtic loanwords in
English cannot be used as an indicator for a massive eradication of Britons.

Best regards,
Hans-Werner Hatting


From dlwhite at texas.net  Mon Dec 11 16:48:50 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 10:48:50 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.104850.0600.>

> I think you are correct in pointing out that England was not monolithic, and
> that some of the invading forces from the Continent did take local wives.
> It would be hard to imagine otherwise.  But, I can't see how this was the
> predominant mode of family-creation during the invasion.  If it were,
> wouldn't we expect a more pronounced influence of Celt on English?

        The influences that, according to some models of possible outcomes,
would be expected are in fact there, as I am in the process of attempting to
demonstrate.

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Mon Dec 11 16:52:34 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 10:52:34 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.105234.0600.>

> Remember timing!  Enslavement, however attractive, was not an option in the
> American midwest, nor in Australia.  If these countries had been invaded in
> the 15th century instead of when they were, things might have been different.

> A better example might be Spanish America.  Did the Spanish still accept
> slavery at the of the conquistadors?

        I somehow neglected to mention Latin America in my earlier emissive.
It is one of the better examples of enserfment.
        And obviously hunter-gatherers do not lend themselves to enserfment.

                                                        Dr. David L. White


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Mon Dec 11 14:40:30 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 09:40:30 -0500
Subject: AS Conquest
In-Reply-To: <000d01c06188$7d946e60$bc00a8c0@vic.bigpond.net.au>
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.094030.0500.>

	I have read in general works that well before the Anglo-Saxon
invasion, the Romans used Saxon troops (or other Germanics) to guard the
North Sea coast against raids by their countrymen. Did they have a big
enough presence to serve as a catalyst for the invasion? Is there any
indication that they actually formed a separate Germanic-speaking community
before the Romans left?

>Anglo-Saxons were not a small military caste, I do not know about the Gaelic
>Irish in Scotland in same period. Anglo-Saxons were a mass mirgation fo both
>males and females probably numbering at least 100,000 probably more.

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From bronto at pobox.com  Mon Dec 11 05:53:15 2000
From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 21:53:15 -0800
Subject: re Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <SUN.10.DEC.2000.215315.0800.>

"David L. White" wrote:
>         . . . though it is generally acknowledged, I believe,
> that the Icelandic population has a "considerable" (whatever
> that means) Irish element. . . .

I've seen "one-seventh" bandied about.

--
Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/


From colkitto at sprint.ca  Mon Dec 11 06:33:33 2000
From: colkitto at sprint.ca (Robert Orr)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 01:33:33 -0500
Subject: Northern Subject Rule
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.013333.0500.>

> According to the "Northen Subject Rule" verbs with 3rd person plural subjects
> show 3rd person agreement if no subject pronoun (which in English must always
> by "they") is expressed.

"3rd person agreement " must mean "3rd person sg agreement "

> Thus "They peel them and boils them".  This sort of construal is very rare
> among languages of the world, and apart from Hebrew and Arabic occurs,
> according to Klehmola) only in Welsh, Cornish, and Breton

Not necessarily Brythonic.  Irish has this rule as well.

Robert Orr


From colkitto at sprint.ca  Mon Dec 11 07:15:06 2000
From: colkitto at sprint.ca (Robert Orr)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 02:15:06 -0500
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.021506.0500.>

>Larry Trask writes:

>>> pet - spin   : both have  /p/, even though one is aspirated, the other not

>>More complicated.  The ordinary contrast between /p/ and /b/ is neutralized
>>in this position.  Our orthography writes <p>, and our intuitions --
>>at least among those of us who are literate -- is that this voiceless
>>unaspirated [p] is still /p/.  But there is another analysis, in which
>>this [p] is assigned instead to the phoneme /b/.  Hardly anybody has
>>ever seen this second analysis as attractive, but I don't think we can
>>simply dismiss it as plainly wrong.

>Okay, so we transcribe <spin> /sbIn/, <stem> /sdEm/, <skin> /sgIn/, etc.
>with the /s/ devoicing the following stop. Let's see how well this scheme
>works. Consistency requires us to write <pin> [phIn] as /bhIn/ where the /h/
>devoices the preceding /b/. No problem, since English doesn't use *[bhIn] or
>*[pIn], only [phIn] and [bIn]. Likewise we have <tin> /dhIn/, <kin> /ghIn/,
>etc.

Scottish Gaelic orthography makes allowances for something similar, cf.
sgurr, sgian, taisbeanadh, eisd, gasda, iasg, etc.

cf. Irish scian, taispeain, eist, gasta, iasc, etc.

Robert Orr


From whiting at cc.helsinki.fi  Mon Dec 11 20:39:44 2000
From: whiting at cc.helsinki.fi (Robert Whiting)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 22:39:44 +0200
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (was: minimal pairs ex: PIE e/o
 Ablaut)
In-Reply-To: <000901c04fd0$02b852c0$406063d1@texas.net>
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.223944.0200.>

On Thu, 16 Nov 2000 David L. White <dlwhite at texas.net> wrote:

>        Look, either we admit that English speakers could coin
>/lith/ vs /lidh/, whereas Japanese speakers could not coin /biri/
>versus /bili/ or we (somewhat obstructionistically) do not.

I say we admit it.  The question then becomes "what does it
prove?"

>If we admit it, there must be an explanation.

I'm glad to see that you subscribe to the principle that patterns
must be accounted for by rules.

>The view of "the phonemic principle" that I and several others
>have been pushing provides this, while the view that Mr. Whiting
>has been pushing does not.  I personally prefer to construe the
>concept of "phoneme" in such a way that meaningful and accurate
>predictions, which yield an increase in understanding of
>linguistic behavior (even hypothetical), can be made.

This is fine so long as you don't try to foist logical fallacies
off on your adoring public.  To come back to my original question
of "what does this prove?", the answers are easy (even if those
not trained in logic can't see them).  The fact that Japanese
speakers could not coin /biri/ vs. /bili/ proves that [r] and [l]
are not phonemes in Japanese.  The fact that English speakers
could coin /liT/ vs. /liD/ proves that [T] and [D] either are
phonemes in English or that they could become phonemes in
English.  The problem is that "are" and "could become" seem to
mean the same thing in your idiolect.  If you are over 35 and
a native-born citizen of the U.S. then you could become President
of the U.S.  Does this mean that you are the President of the
U.S.?  I don't think so (although it is possible, after all
somebody has to be and nobody seems to know who :>).

The logical fallacy is in assuming the converse of a universal
(A-type) statement to be true.  Being distinguishable sounds is a
necessary condition for phonemes.  Therefore the statement "all
phonemes are distinguishable sounds" is valid.  But the simple
converse of this, "all distinguishable sounds are phonemes" is
not a valid inference.  If it were true, then being
distinguishable sounds would be a sufficient condition for
phonemes.  It is not.

To prove that this is not true, we could trot out the example of
German [c,] and [x] again, but there is a more direct way
involving the segments we have been discussing.  Let us go back
to the point where intervocalic voiceless fricatives were voiced
in English.  This change produced voiced allophones of the
voiceless fricatives.  Could these sounds be distinguished by the
speakers of the language?  Pretty certainly, since the Irish
monks who introduced the Latin alphabet into England heard them
and provided signs to write each of them.  Could the speakers
have coined words in which these sounds contrasted?  Pretty
certainly, since if speakers can hear the difference between two
sounds they should be able to contrast them if they had wanted
to.  Does this mean that these sounds were phonemes from the
moment of their creation?  No. Nobody (except Mr. White) disputes
that these sounds remained allophones throughout Old English.

But according to your "phonemic principle" these sounds were
phonemes from the moment they were created.  I don't believe it.
It took quite some time before these sounds began to be used as
phonemes.  Now the fact that they were distinguishable sounds
provided the potential for them to become phonemes.  But
potential is not reality and despite this potential, they aren't
phonemes until they are used as phonemes.

Psychologists tell us that everybody is capable of murder.  Since
everyone is a potential murderer, then, according to your brand of
logic, everyone is a murderer.  Don't tell the Governor of Texas
this or he will have his Rangers round up everyone and start
executing them.  Every man who does not suffer from erectile
dysfunctionality (not to be confused by speakers of Japanese with
the electile dysfunctionality in Florida :>) is a potential
rapist.  According to your brand of logic, that means that every
man is a rapist.  Potential is just not reality, and saying that
it is doesn't make it so.

Now there is nothing wrong with potential.  Bookies make a lot of
money out of it.  For the odds offered before a race or a game
simply reflect a numerical evaluation of the potential of each
entry or team to win.  But at the end of the day, it is not the
entry or the team with the highest potential that wins, but the
one that crosses the finish line first or that scores the most
points.  Potential may help sell tickets, but it is reality that
goes into the record books.

Similarly, there is nothing wrong with identifying potential
phonemes.  But potential phonemes are just potential phonemes
until they cross the finish line.

>        The sort of distributional standards that are commonly
>used to determine phonemes can fail to predict what speakers are
>sensitive to and able to control.

Intentionally so, because everything that speakers are sensitive
to and able to control is not necessarily a phoneme according to
the present definition.  This may be in the background as an
unstated (but fairly obvious) necessary condition for phonemes,
but it does not form any part of the definition of a phoneme even
if it is implied by the "contrastive" part of the definition.

>For example there is in one African language (I forget which,
>but I think it is in the Nuer Dinka area) which has predictable
>long-range nasalization that speakers are sensitive to.  The
>long-range is the key, because the nasalization, though
>abstractly predictable, is not predictable from phonetic
>implementation.  (Speakers do not really feel compelled to open
>their velums the whole way, as opposed to the way that English
>speakers feel compelled to aspirate under certain circumstances.)
>In a case like this, the question of whether nasalization is or
>is not phonemic depends on what we want the word to capture.  I
>prefer it to capture speakers abilities, enabling us to predict
>(among other things) what coinages are possible and what are not.

Ah, so you are the one who wants to change the definition of
phoneme.  I'm afraid that phoneme as it is now defined is based
on the actual usage of sounds in a particular language, not on
what sounds the speakers of the language can distinguish.
Potential use as a phoneme may, as you say, be useful linguistic
information, but it doesn't fit into the phonemic description of
a language as it is presently constituted.

>Mr. Whiting evidently prefers it to capture distributional
>truths, among other things.  As I said before, perhaps
>over-charitably, we will have to agree to differ.

Capturing truth can be a tricky business as Pontius Pilate once
pointed out.  But charity has nothing to do with agreeing to
differ.  "Superciliously" might be a more accurate term.  It is
possible for people to have honest differences of opinion over
facts (such as whether /ch/ is one phoneme or two), but the rules
of logic are not subject to different interpretations.  And I
don't need your permission to disagree with a logical fallacy.
So I will continue to disagree as long as you continue to claim
that any sounds that the speakers of a language can distinguish
are phonemes in that language.  Until you can get the definition
of phoneme changed, phonemes will continue to be the sounds that
are actually used contrastively in a language to effect
differences in meaning.

Now if you want to say that sounds that can be distinguished and
could be used contrastively by the speakers of a language are
either already phonemes or could become phonemes in that
language, then I would have no objection.  There is nothing
logically inconsistent in such a statement.  Whether there is an
inevitability about such potential phonemes eventually becoming
actual phonemes that makes this a powerful tool of prediction or
not, I don't know, but it might be interesting to investigate.

>        It should be noted that the matter of boundaries, how
>many types there are and how (other than elegance of description)
>they are to be detected, is not so clear as some would have us
>think.  For example, it is fairly common in Old English for what
>we think of as the first element of a compound to be written as a
>separate word.  Nor is it clear that the sort of boundaries we
>have been talking about are properly described as
>"morphological", as any account of phonetics and phonology
>described in their own terms would at the very least have to
>include a recognition of word boundaries.  But if we admit that
>at least there are stronger "word-like" boundaries on the one
>hand and things quite a lot weaker than that on the other, then
>the matter of "kuchen" can be handled by treating the diminutive
>as "ku-chen" or even, more radically, "ku chen", with "chen" as a
>somewhat exceptional word (given a looser definition of the word
>"word", which does not after all have a revealed meaning).  The
>pronunciation referred to does indicate the presence of a strong
>boundary of a fundamentally different type, general rather than
>merely morphological, compared to the boundary in something like
>Latin "paribus" (however we divide that).

All very interesting and it certainly has a bearing on the
gramaticalization of independent words into derivational
suffixes, but I'm not sure what its relevance is to the present
discussion.  I'm sure that everyone knows that whether a phrase
is considered one lexical item or two does not depend on whether
it is written as one word, with a hyphen, or as two words
(someone is certain to remind us that writing is allegedly
secondary to spoken language) but on whether it is considered as
one stress unit or two.  Consider for example English 'bedroom'
and 'living room'.  Although the first is written as one word and
the second as two, both are single lexical items (i.e., they are
both a single stress unit).  'Living room' as two stress units
implies something different (a room with an animus of its own).
So it is not a question of whether 'kuhchen' is written
<kuhchen>, <kuh-chen>, or <kuh chen>; it is a question of when
any putative *'kuh chen' became a single stress unit.  That is
when the juncture ceases being a word boundary and becomes a
morpheme boundary.


Bob Whiting
whiting at cc.helsinki.fi


From dlwhite at texas.net  Mon Dec 11 16:57:22 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 10:57:22 -0600
Subject: Kurds and Georgians [and Basques]
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.105722.0600.>

> -There is a trail of cultural remnants (e.g. underground 'temples' or
> sacred sites, decorative motifs, beliefs, ...) from the Dodecanesos via
> the Mediterranean islands to Spain and the Basque country and up to the
> Scottish islands, pointing to a maritime migration path.

        I believe that the Basques share with the Minoans the somewhat
strange custom of building three-story buildings.

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Mon Dec 11 12:10:43 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 12:10:43 +0000
Subject: Iberia
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.121043.0000.>

Ed Selleslagh writes:

>  -In Antiquity both Georgia and Mediterranean SE Spain were already called
>  Iberia, puzzling the writers of the time. In Spain the name seems to be
>  related to 'ibar', Basque (Iberian?) for 'river (valley)'(cf. the river
>  Ebro, Lat. Hiberus, another example of a river 'River'?). Note that ancient
>  Georgia also consisted essentially of two major river valleys parallel to
>  the Caucasus, so it could have been called 'ibar' by non-Kartvelians.

The idea of deriving the name 'Iberia' from a Basque word has long been
popular, but there are big problems with it.

The central Basque word here is <ibar>.  Today this word means 'valley',
and it is not systematically distinguished from the other 'valley' word,
<haran>.  However, there is some textual evidence pointing to an
earlier distinction.

Azkue concludes that the earlier sense of <ibar> was 'water meadow',
'piece of low-lying fertile land' (possibly next to a river), and this
is accepted by the great Vasconist Michelena.  Indeed,
Azkue translates the word as Spanish <vega>, which means exactly this,
and which itself (it is of unknown origin) has at times been suspected
of being derived from an unrecorded Basque derivative *<ibaika>.
In the mountainous Basque Country, of course, such patches of fertile
low-lying land are found nowhere but in valleys.

In contrast, Sarasola notes that <haran> sometimes sems to denote
specifically a *high* valley, a valley lying high in the mountains.

It is therefore at least possible that <ibar> and <haran> were once
distinguished along these lines, and that their modern synonymy results
from a loss of the distinction.

The most widespread Basque word for 'river' is <ibai>, or sometimes
<hibai> on the French side.  This is pretty clearly a derivative of
<ibar>, whose regular combining form is <iba->.  (Compare, for
example, <iztei> 'groin', from <izter> 'thigh'.)

But this is not the only recorded Basque word for 'river'.  In much
of the center and east we find instead <uhalde> ~ <ugalde> ~ <ubalde>.
This is a transparent compound of <ur> 'water', whose regular combining
form is <u->, and <alde> 'side'.  The original sense was therefore
'waterside', and the word is well attested in this sense, as well as
in the sense of 'river'.   We also have the northern word <ibaso>,
another derivative of <ibar>, with an opaque second element, but this
is not recorded before 1852.  In the Zuberoan dialect on the French
side, we find yet another word for 'river', <uhaitz>, obviously a
compound of <ur> 'water' with a puzzling second element.

Now, <ibai> looks very much like a reasonably ancient formation, but
perhaps not all that ancient.  The problem is that this word is
almost entirely absent from toponyms.  Basque toponyms are overwhelmingly
based on local geographical features, and <ibar> in particular is
exceedingly frequent in toponyms, and yet <ibai> is almost absent.
The only toponym I can think of which obviously contains it is
<Ibaizabal>, the name of the biggest river lying within the Basque
Country.  This is transparently <ibai> + <zabal> 'wide', and the
wholly unreduced form of the name suggests that it is of no great
antiquity.  Two other toponyms, both town-names, may possibly
contain it: <Baiona> 'Bayonne' and <Baigorri>.  But such an analysis
of the first is largely dismissed by the eminent philologist Irigoyen,
who prefers a personal name <Baio> as the first element.  For the
second, an *<ibai-gorri> 'red river' does not seem impossible but
cannot be regarded as certain.  I don't know if there is anything reddish
about its river, with the very non-Basque name <Aldude>, but I'm inclined
to doubt it, since this river comes rushing down on the town from
limestone peaks nearly 1500 meters high.

On the other hand, <ibai> is not uncommon in surnames, which were
established only in the late Middle Ages, also mostly from local
geographical features.  So, we can't conclude that words for 'river'
were systematically disfavored by the earlier Basques for coining names.
I note also that <ur> 'water' is very frequent in toponyms.

All this suggests to me that <ibai> is perhaps not especially ancient
in Basque, and therefore perhaps not available as an etymon for any
names recorded more than 2000 years ago.

This leaves the seemingly more ancient <ibar>, which, from the point
of view of <Iberus>, the Roman name for the Ebro, at least has the
advantage of containing the needed /r/.  But Basque has no long
vowels, and no long vowels can be reconstructed for the Pre-Basque
of some 2000 years ago.  And Latin <Iberus> has a long /e/ in it.
How could <ibar>, with a short /a/, be the source of <Iberus>,
with its long /e/?

I'm afraid a Basque source for the name of the Ebro does not look
especially plausible to me.

By the way, I have seen it suggested that the source might be a
supposed Celtic *<iber>, but I have no idea if any such Celtic item
can be substantiated.  However, for what it's worth, there were
certainly plenty of Celtic-speakers in the Ebro valley when the
Romans arrived, and Celtic toponyms are not rare even within the
Basque Country.  A good example is <Deba>, the name of a river in
Gipuzkoa and of the town lying at its mouth.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Mon Dec 11 18:06:04 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 18:06:04 +0000
Subject: Iberia (PS)
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.180604.0000.>

In my earlier posting, I forgot to mention one further point:
there is no evidence for Basque speech in the Ebro valley in
Roman times.

Aquitanian, the ancestral form of Basque spoken in the Roman period,
is overwhelmingly recorded only north of the Pyrenees.  We have only
three Aquitanian inscriptions from south of the Pyrenees, all of
them in eastern Navarre, and none of them very close to the Ebro.

Moreover, the western half of the historical Basque Country is full of
toponyms which are plainly not Basque and which might well be IE.
Prominent here is the big group of names in <-aka> and <-ika>,
like Mundaka, Meaka, Sondika, Muxika and the famous Gernika.  These
names are common in the west, but become rarer as we move east, until
they finally peter out altogether.  They are absent on the northern
side of the Pyrenees.

Accordingly, some specialists have concluded that Basque was very likely
not spoken in Roman times in a large part of the Spanish Basque Country,
and that Basque-speakers only moved in later -- most likely soon after
the collapse of Roman power in the west.

It is also noteworthy that clearly Basque toponyms, so numerous in
the mountains, become rarer as we move south toward the Ebro, and are
almost non-existent in the Ebro valley itself.  (I omit Basque names
whch are obviously calques on, or adaptations of, Romance names.)

Of course, this paucity of Basque toponyms in the Ebro valley might be
explained simply by the early disappearance of Basque from that region.
In the 12th century, the Basque-Romance frontier seems to have run at
least roughly along the Ebro, but three centuries later it had moved
substantially further north.  Even so, if the Ebro valley had been
inhabited by Basques for a couple of thousand years before this, we
might hope to find a few more Basque toponyms there.

True, the Romans reported that the people they called the Vascones
inhabited much of modern Navarre, down to the Ebro.  And, true, the
European names for the Basques derive from this Roman name.  So we
might reasonably conclude that the Vascones spoke Aquitanian/Basque.
But there exists no hard evidence that they did, apart perhaps from
those three inscriptions.

In sum, then, we cannot demonstrate that Basque was ever spoken
anywhere in the Ebro valley before the early medieval period.
Maybe it was, but we can't say that it was.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Mon Dec 11 05:40:46 2000
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 00:40:46 EST
Subject: "Goth"
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.004046.EST.>

[ Moderator's note:
  Two separate messages have been included into a single posting here, so that
  the correction made in the second can be read before replies begin.
  --rma ]

To the list:

The discussion of Celtic borrowed into German causes me brings this up.  I am
having trouble with the shifts in Germanic and how they relate to how the
sounds would change in early times and when borrowed.

The word "Goth" is difficult one.  It would seem that careful linguistics
could help make sense of it's history.  But the different developments that
I've read have been hard to follow.

Basically, the word "Goth" apparently clearly first appears in Greek about
250BC.  That is when it is applied to the "Goths" just north of the Danube.
It seems that in Greek at this earlier time, it is written <Guto:nes> or
<Guthoi>.

In a number of places I see the word reconstructed as from <*Gutos>, sing.,
<*Gutans> pl. (with <t> rather than <thorn>.)  I don't know when this
reconstruction would date to.

In Latin, it will appear about a hundred years after the Greek as pl <Gothi>
(the way Ulfila's biographer apparently spelled it) and at some point I've
read, <Gotthi>.

The OED mentions a form in Gothic, <Got<thorn>iuda>, (Gothic people?) but I
don't see it in either of two Gothic dictionaries and perhaps it is a
construction that is meant to account for the <tthi-> that apparently
sometimes was used in Latin.

Earlier Greek and Latin historians use similar names to refer to people in
other places who may have been "Goths":  Strabo writing in Greek uses
<Buto:nas> which is often interpreted as a mistake for "Guto:nas", Tacitus
mentions the <Gotones>, Ptolemy mentions both <Kw'gnoi> and up in Sweden
<Gau'tai> and something that has been Latinized as "Gythones."

The Goths were sometimes also referred to as the <Getae> (Greek: Getes,
Getae; Latin, Geta, Getae), a name used for an earlier group of people in the
same area (north of the Danube.)  (The <Geats> appear as another northern
Germanic peoples at some point later in time.)

Some derive the name from the <Go:eta> or <Go:te> people or section of
Sweden, Ptolemy's <Gau'tae>.  Ingemar Nordgren has suggested that the name is
derived from the Goeta River in Sweden (deriving it from Gaut's "aelv").

There is a claim that early forms of the name appear within the Roman empire
in two Greek inscriptions from Asia, one using a personal name <<gouththa>>
the other apparently refering to <<...tes romaion arches gouththton te kai
germanon ethnon>> (apparently from the late 3d cent AD in Persia.)

Now, how does this work?  Does it make sense to assume that the name would
have undergone a consonant shift some 600 or so years before and it once
began with /k-/?  (E.g., a leader of the possibly Germanic Bastarnae
mentioned in Livy in the 2d cent BC as being in this region is given the name
in Latin <Cotto>.)

And are there vowel shifts in East Germanic that happen somewhere around this
time that would yield something like /oe/> /u/ or /e/?  And doesn't Latin
favor <thorn> > /t/?  (E.g., Tacitus - "Tuista")  And how would either /u/ or
/oe/ or /o/ turn into /ou/ in Greek?  Is there any reason to think /oe/ > /o/
or /ou/ could happen at this time between Greek or Celtic and Germanic in
transcribing this word?  Is there a conventional comparative solution for any
of this?

How did <*Gutans> ever get to <Gouththton> in Greek?

The entries where I see <gout-> in Greek are called Phrygian borrowings in
Lidell-Scott.  There is a whole set of words in Greek like <goe:ta> and
<getheo> and <gounatos> that would appear to collide with a straight-up use
of the <goeta> form in Greek, if the sounds are in fact the same.

Is there some regular path by which something like "Goeta" or "Geta" or
"Gutan" would be expected to be borrowed into Greek or Latin, so that it
comes out "Goth" in Latin?  Or "Gouththton" in Greek?

Any sense as to how these sounds moved around would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Steve Long

        -------------------- Begin second message --------------------

From: X99Lynx at aol.com
Message-ID: <57.eb1f110.27668ebc at aol.com>
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 15:10:36 EST
Subject: "Goth"- correction
To: Indo-European at xkl.com

Thanks to some bad cutting and pasting I wrote (along with some typos):

<< Now, how does this work?  Does it make sense to assume that the name would
have undergone a consonant shift some 600 or so years before and it once
began with/k-/?  (E.g., a leader of the possibly Germanic Bastarnae mentioned
in Livy in the 2d cent BC as being in this region is given the name in Latin
<Cotto>.) >>

What I actually was asking was whether it makes sense to assume that some of
the original preshift *Gutans/Go:te? words may have shifted to an initial /k/
in some dialectics?  (Ergo the 2d centBC Bastarnae name <Cotto> mentioned
above.) Or that the initial /gau/ or /gu/ or /gou/ actually represented an
earlier /gh/ or /ghw/, with the result > /g(o)/?  (Which might not make any
of this clearer, but at least is more of what I meant.)

Regards,
Steve Long


From whiting at cc.helsinki.fi  Mon Dec 11 20:27:34 2000
From: whiting at cc.helsinki.fi (Robert Whiting)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 22:27:34 +0200
Subject: minimal pairs (was: PIE e/o Ablaut)
In-Reply-To: <CF348645E7951B43B95272FADF5E6D2D15FCAF@foaex01.auckland.ac.nz>
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.222734.0200.>

[Sorry that I have been so long getting back to this, but I have had
to make two trips to the States in the interim and between being
jet-lagged and having to catch up on work, I just haven't had the
time  -- RMW]

On Tue, 7 Nov 2000 "Ross Clark (FOA LING)"
<r.clark at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:

<snip>

>On Sat, 21 Oct 2000 "Ross Clark (FOA LING)"
><r.clark at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:

<snip>

>RW>By "historical grammar" I mean the changes in grammar through
>RW>time, studied systematically.  By grammar I mean those features
>RW>of language that one will usually find in a standard grammar
>RW>book:  phonology, morphology, and syntax, but generally not
>RW>including pragmatics and lexicon.

<snip>

>  speakers     +     rules      -->      Old English
>                                               |
>  speakers     +     rules      -->      Middle English
>                                               |
>  speakers     +     rules      -->      Modern English

>RW>Synchronic (generative) grammar is concerned with the horizontal
>RW>rows.  Historical grammar is concerned only with the final
>RW>column.  Since we don't know what goes on in speaker's minds,
>RW>everything to the left of the arrows is an assumption.  We assume
>RW>that speakers start from a certain point and apply a certain set
>RW>of rules to arrive at the corpus on the right of the arrows.  But
>RW>everything to the right of the arrows is data.  When we move from
>RW>one set of data to another we also formulate rules to account for
>RW>the changes.  The difference is that that the historical rules
>RW>are not based on assumptions about how speakers produce language,
>RW>but on observed differences in the language that speakers have
>RW>produced.  Synchronic grammar is simply cut out of the loop in
>RW>historical grammar.

>I doubt that this description fits anything that we are familiar
>with under the name of historical grammar. A corpus is not a
>language, and I find it hard to imagine, say, historical syntax
>couched in terms of differences between a sentence found in an OE
>corpus and another one found in a ME corpus. (I don't mean
>examples, I mean the statements of historical grammar.) As soon
>as you even begin to talk about, say, cases, constituents or
>constructions, you are already moving left of the arrows.

I don't say we can't go to the left of the arrows.  All I say is
that as soon as we go to the left of the arrows everything is an
assumption -- constrained only by what is to the right of the
arrows (the data) and some vague notion of "universal grammar"
that we have generalized from trips across the arrows in many
different languages.  Unlike what is in the right hand column we
don't know (i.e., don't have any data) about what is on the other
side.

But although a corpus is not a language, it is an important tool
for linguistic work and an indispensable one for historical
linguistic work.  In most cases, there is simply no other record
of languages, particularly dead languages, on which to base
linguistic analysis.  For modern languages, a field linguist can
collect tapes or phonetic transcriptions of actual spoken
languages, but these are corpora too.  Field linguists can use
these to extract a lexicon and a grammar, and if native
informants are readily available can (relatively) easily develop
a tool that can be used by other researchers.  But if there are
no records of earlier stages of the language, then the only
possibility for historical work is through internal
reconstruction.

Without such corpora historical linguistics would get about as
far as paleontology would without fossils.

As for whether this looks like anything that you are familiar
with under the name of historical grammar, you might want to go
back and look at de Saussure again.  What I have presented is
simply a modification of his basic principles of historic
(diachronic) grammar as a constantly changing medium through time
and synchronic grammar as a cross section through this medium at
some particular point -- a "snapshot", as it were, of this
changing medium at some particular point in time.  Thus:

                      H G                      TIME
                       |                         |
                       |                         |
                       |                        \ /
                       |                         v
                       |
                       |
          S G -------------------- S G
                       |
                       |
                       |
                       |
                       |
                       |
                      H G


I am sure you will find this diagram or one similar to it in any
basic text on linguistics.  All I have done is present 3 cross
sections instead of one and broken down synchronic grammar into
its components.  What is to the left of the arrows corresponds to
what de Saussure termed "langue" (the language system) and what
is to the right of the arrows is what he called "parole" (the
speech act).  These two components correspond generally to what
Chomsky called "competence" and "performance."  The current
theory is that native speakers have internalized a set of rules
through something called a "language acquisition device" (de
Saussure's "langage") that allows them to produce their language.

Generative grammar is an attempt to determine these rules through
the linguistic analysis of patterns of grammatically correct
usage.  It is necessary to do this through linguistic analysis
because native speakers have not memorized these rules the way
they have memorized the multiplication tables or the formula for
the volume of a sphere, and so they cannot just reel off a list of
the rules.  They have acquired them at a time before they are
capable of serious memorization.  Native speakers have not
memorized the grammar of their language, they have just learned
it -- it is hardwired into their brains by the LAD.  Native
speakers are often taught prescriptive grammar in school, but
comprehensive education is a fairly recent thing.  Before
everyone was required to go to school, everyone still grew up
learning to speak the language.  Even today, those who for one
reason or another do not go to school will still learn to speak
their native language.  They may not learn to read or write, but
they will still be able to speak the language.

I suspect that the thing that you disagree with is my statement
that historical grammar is concerned only with the final column,
that is, with the data, and you are right to disagree, because
a synchronic grammar of Old English has to go to the left of the
arrows to produce an explanation of what is on the right of the
arrows.  My point was not that what is on the right of the arrows
exists in splendid isolation, but that without it, it is very
difficult to venture to the left of the arrows.  If, for example,
case endings have completely disappeared from a language, it is
very difficult to reconstruct them without examples from an
earlier stage of the language.  So I will agree that the data is
not the sole concern of historical grammar, but I will maintain
that you won't get very far in historical grammar without it, and
even with it, you can't be certain of what is on the other side
of the arrows.

<snip>

>RW>Realistic means based on realia -- things that actually exist
>RW>as opposed to mental constructs.

>This is not sufficient to make any discrimination among
>linguistic descriptions. Any linguist of any theoretical
>persuasion will claim that their description is "based on"
>"things that actually exist".

Any theorist will tell you that his theories are based on things
that actually exist.  The problem is that for any given set of
data there are virtually an infinite number of hypotheses that
will account for it.  Some will just be more plausible than
others.  However, it is usually not too difficult to see how far
beyond the data any particular theory has gone, and, more
important, whether it is falsifiable or not.

>However, I guess it might distinguish you from a radical
>Hocuspocusian.

No comment.

>RW>When you start talking about "mental reality" you are getting
>RW>into a murky area of philosophy. Is there such a thing as "mental
>RW>reality"?  This is something that can be discussed endlessly and
>RW>inevitably inconclusively.

>Well, that's what philosophers are paid to do.

Philosophers get paid to do that?  Maybe I should become a
professional philosopher. :)

>As linguists, I think we should simply admit that insofar as our
>synchronic descriptions are any more than mere transcription,
>they are attempts to capture some aspect of mental reality.

I don't say that we shouldn't; in fact, I think we pretty much
have to.  What I say is that such a thing is presently beyond our
reach.  Until we can get inside the human mind, there is no way
to verify whether what we have captured is "mental reality" or
not.  It may be a useful model to explain certain things (like
Niels Bohr's planetary model of the atom) but it also may have
nothing to do with reality (like Niels Bohr's planetary model of
the atom).  I don't say that we shouldn't try to get there, only
that there is no direct road there presently available.  So
whether all our rules of synchronic grammar actually reflect
something that actually goes on in the mind (which is what I
assume you mean by "mental reality") is something that remains to
be seen.

[snip]

>RC>> The rest of your post is entirely dependent on the further
>RC>> assumption that native speakers of modern English (in general,
>RC>> not just linguists) distinguish "foreign" from "native" words,
>RC>> and that the words I listed with /th/ in voiced environments are
>RC>> marked as "foreign". Since I don't share this assumption, I would
>RC>> like to know what evidence leads you to it. Do you have any such
>RC>> evidence, other than the fact that by excluding these hundreds of
>RC>> words you can arrive at a nice phonological generalization?

>RW> Let me answer this from back to front.

>RW> You ask what evidence I have that native speakers
>RW> distinguish by rule the [th] of loan words from the [dh] of
>RW> native words other than hundreds of examples and the fact that it
>RW> produces a nice phonological generalization.

RC>This is not quite what I said. I said that in order to arrive at
RC>your nice generalization you need to *exclude* hundreds of
RC>English words, and I asked what independent evidence you had that
RC>these words are somehow marginal to the structure of English?

RW>I don't remember saying that these words were marginal to the
RW>structure of English and I don't remember your saying it
RW>previously.  I didn't say these words were marginal to the
RW>structure of English.  I said that these words follow a different
RW>rule from native English words and that foreign words don't
RW>necessarily follow the same rules as native words.  So these
RW>words aren't marginal to English -- there are too many of them --
RW>they just follow different rules.

RW>But I can see that I shouldn't expect connections to be made when
RW>these connections have not been expressly stated.  So let's start
RW>again.  Grimm's Law says that certain PIE consonants shift in a
RW>certain way in Germanic.  But there are a large number of
RW>exceptions.  One exception is that unvoiced stops don't shift
RW>when the stop is the second part of a voiceless cluster (thus
RW>/sp/, /st/, and /sk/ remain unshifted).  However, even with this,
RW>there are still a large number of exceptions to Grimm's Law.
RW>Verner's Law says that when the PIE stress fell after the
RW>consonant then the consonant shifted in a different way.  So
RW>Verner's Law in effect *excludes* hundreds of Germanic words from
RW>the effects of Grimm's Law thereby producing a nice phonological
RW>generalization.

>This is the most peculiar interpretation of Verner's Law I have
>ever seen. The fact is that Verner made it possible to *include*
>many words which had previously simply been sidelined as
>"exceptions".

To include in what?  Certainly not Grimm's Law.  Verner's Law
justifies certain exceptions to Grimm's Law.  The consensus is
that Verner's Law operated after Grimm's Law (thus Grimm's Law
feeds Verner's Law by providing voiceless fricatives for it to
operate on).  The words "in effect" above indicate that what I
said is not what actually happened, but rather that this is the
result that it produced.

So once again:  Grimm's Law says (inter alia) that PIE voiceless
stops become Germanic voiceless fricatives:

            PIE           Germ.

            *p             f
            *t             T
            *k             x

But considering the dental, PIE *t results in Germanic T, d, and
t.  Now T is the normal outcome of Grimm's Law; t is the result
of Grimm's Law not acting on the second member of a voiceless
cluster (Latin 'sto:', Goth. 'standan' "stand"; this sound is
"in actuality" excluded from the effect of Grimm's Law rather
than "in effect" excluded).  Until Verner discovered his law, d
was just an unexplained exception to Grimm's Law.  Verner's Law
is:

   [+fric., -voice] > [+voice, (±stop)] / [+voice, -accent] ___
   {+voice, #}
   (the notation (±stop) is included because this rule apparently
   also voiced PIE *s in this environment; for those who may not
   be able to read the 8-bit character, this is a "plus or minus"
   sign)

This rule explains the shift of PIE *t to Germanic d (Latin
'pater', Goth. 'fadar').  Although the actual rule has shifted
T to d (where T was the result of Grimm's Law), the effect is to
exclude this word from having to have the expected outcome
(*faTar) if only Grimm's Law had operated.  This is why I said
that *in effect* Verner's Law excludes this word from the effects
of Grimm's Law.  It doesn't actually exclude it from the
operation of Grimm's Law (otherwise the fricative wouldn't have
been there for Verner's Law to convert).

>RW>What independent evidence is there that Verner's Law
>RW>correctly excludes these words?  Only the fact that when it can
>RW>be checked, the PIE stress does fall after the consonant in those
>RW>cases where the consonant does not shift according to Grimm's
>RW>Law.  Of course this might just be coincidence, and some people
>RW>might not accept Verner's Law and ask what independent evidence
>RW>there is for it other than that when you exclude these words
>RW>using this rule you get the nice phonological generalization
>RW>known as Grimm's Law.

>If someone asked this I would have to conclude that they had not
>understood either.

Seems to be a lot of that going around. :)

>RW> This seems rather like asking what evidence I have for
>RW> Grimm's Law or Verner's Law other than hundreds of examples and
>RW> the fact that they provide a nice phonological generalization.

>RC>No, because you are not presenting this as a historical law. As
>RC>a historical explanation of why /th/ occurs in certain places and
>RC>/dh/ in others, it is not in dispute.

>RW>Historical law - historical explanation -- What's the difference
>RW>in your mind?

>You misunderstood me. I was not proposing an antithesis.

I'm sorry.  It rather sounded like you were.  But if there is no
antithesis, why is it a valid historical explanation but not a
valid historical law?

RW>What happened happened.  If the explanation can be
RW>stated as a rule and is not in dispute, what is the problem?

>What I said was that the *historical* explanation of the
>distribution of [th] and [dh] in native English words was not in
>dispute. What we are arguing about is a *synchronic* account of
>[th] and [dh] in Modern English. This is why the comparison with
>Grimm/Verner was not appropriate.

The point is that sound laws (changes) are historical events that
occur at a certain time in a certain language under certain
conditions.  Once the change goes to completion, that's it.  If a
word got missed by the change, it stays.  If new words that would
have undergone the change if they had been in the language when
it took place come into the language after the change, they
stay.  These words don't have to be loans; they could be new
coinings.  So if you know of any new coinings in English that
have intervocalic [T] (and aren't neologisms based on Greek or
Latin), I'd be happy to know.  Otherwise, if you find an English
word with intervocalic [T] there is about a 98% chance that it
is a loanword borrowed after the change.  And all loanwords that
came into the language after the change with intervocalic [T]
still have it.

So the further point is that sound laws (changes) that took place
long, long ago are still present (and significant) in the
language until some other change eliminates their effects.
Therefore, you can't disqualify the sound patterns of the modern
language from being significant simply because they are based on
*historical* events that happened in the distant past.  The sound
law (change) that voiced intervocalic [T] in Old English is
qualitatively no different from Grimm's Law that operated in
Pre-Germanic to produce the [T] in the first place.

So the *synchronic* pattern is the same as the historical
explanation.  Native English words have intervocalic [D] (with a
few exceptions) and borrowed English words have intervocalic [T]
(if that's what they were borrowed with).

It seems to be very difficult for people to grasp the concept
that synchronic grammar and historical grammar have to have the
same result because they both describe the same entity (the
modern language as it is produced by its speakers).  The modern
language is not produced by historical events, it is produced by
its modern speakers.  A knowledge of history is only useful to
help explain *why* modern speakers produce the language that they
do rather than some other or some previous version.  The modern
speakers tell us *what* they produce.  What modern speakers
produce and what historical explanations tell us to expect them
to produce must be the same thing, or else our historical
reconstruction must be wrong (because the native speakers of the
language can't be).  But neither the native speakers nor
historical explanations can tell us *how* they produce their
language.

[snip]

>RW> But ultimately, it is unimportant whether speakers can still
>RW> recognize foreign words after several centuries or not. The
>RW> pronunciation rules are marked in the lexicon.  The native
>RW> speaker learns these rules and follows them.  It is these rules
>RW> that produce the pattern, not the speaker's perception of the
>RW> words as native or non-native.

>RW> For other evidence that native speakers distinguish by rule
>RW> the [th] of loan words from the [dh] of native words I offer the
>RW> pattern created by the presence of intervocalic [th] and [dh] in
>RW> English words.

RC>This is not "other evidence". This *is* your evidence.

RW>Then my position is unassailable.

>I think you should be worried about this. "Self-validating"
>might be another way of putting it.

Are you now denying the existence of the pattern?  Or are you
still just saying that this pattern can't have any significance?
Because if the pattern is there, then this is not self-validation;
it is validation through evidence.

>RW>As with Verner's Law, the fact that the rule by which the
>RW>exclusions are made is valid and leads to a valid generalization
>RW>is sufficient.

>Not in the slightest like Verner's Law, as I've pointed out.
>Consider: For any pair of English phonemes (say /p/ and /b/) it
>is possible to extract a subset of the words in which they occur
>where the two are in "complementary distribution". (Say [p]
>initially and [b] medially, so we include pig, nibble and rubber,
>but exclude big, nipple and supper.) We then state that there is
>only one phoneme, but that the excluded words "follow a different
>rule". What principle would exclude such a ridiculous analysis?

Surely the principle that the "different rule" would have to be
in direct conflict with (the opposite of) the first rule would
reveal that this analysis is self-contradictory.  But why make
your ridiculous analysis so complicated?  Why not just extract a
subset of English words that begin with /b/ and say that all
English words begin with /b/ and that all the excluded English
words "follow different rules"?  The fact that the different
rules must be in conflict with the original rule makes such an
analysis impossible because P and ~P ("a proposition and its
opposite" or "P and not-P") cannot both be true.  The principle
is known as contradiction or mutual exclusivity.

But are you trying to say that you consider this to be in any way
parallel to saying that native English words have intervocalic
[D] and borrowed words have intervocalic [T]?  If so, then you
are clearly not even close to grasping what I have been talking
about.  It is one thing to present analyses that violate the
cherished rules of phonology (such as "no non-phonetic conditions
can affect phonology" or "rules that have to do with how words
are pronounced aren't necessarily phonological"), but it is quite
another to make up analyses that violate the rules of logic.

[snip]

RC>As I understand your position, you are claiming that there is a
RC>single phoneme, say /th/, with a realization rule that says
RC>(among other things) that /th/ is realized as [dh]
RC>intervocalically, except in certain exceptional words.

RW>Close.  I claim that there was once a single phoneme /th/ in
RW>English.  Then that this phoneme became voiced to [dh]
RW>intervocalically without creating any new contrasts (/th/ now
RW>has allophones [th, dh]).  Then that any words that came into the
RW>language with intervocalic [th] after this sound change operated
RW>retain [th] intervocalically (this is not necessarily restricted
RW>to loanwords; it could also include new coinings -- there just
RW>don't seem to be any with intervocalic [th]).  There is nothing
RW>particularly exceptional about words with intervocalic [th]
RW>except that the vast majority of them came into the language
RW>after the sound change.  There are a few native words with
RW>intervocalic [th] (for reasons that can be accounted for), but
RW>there are no loanwords that originally had intervocalic [th] that
RW>now have [dh].  This is exceptional, at least to the extent that
RW>there are no exceptions.

[snip]

RC>Meanwhile, how do we know that children and the less educated
RC>actually formulate the rule this way? If they did, one would
RC>expect that errors consisting of pronouncing [dh]
RC>intervocalically in words which should have [th] would be common.
RC>I don't recall any such tendency from my experience as a native
RC>speaker of English, but surely it's you that should be looking
RC>for such evidence.

RW>My point is that we don't know how any speaker actually
RW>formulates the rule.  What goes on on the left side of the arrows
RW>is a mystery.  All we know is that there is a pattern, the
RW>historical reason for the pattern, and that, synchronically,
RW>patterns must be accounted for by rules.  My further point is
RW>that it doesn't matter that we can't formulate the synchronic
RW>rule.  There must be one, or the pattern wouldn't be there.

>Since you are sure there is a rule, and are even willing to state
>it, I don't see why you claim it is such a mystery.

This is just your same philosophical question in a different
guise.  As I said earlier this is something that can be discussed
indefinitely (in both senses of the word), and I don't have time
to go into it here, nor do I consider it appropriate to this list
(it belongs on a list devoted to the philosophy of science).  A
good (philosophical) discussion on hypothesis confirmation will
be found in S. F. Barker, _Induction and Hypothesis_,
Contemporary Philosophy (Ithaca, 1957).  An extensive discussion
of Linguistic applications (including a bibliography of more
recent general studies) will be found in D. Wunderlich,
_Foundations of Linguistics_, Cambridge Studies in Linguistics
(Cambridge, 1979) [translation of the German version, _Grundlage
der Linguistik_, published in 1974].

But in brief, theories do not eliminate mysteries, they provide a
plausible explanation for them.  A theory is just an explanation
put forward to account for some observation or set of
observations (the evidence).  A theory can account for all the
observations (evidence) in a plausible manner and still be wrong.
Until direct observation and objective verification of cause and
effect are possible, a theory remains a theory.  Now there are
those, apparently including you, who believe that once we have a
theory to account for something, there is no longer any mystery.
But a theory is just a plausible story.  It is not evidence.
Plausible stories are what we use to bridge the gaps where there
is no evidence.  Innocent people have been executed on the basis
of plausible stories well told.  But once the plausible story
breaks down, the mystery reappears, implying that it never really
went away.  So plausible stories (theories) don't really
eliminate mysteries, they just give them something to hide behind
so that people who don't look beyond the explanations can't see
them.

<snip>

>We may be working from fundamentally different conceptions of how
>languages are organized here. I repeat your schema from the
>discussion of historical grammar:

> speakers     +     rules      -->      Old English

>>From this it would appear that, for you, "rules" includes all
>the information commonly thought of as being part of the lexicon.

No, rules are generally marked in the lexicon only if they are
not the productive rule.  That is what a markedness rule means:
the word has to be marked for the rule in the lexicon.  Thus
nouns that have a regular plural in (some form of) /s/ will not
have the plural marked in the lexicon and verbs that have regular
principal parts in (some form of) /d/ will generally not have the
principal parts marked in the lexicon (unless there is some other
peculiarity like 'sleep' / 'slept' that makes the form
unpredictable from the productive rule).  The lexicon will (or
should) tell you things like whether nouns are plurale tantum or
collectives or plural in form but singular in construct and
whether verbs are transitive or intransitive or are state verbs
or action verbs or if the verb requires an animate subject or if
it takes a dative object rather than an accusative.  For
languages that have such things, the lexicon will tell you which
declension a noun belongs to (and its gender if this is not
correlated with declensions) or which conjugation a verb follows.

But to find out what such things mean and how they are applied in
a particular language you will have to look at a grammar of the
language.  Rules (both productive and markedness rules, as well as
paradigms) are found in grammar books, generally not in lexicons.
The lexicon usually just marks which rules particular words
follow.  That is why when you attack a language that you are not
familiar with you need both a grammar and a lexicon (dictionary).
One without the other won't do you much good because language is
an integrated system.  The individual subsystems don't give you
enough information to use or comprehend the system adequately.

"Speakers + rules" is just my way of characterizing what de
Saussure called "langue" and Chomsky called "competence."  The
rules are the rules of generative grammar which is the current
theory of how speakers produce language ("parole" or
"performance").  Needless to say, there are a number of competing
theories on how this is actually accomplished.

>Just above, you stated that "The pronunciation rules are marked
>in the lexicon", which makes me wonder whether you share an
>assumption that I had been taking as given, namely that there are
>two different types of information/knowledge relevant here:

>   (i) information about the phonological shape of particular
>lexical items -- for example, the fact that the English word for
>"fish" has an /f/ in initial position.

>   (ii) general information about the realization of particular
>segments and configurations (such as allophonic and
>morphophonemic rules).

>In my experience, most people would use the term "rules" of the
>latter type of information, but not the former.

Yes, rules are generalized statements of repeated (and
repeatable) observations.  What you give in (i) above is a single
instantiation of a more general rule (graphically, initial <f> in
English represents /f/ or, as a phonotactical rule, /f/ is a
permissible initial segment in English).  Now this single
instantiation would not be sufficient to formulate the general
rule (there is even an aphorism about this: "one swallow does not
a summer make"; or, as my professor always said: "testis unus,
testis nullus").

Basically, information about the phonological shape of lexemes
needs to be given in the lexicon only if it is not transparent
from the orthography.  Finnish, for example, usually does not
mark pronunciation separately in the lexicon; there is no need.
If you see a Finnish word spelled you know how to pronounce it.
If you hear a Finnish word pronounced you know how to spell it.
Finnish children learn to write from dictation at about the age
of 7.  By contrast, English speaking children never do.  English
orthography is far from transparent.  For this reason, there must
be rules to relate English orthography to English pronunciation.
In addition it is important to mark the position of the stress
(and sometimes the position of syllable boundaries) in English
because this information is not predictable and is sometimes
lexically significant (per'-fect [adj.] vs. per-fect' [v.],
reb'-el [n., adj.] vs. re-bel' [v.], etc.).  Finnish on the other
hand does not need to mark either stress or syllable boundaries
because both are fixed and never lexically significant.

So the rules of pronunciation that I spoke of are the rules for
relating the orthography of English words to their pronunciation.
English has words that are spelled differently but pronounced the
same as well as words that are spelled the same but pronounced
differently.  Now many parts of English orthography are
transparent.  Transparent (and even semi-transparent)
relationships could be given as general rules in a separate
section of the dictionary.  In your example (i), a general
statement that "initial <f> (and <ph>) represents /f/" would make
a pronunciation rule for <fish> unnecessary.  Similarly, anyone
who can generalize the transparent rules of English orthography
would know that <phlox> and <flocks> were pronounced the same.

But some English orthographies are completely opaque.  One such
is the graphic sequence <ough>.  If one sees <cough>, one has no
idea whether is should be pronounced as if it were <coo>, <cow>,
<cuff>, or <coe>.  And this does not even include the correct
pronunciation.  Therefore every word with <ough> requires a
pronunciation rule.  Essentially such a rule simply says "this is
how you pronounce this graphic sequence in this particular word."
Now this is only true for people who can read.  This rule relates
the graphic sequence to a pronunciation.  Those who can't read
(or whose native language is not written), have no need for such
rules.  For them each word is simply pronounced the way it is
pronounced and there is no way for graphic sequences to interfere
with this.  They must have each word stored in their memory or
they must create it by analogy when they need it because there is
nowhere else for them to store it.  This creates less of a problem
because the only source of unfamiliar words for these people is
from hearing them, and presumably when they hear them they learn
them with the correct (received) pronunciation.

Another opaque graphic sequence is <th>.  Nothing about the
graphic environment of this symbol tells you whether is to be
read as [T], [D], or even [t].  Although final <the> is usually
realized as [D], it is not invariably so (e.g. some
pronunciations of 'blithe', 'lithe') and final <th> is not always
realized as [T] but often also as [D] ('smooth', 'mouth' [v.],
Brit. 'booth', some pronunciations of 'with').  Therefore, <th>,
like <ough>, should need a pronunciation rule for every occurrence
of this symbol.

Now there are those who say that they have no rules for the
pronunciation of <th>.  Presumably, when they encounter in print
an unfamiliar word with <th> in it they have to go to the
dictionary to find out how to pronounce it.  I happen to have
generalized rules for the pronunciation of <th> so I can usually
make a guess that will be right about 98 times out of 100 about
how <th> should be pronounced in an unfamiliar word.  I came
across one the other day:  'poikilothermic'.  Without going to
the dictionary I knew two things just by looking at it:  a) it is
not a native English word, and therefore, b) the <th> is
pronounced [T].

[snip]

>RW> The best evidence that the pattern is created by rule by the
>RW> speakers of the language is the fact that the pattern exists.
>RW> For if there is a pattern in a language, synchronically it must
>RW> be created by its speakers because that is the only place that
>RW> language comes from.  If the pattern is not created by rule, then
>RW> it is simple coincidence.

>RC>No, this is where you go wrong.

>RW>I presume that "this is where you go wrong" is your way of saying
>RW>that your opinion is different from mine. :)

>Isn't that what "wrong" usually means? :)

In linguistics, almost invariably. :)

RC>The pattern has been created by historical changes in the
RC>language. That is what creates the distribution of [dh] and [th]
RC>that is the input to each speaker's language-learning task. There
RC>is no general principle that speakers must recognize (consciously
RC>or unconsciously) any such pattern, or make use of it in their
RC>rule-governed language behaviour.

RW>No, the modern language is not created by the historical events
RW>that brought it about.

>There is obviously a distinction in your mind between "create"
>and "bring about" which I am not picking up. Otherwise you have
>contradicted yourself. Or is it the tense distinction between "is
>created" (by speakers,now) and "brought it about" (in the past).
>In either case, I am happy to re-state my claim above as:

>The historical changes *brought about* the present distribution
>of [dh] and [th].

My point about "create" is that history doesn't create things.
History is just a record of what happened -- a record of people
and events.  People and events create things (sometimes people
create events as well), but the record of people and events
doesn't create things.  The modern language (in the form of
modern speech and modern writing) is "created" by its modern
speakers.  And at any point in time the "modern" language is the
one currently in use.  So this "historical" change was "created"
by the speakers of the language at that time, not by history.
The fact that it is still present in the language of modern
speakers just shows that it has been successfully passed on from
generation to generation.  If it hadn't, it wouldn't still be in
the language.

The fact that these are historical changes just means that they
happened in the past.  But that doesn't necessarily mean anything
to the modern speakers of the language because for the most part
they don't know anything about the history of the language they
speak.  And this doesn't make any difference because the pattern
is present in the language *synchronically*.  You claim that
there is no dispute about this and have even suggested that my
demonstration of the existence of this pattern in the modern
language was unnecessary.  But now you seem to be claiming that
the fact that these are "historical" changes means that this
pattern has no significance for the modern language.  It may not
be significant in the "why" sense, but it must be in the "what"
sense.  But this doesn't matter because, by and large, speakers
don't know the "why" of their language, only the "what."

RW>The modern language is created by what
RW>goes on on the left side of the arrows in the diagram above.
RW>This is the assumption of generative grammar.  And it is a basic
RW>premise of generative grammar that patterns must be accounted for
RW>by rules.  If you have evidence, rather than just an intuition,
RW>that linguistic patterns are not created by rules, then please
RW>share it.  It will revolutionize synchronic grammar.

>No, I don't think it will. My view is one you have probably heard
>before: That there are two distinct phonemes /th/ and /dh/, which
>occur in various words in various positions. A subset of the
>English vocabulary shows a pattern of complementary distribution
>between these phonemes. The pattern is there in the vocabularies
>of English speakers because it is there in the corpus of
>presently spoken English on which they have based their
>internalized knowledge of English. And it is in the corpus as a
>consequence of changes which took place long ago in the history
>of the language.

Well, I can't say that I've heard the idea that changes that took
place long ago in the history of a language have no significance
for the modern language before.  If the results of changes are
still part of the language, it doesn't matter when they happened.
Speakers of the modern language don't know and don't care when
they happened.  They just learn them as part of the language.

>Your analysis (again, correct me if I'm wrong) postulates a
>single phoneme /th/ with two different "pronunciation rules".
>Some words follow a rule that says intervocalic /th/ is
>pronounced [th], and others a rule that says it is pronounced
>[dh]. Which words follow which rule presumably has to be marked
>on individual lexical items.

Well, the first thing to correct is that "my analysis" does not
say that there is only a single phoneme /T/.  I have no basis
for saying this.  My analysis is only about the validity of the
evidence that is used to "prove" that there are two phonemes /T/
and /D/.  The fact that I consider this evidence inconclusive is
not proof that there is only one phoneme, nor does "my analysis"
require that there be only one phoneme.

My analysis is based on a number of observations.  These are
based on data, and, I think, are not questioned.  The first is
that there was originally a single phoneme /T/ in English.  This
phoneme is the normal reflex of PIE *t in Germanic.  At some
point there was a change that voiced intervocalic [T] to [D] (and
voiced intervocalic /s/ and /f/ as well).  This change did not
initially create any new contrasts but only a voiced allophone of
/T/ in intervocalic position.  This event obviously took place
before the introduction of the Latin alphabet into England in the
late 6th - early 7th century.  But probably not long before,
because the voiced fricatives were clearly considered allophones
of the voiceless ones through Old English.

The next set of observations is about the distribution of these
two sounds ([T] and [D]) in modern English.  The original
allophonic status of [D] as an intervocalic variant of [T] has
obviously changed.  Both [T] and [D] now appear in initial,
intervocalic, and final position.  However, the distribution of
these sounds in these positions is generally not arbitrary but is
determined by word classes.

In initial position, [D] is found in function words
(specifically, pronouns and deictics) while [T] is found in all
other words (whether native or borrowed). There are two minimal
contrasts that arise from this distribution:  'thigh' [Tai] and
'thy' [Dai], and 'thistle' [Tis at l] and 'this'll' [Dis at l]
(contraction of 'this' and 'will').

In intervocalic position, [D] appears in native English words
that were in the language and considered native when the voicing
rule operated.  There are a few instances of intervocalic [T] in
native words that did not voice for various reasons.  There are
no minimal contrasts between [T] and [D] in these two groups.
A much larger group of words with intervocalic [T] is made up of
loanwords that have come into the language with intervocalic [T]
after the voicing rule operated.  Although there are hundreds (if
not thousands) of such words, there is exactly one minimal
contrast between [T] and [D] between these two groups:  'ether'
[i:T at r] and 'either' [i:Der] (the latter also realized as
[aiD at r] in some dialects or by some speakers and hence not a
minimal contrast).

In final position, both [T] and [D] can occur.  There are,
however, two major groups where [T] and [D] are distributed by
meaning class:  a) nouns in final [T] often have a corresponding
verb in final [D],  b) nouns in final [T] often have a plural in
[Dz].  These groups are relics of the earlier voicing rule that
voiced intervocalic [T] but have since lost the conditioning
environment that triggered the initial change.  The conditioning
environment that preserves these distinctions is now grammatical
rather than phonological.  There are several minimal contrasts
between [T] and [D] in these groups:  'teeth' [ti:T] (plural of
'tooth') and 'teethe' [ti:D] (verb derived from 'tooth'),
'wreath' [ri:T] and 'wreathe' [ri:D] (verb based partly on
'wreath' and partly on a by-form of 'writhe'), and 'sooth' [suT]
("truth") and 'soothe' [suD] (originally meaning "verify"; the
modern meaning "calm, placate" is a semantic shift).  Outside of
these two groups, final [T] and [D] do not contrast, and, in
fact, are often found in free variation in the same word (this
also occurs within the groups, particularly among plurals).

This then, is the basis for my analysis.  As I said, I think that
there is nothing here that can be questioned.  If anyone sees
something that is not an empirically verifiable observation based
on data, please let me know.

Now my analysis says that you can't be certain that a contrast is
caused by different phonemes when there may be some other basis
for establishing the contrast.  My analysis says that you can
prove phonemicity using minimal pairs only through arbitrary
contrasts, contrasts where the presence of one phoneme or the
other doesn't tell you anything about the words involved except
that they are different words.  Thus if the presence of one sound
always tells you that the word is a pronoun or a deictic and the
presence of the other always tells you that the word is not a
pronoun or a deictic, then the contrast of these two sounds is
not necessarily the basis for the contrast between the words and
this contrast should not be considered evidence of the
phonemicity of the two sounds.  Please note, however, that this
is not the same as proving or even claiming that the two sounds
are not phonemes.

Similarly, if the presence of one sound tells you that the word
is a substantive and the presence of the other tells you that the
word is a verb, then the contrast predicts meaning (or function)
class.  This is not a phonemic contrast but a morphophonemic
alternation. While morphophonemic alternations do not preclude
the sounds involved from being phonemes as well, using
morphophonemic alternations to prove phonemicity is not
acceptable in my analysis.

When we come to the difference between intervocalic [T] and [D],
the division of the words into classes is admittedly on less firm
ground.  While I don't have many qualms about using grammatical
information that is based on meaning as a means of distinguishing
words (because as Stefan Georg pointed out, words that can't
appear in the same context don't have to be otherwise
distinguished), using lexico-historical information is going
outside of the grammatical structure of the language.  Using such
distinctions does not involve meaning in any specific way.  But
I still say that when a certain sound is required in one clearly
defined set of words and another sound is required in another
clearly defined set of words then contrasts between those sounds
when they appear as required in members of those sets should not
be allowed as evidence of phonemic contrast.  Again, however,
this is not the same as saying that the two sounds can't be
phonemes.

But on the subject of phonological nativization of loan words, I
have a few questions about New Zealand English (NZE) that I
expect that you can answer.  I presume that NZE has a number of
Maori loan words, and that many of these loans have been in the
language for a couple of centuries (but none before 1740).  Now
based on what you have said about Greek and Latin loans
(neologisms) in English, I would expect that New Zealanders
consider loans from Maori to be just good English words, and that
they would see nothing unusual about Maori segments in contexts
in which they would not appear in English.  I realize that
initial /ng/ in words of Maori origin is not a realistic parallel
to intervocalic [T] in words of Greek or Latin origin because the
prohibition against initial /ng/ in English is a phonotactic one
while there is no such prohibition against intervocalic [T].  But
here are my questions:  Do native speakers of NZE recognize Maori
loanwords as Maori words or do they just consider them English?
If they do recognize them, on what basis do they do it?  Do
native speakers of NZE Anglicize the pronunciation of initial
/ng/ in any way or do they pronounce it as it would be in Maori?
Would native speakers of NZE be able to coin new words with
initial /ng/?  Have they actually done so?

>In the broad sense implicit in your schema, both analyses
>produce the [th]/[dh] pattern by "rules". (In the narrower sense,
>however, your analysis has "rules" that mine doesn't.)

>Now that we have two analyses to compare, perhaps you can
>explain why you think yours is superior.

Well, as far as I am concerned, both analyses have the same
linguistic rules.  Your analysis just ignores some of them.  It
excludes them by saying that they happened too long ago to have
any effect on the modern language, or it excludes them by saying
that modern speakers can't possibly be aware of the rules that
linguistic analysis uncovers, or it excludes them by saying that
some rules about how words are pronounced can't have any bearing
on phonology.

But again, my analysis is not about the distribution of [T]/[D]
in English, it is about what is acceptable evidence for the
distribution (and collaterally about such distributions in
general).  So if my analysis has rules that yours doesn't, one of
them is that evidence that is offered as unequivocal proof of
some condition should not have any other possible explanation.
If there is more than one possible interpretation of the
evidence, then that evidence should be discarded (or at least
weighted) in favor of more conclusive evidence (ideally, evidence
that can only result from the condition that the evidence offers
to prove).

Another concept that my analysis has that yours lacks is the
principle that patterns are created by rules, even if we don't
understand or can't formulate the rules.  This I think is a
general principle of science.  It is a specific assumption of
generative grammar that alternations must be accounted for by
rules (free variation is also a rule).

Another rule that my analysis has that yours apparently doesn't
is that evidence should be analyzed independently of whether it
confirms or conflicts with our expectations.  Regardless of
whether the evidence conflicts with or confirms our expectations,
we should always question both the evidence and our expectations.

Now I would expect [T] and [D] to be phonemes in English, if for
no other reason, because of the parallel with /z/ and /v/, which
were created at the same time and by the same process that
created [D] and which are clearly used as phonemes by native
speakers of English.  But my analysis says that I shouldn't
uncritically accept 'thy' and 'thigh' as proof of this just
because it confirms my expectation when there may be some other
basis for this contrast.  When I see that all words in English
with initial [D] belong to a clearly defined group of words
(pronouns and deictic words [or demonstratives]) and that all
words in English with initial [T] belong to the complementary
group, then I feel justified in questioning the validity of 'thy'
and 'thigh' as a minimal pair.  Now if there were some words with
initial [D] in the complementary group (even if there were no
contrasts) I would not feel justified in saying that 'thy' and
'thigh' should not be considered a minimal pair since the
contrast would not be completely predictable at the word-class
level.

As for which analysis is superior, that is not my call because I
am not an impartial observer.  However, were I called upon to
evaluate two analyses in which I was not involved, I would tend
to prefer the one that was more rigorous in its standards of
evidence, the one that accounted for more of the available
evidence and excluded evidence only on valid and objective
grounds, and the one that did all of this in the most consistent
and concise manner.

I would not accept any analysis that distorted the evidence to
fit a particular model, that used evidence that could as easily
or better be explained by some other model, or that accepted only
evidence that supported a particular model while ignoring any
other evidence of equal quality.

In short, the superior analysis is the one that accounts for the
greatest amount of evidence in the most consistent, coherent, and
concise manner.

<snip>

Bob Whiting
whiting at cc.helsinki.fi


From whiting at cc.helsinki.fi  Mon Dec 11 20:35:26 2000
From: whiting at cc.helsinki.fi (Robert Whiting)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 22:35:26 +0200
Subject: minimal pairs are not always there
In-Reply-To: <4.3.1.2.20001107074738.00a75f00@getmail.friesen.net>
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.223526.0200.>

On Tue, 07 Nov 2000 Stanley Friesen <sarima at friesen.net> wrote:

>At 05:40 PM 11/6/00 +0200, Robert Whiting wrote:

>>On Wed, 26 Apr 2000 Gábor Sándi <g_sandi at hotmail.com> wrote:

[RW]
>>yourself a question:  If the phoneme /b/ occurs in an English
>>word, what does that tell you about the meaning of that word?
>>The answer should be:  "absolutely nothing."

>Seems reasonable, though perhaps a bit overstated.  There are
>plenty of words with some sort of sound-symbolism involving
>perfectly good phonemes to make this too strong a statement.
>(And I do not just mean onomatopoeia).

Yes, I grant you the point about sound-symbolism.  I always try
to allow for this, but it is a very tenuous thing (at the present
state of research).  To be convincing, there needs to be evidence
of fundamental links between sound and meaning that are
consistent over a large number of languages.  There would have to
be the same pattern of sound and meaning in languages of diverse
types, and finally, these patterns would have to be confirmed by
experiments linking these sounds and meanings to speakers'
intuitions about relationships between sounds and meanings.  In
the meantime, we can't just say that there is nothing to it,
because the data to establish it has not yet been collected and
analyzed in detail.  But there are patterns of sound symbolism, so
I suspect that there must be rules about such patterns.

But what kind of sound symbolism are you proposing that accounts
for the fact that pronouns and deictic words in English have [D]
while other words have [T]?  You can't just make the original
point go away by some vague reference to sound symbolism without
showing some connection to the present discussion.  For, if, as
you agree, when sound symbolism isn't involved, the presence of a
particular phoneme in a particular word shouldn't tell you
anything about the meaning of that word, then how is it
possible that the phoneme /D/ in initial position belongs
exclusively to pronouns and deictic words?  When you can provide
a convincing answer for this, then you will have made your point.
Until then, I will continue to maintain that the presence of a
particular phoneme in a particular word should tell you nothing
about the meaning of that word (leaving aside the possibility of
sound symbolism).

>>In the pair ether/either, 'ether' belongs to a class of words
>>where the pronunciation of <th> as [th] is required (by rule
>>based on a clearly established pattern [Greek loans originally
>>containing theta]);

>I disagree. I do not respond to any such rule in my own
>listening.  No such rule governs any pattern in my speech
>production.  As far as I am aware, I just memorized the word
>'ether' as such.

Well I can't argue with your perceptions, because they are in
your head, not mine.  But this means that you have memorized
the pronunciation of all other English words with <th> as well
and when you see a new word with <th> you don't have a clue how
to pronounce it.

>>  'either' belongs to a class of words where
>>the pronunciation of <th> as [dh] is required (by rule based on a
>>clearly established pattern [native words with an intervocalic
>>spirant where the original voiceless spirant was voiced by
>>rule]).

>Ditto.

Ditto.

>>   Since the respective pronunciations of these words are
>>required by rule, this cannot be a phonemic distinction because
>>the choice of these sounds is not arbitrary.

>It is in MY speech.  And I doubt many other English speakers
>could be shown to have even a subliminal awareness of any such
>rules.

You still seem to be operating on the assumption that it is
necessary to know how a system works in order to be able to use
it.  By and large, native speakers do not know what the rules are
in any conscious way.  They just know what sounds right.  And it
is fully automatic.  The "rules" that we talk about are for the
most part simply a model that linguists use to account for the
patterns of grammatically acceptable usages that they find in a
language.

>>Greek word with theta doesn't make any difference.  There must be
>>some synchronic rule that forces this [th] pronunciation or else
>>the pattern wouldn't be there in the language synchronically.

>Not at all - there is such a thing as a *relictual* pattern. one
>that is left over from prior history, but which has no *current*
>linguistic significance.

The entire language is a relictual pattern left over from prior
history.  Otherwise you have a creole.  There are only relictual
patterns that are no longer fully productive and ones that are.
The latter are used to create new forms in the language by its
speakers; the former are not.  Here is a good example of a
relictual pattern that is no longer productive:  the English
personal pronoun system.  Now tell me that this pattern has no
significance for the *current* language or that native speakers
aren't aware of it because it is a "relictual pattern left over
from prior history."

Native speakers aren't born with their language already in their
brains.  They are born with a language acquisition device that
makes it possible to acquire the language that they hear spoken
around them in a manner that we don't fully understand.  They do
this before they are capable of memorization, and indeed, before
significant long-term memory capabilities are developed.  So
language is passed from generation to generation.  Native
speakers learn the language of their parents (or care-givers) as
a historical relic, which as far as they are concerned has just
been invented.  So each generation reinvents the language.
Sometimes they get things wrong and introduce change (or at least
alternation) into the language.  But anything that gets passed on
is part of the language.  And it is part of the language
*synchronically* because it is known by the new batch of native
speakers and they don't care when it came into the language.  As
far as they are concerned, it came into the language when they
learned it because they have no prior knowledge of the language.
If it does not get passed on, then it becomes part of history and
disappears from the currently spoken language.  But anything that
new native speakers learn is part of the language
*synchronically* and has *current* linguistic significance.

>The only evidence I would accept for a synchronic rule is
>evidence from the speech behavior of native speakers.

Okay, so you won't accept the list of words and pronunciations
that I provided based on a contemporary corpus and dictionary.
Fine.  Take the same list and ask a couple of hundred native
speakers how they pronounce these words.  If you find significant
differences from what I have provided, then you will have made
your point.  But I think that you will find that this is the way
that these words are pronounced by native speakers today.  We're
not talking about words that were pronounced one way in the 15th
century and are pronounced differently now.  We're talking about
the way these words are pronounced at this very moment as we sit
here in front of our computers.

>The mere existence of a pattern is not, by itself, sufficient to
>establish a rule.

The existence of patterns is the only basis for establishing
rules.  That is what science is all about.  Grammatical analysis
is virtually entirely devoted to trying to deduce rules that
explain the patterns of grammatically acceptable forms.  That is
why linguists spend so much time looking at languages trying to
find patterns.  Now when you have a pattern that you can't
account for, you are justified in saying that you can't account
for the pattern, but you aren't justified in saying that the
pattern has no significance because you can't account for it.
But above a certain level of coincidence or randomness, patterns
not created by rules are ruled out by the second law of
thermodynamics.

>The very fact that having characters names Lith and
>Lihthe(/lidh/) is *comprehensible* in English shows that English
>speakers *perceive* the two sounds as being semantically
>arbitrary.  If they did not, then someone hearing such a pair of
>names would necessarily attempt to interpret them according to
>the supposed rules, and thus have a difficult time hearing them
>as a pair of names.  Instead they would hear two words in
>different categories, as required by the rules.

This seems to be a cart/horse problem to me.  If you present your
audience with two words that differ in only one segment and tell
them (or let them figure out for themselves) that the two words
are arbitrarily semantically different, then you have a phonemic
contrast.  That's what a phonemic contrast is.  But when you say
that if you created such words (in the absence of such words
already existing) and speakers could tell them apart that means
the sounds are already phonemes, that is a logical fallacy.

You are trying to convert a necessary condition into a sufficient
condition.  "Distinguishable sounds" is necessary condition for
phonemes.  Therefore "all phonemes are distinguishable sounds" is
a valid statement.  But "distinguishable sounds" is not a
sufficient condition for phonemes.  Therefore "all
distinguishable sounds are phonemes" is not a valid a priori
statement.

The simple converse of a universal statement is not a valid
inference.  Thus "all S are P" does not imply "all P are S".
Your argument is based on the fact that all phonemes must be
distinguishable sounds.  This is an a priori valid statement.  In
this formulation, S is "phonemes" and P is "distinguishable
sounds."  When you then say all distinguishable sounds must be
phonemes, you are trying to tell me that "all P are S" because
"all S are P."  It is exactly the same as telling me "all birds
have wings, therefore anything that has wings is a bird."  Or if
you have a mathematical bent it is like saying that "all prime
numbers greater than 2 are odd numbers" (a valid statement) and
then claiming that "21 is an odd number greater than 2, therefore
21 is a prime number."  The simple converse of a universal
statement is valid if and only if S and P are an identity (i.e.,
S and P are identical sets).  If there is a member of P that is
not also a member of S then the simple converse of "all S are P"
is not a valid inference.

Therefore the fact that there exist two distinguishable sounds in
a language (e.g., [c,] and [x] in German) that are not phonemes
in that language proves that "phonemes" and "distinguishable
sounds" are not an identity and therefore the converse of "all
phonemes must be distinguishable sounds" (i.e., "all
distinguishable sounds must be phonemes") is not a valid
inference as you claim it is.

The fact that two sounds are not distinguishable by the speakers
of a language will prove that the sounds are not phonemes in that
language.  But the fact that two sounds are distinguishable by the
speakers of a language does not prove that they are phonemes.  It
shows that they could be phonemes if they were used as phonemes,
but "could be" and "are" are not the same thing.  It is like
proving paternity with blood groups.  If the blood groups don't
match that proves that there is no paternity.  If the blood
groups do match, it shows that paternity is possible, but it
doesn't prove paternity between two individuals.

This entire discussion grew out of a stated belief that "minimal
pairs" were a sine qua non for determining phonemes.  Many people
pointed out that this was not true.  I pointed out that even
apparent "minimal pairs" don't necessarily guarantee the presence
of different phonemes.  Now you and Mr. White are trying to tell
us that you don't even need minimal pairs at all in a language to
determine phonemes.  You can make up your own and if you judge
that the speakers of a language would be able to recognize these
as different words then the sounds in question are phonemes (and
have been for a long time).  I say that this is not true.  Native
speakers of English could probably hear the difference between
French 'beau' and French 'bon'.  Does this mean that nasal vowels
are phonemes in English?  No, it does not.  But you (and Mr.
White) are trying to tell us that it does.  And I for one, do not
believe it.

>>to be pronounced with [dh].  There is nothing arbitrary about the
>>choice of [th] and [dh]; these pronunciations are required by
>>rule, therefore the contrast is not phonemic.

>The pronunciations are "required" by *historical* rules that are
>no longer active.

The rules are active because the words are pronounced according
to them.  If the rules were no longer active (i.e., had been
replaced by a rule that was active) the words wouldn't be
pronounced that way.

Here is an example:  At the time of Chaucer 'bite' was pronounced
with [i:].  By the late 18th century it was pronounced with [ai].
The pronunciation with [i:] is a *historical* rule that is no
longer active.  The pronunciation with [ai] is a *historical*
rule that is still active.

>In my speech I have merely learned the two words by rote.  I
>apply no rules to determine their pronunciation.

And this is precisely why naive native speakers are not a
reliable source of grammatical information.  Such speakers can
tell you infallibly whether something is grammatically correct
(acceptable usage) or not, but if asked why it is correct or why
some other form is incorrect can usually only say "I don't know,
it just is."  In exactly the same way you can say "I know of no
rules about the way these words are pronounced, that's just the
way they are pronounced."  Consider for example the use of the
suffix '-ist' meaning "one who does ...".  Why is a person who
does physics called a 'physicist' and not a '*physicsist' or why
is a person who does science called a 'scientist' and not a
'*scienceist'?  Are there rules that determine this?  Well, yes.
Is a naive native speaker likely to know these rules?  Well, no.
Is a naive native speaker likely to know the correct forms?
Well, yes.  If you ask a naive native speaker why 'scientist' is
correct and '*scienceist' is incorrect, what answer are you likely
to get? --  "I don't know, it just is," or perhaps "I don't know
of any rules, that's just the way I learned it."

>smuggled into phonology.  So it is not a matter of "no
>nonphonetic conditioning factors," it is a matter of how much
>morphological conditioning you are willing to allow into
>phonology.

>As little as possible to still produce a coherent theory of a
>given language.

A sound rule, but who gets to decide what is a coherent theory?
And what happens to the evidence that isn't included and who gets
to decide what evidence can be safely excluded from the theory.
This sounds awfully like the way Ruhlen goes about creating
Proto-World.  Take as little phonological and grammatical
information as possible to produce a coherent theory and don't be
specific about how much or what kind of evidence is excluded.

>I.e., apply Occam's Razor here.  Do not postulate an entity - in
>this case a particular type of morphological conditioning -
>unless it is *necessary* to explain the facts. You might also
>call this the KISS principle.

Call it whatever you like, but Occam's Razor doesn't tell you
what evidence to exclude.  Occam's Razor just tells you that the
simplest solution *that accounts for all the facts* is to be
preferred.  Occam's Razor does NOT tell you that if you can get a
simpler solution by ignoring some of the evidence then that is
what you should do.

>>My own answer to this tends to be "as much as you can."

>Then here is the fundamental disagreement.  I prefer to minimize
>special handling, not maximize it.

Again, a sound rule.  I could better express my position as "as
much as you need, but don't arbitrarily exclude rules that tell
you how words are pronounced from phonology."  Or if you do
exclude them from phonology, then at least account for them
somewhere.

>>> Take two of your examples above:

>>> /ng/ - not a phoneme. We can analyze it as the allophone of /n/
>>> before /k/ and /g/. /g/ is then dropped ("zero allophone" - why
>>> not?)

>Because it is *simpler* to treat it as a phoneme?

Well, this is what I said (see below).  You are arguing against
what Gábor Sándi said here (although he obviously presented it as
a straw man argument that he didn't really believe in), not
against what I said.  You are in fact agreeing with what I said.

>[Though in this case there is actually a reasonable argument for
>allophonic status, given its *very* limited distribution - and
>the fact that trying to use /ng/ to coin arbitrary new words
>results in words that do not sound like English].

I don't know that words like 'zing' or 'humdinger' sound
particularly un-English.  Expressive or imitative, yes; obviously
not ancient, yes -- but un-English, not particularly.  The
limited distribution is more of a problem.  English also has what
could be considered a palatal allophone of n [ny] whose
distribution is even more limited (doesn't occur in final
position).  It could be said to be present initially in 'nyah'
(usually reduplicated 'nyah nyah'; a cry of derision, not to be
confused with the Indian school of philosophy 'Nyaya'), but
otherwise only in loans (e.g, 'gnocchi', usually with Anglicized
pronunciation [n], but pronounced [ny] by the cognoscenti).  In
medial position it is still not common ('opinion', 'pinion'
'senior', etc.; also in more recent loans from French [<gn>],
Italian [<gn>], Spanish [written with enye, n with tilde] and
Portuguese [<nh>]), but it does contrast with /n/ ('cannon' or
'canon' vs. 'canyon').  Despite this contrast, I have never heard
anyone suggest that [ny] is an English phoneme and usually it is
not even treated as an allophone of /n/.  The palatal is simply
analyzed as a separate phoneme /Y/.

>>before the agentive suffix '-er'.  Stem-final /g/ goes to zero
>>immediately and (nearly) all derivative suffixes (agentive '-er',
>>'-ing', '-ish', '-ly', '-y', etc.) are added to this base.  All
>>that is needed then is a rule that triggers the restoration of
>>/g/ before the comparative '-er' (and for completeness, ...

>I would prefer to reorder the rules so that the comparative
>suffix is added prior to the application of the rule that deletes
>the /g/.  I do not like rules that restore.

But you only need the rule if you treat /ng/ as an allophone.
Otherwise, it is easier to write the /g/ into the rule for the
comparative and superlative as an allomorph (i.e., add -er, -est
[-ger, -gest after /ng/] to the adjective stem).  Another reason
for treating /ng/ as a phoneme.

>>All things considered then, it is probably simpler to operate
>>with /n/ and /ng/ as different phonemes because this does not
>>require the zero allophone of /g/ to maintain their allophonic
>>status *and* there is no indication of a morphophonemic
>>alternation between [n] and [ng]

>The main problem with that is that this supposed phoneme cannot
>be used arbitrarily.  A made-up 'ngib' is NOT a possible English
>word contrasting with 'nib'.

Now you are arguing against what I said as well as what you said
just above.  But this is a phonotactic rule that excludes /ng/
from initial position and has nothing to do with the
contrastiveness of /n/ and /ng/.  English just doesn't allow /ng/
in initial position.  Of course, phontactical rules are relaxed
for foreign loans.  Thus there are loans from languages like
Maori with initial /ng/ (such as the name of the famous mystery
writer, Ngaio Marsh) (there are probably a number from Vietnamese
as well now, but I don't know any; Ross Clark could probably
explain this in detail).  So a foreign borrowing 'ngib' could
contrast with initial /n/.  But limited distribution doesn't
disqualify a sound from being a phoneme.  Many languages strongly
restrict the allowable final consonants (Finnish for example
allows only /n/, /s/, and /t/ as final consonants).  This does
not affect the phonemic status of the disallowed consonants.  You
couldn't have a made-up '*sfit' to contrast with made-up 'snit'
in English either (although you have a borrowed 'sphere' to
contrast with 'sneer') but this doesn't show that /f/ and /n/
aren't phonemes.  It just shows that phonotactic rules have
higher precedence.

>[Interestingly, when playing with this "word" I tended to "hear"
>it as 'gib' (hard 'g') - which supports a 'silent g'
>interpretation].

I can't see why.  If there is a [g] sound that has come from a
zero allophone of /g/, that means that the silent g is restored
when [ng] is in initial position and that can't be right because
you don't like rules that restore.  More likely, you simply are
unpracticed at using initial [ng] and are getting some voicing
of the velar from the following vowel.

Bob Whiting
whiting at cc.helsinki.fi


From Tristan at mail.scm-rpg.com.au  Tue Dec 12 05:24:42 2000
From: Tristan at mail.scm-rpg.com.au (Tristan Jones)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 16:24:42 +1100
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.162442.1100.>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Anton Sherwood" <bronto at pobox.com>
Sent: Monday, December 11, 2000 4:24 PM

> petegray wrote:

>> A better example might be Spanish America.  Did the Spanish
>> still accept slavery at the of the conquistadors?

> well, Columbus reported on the potential value of the islanders as slaves.

If European germs did not kill so many of islanders, they would be used as
slaves. They intally used them, however they were not resitant enough to the
diseases, so they used African slaves and rest is history.


From dlwhite at texas.net  Tue Dec 12 14:52:36 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 08:52:36 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.085236.0600.>

> I have read in general works that well before the Anglo-Saxon
> invasion, the Romans used Saxon troops (or other Germanics) to guard the
> North Sea coast against raids by their countrymen. Did they have a big
> enough presence to serve as a catalyst for the invasion? Is there any
> indication that they actually formed a separate Germanic-speaking community
> before the Romans left?

        My impression is that the AS conquest was as much a reinforced
revolt of federates as anything else.  There is no reason to think that
Germans in Britain would not have spoken German, and though I do not
specifcally recall any direct evidence of it, I would not be surprised if
there is some.

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Tue Dec 12 14:56:58 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 08:56:58 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.085658.0600.>

> As the Britons at the time of the arrival of the Saxons certainly lived in a
> hierarchically organised agricultural society, the closest analogy is
> probably to the population of the Aztec and Inca empires and to African
> kingdoms like Congo. Of course, analogies are no substitute for facts. But
> putting together these analogies and the facts discussed so far, it seems
> that we have different situations in the areas on the SE coast first hit by
> the Saxons (plundering, enslavement and selling of the slave to the
> continent, expulsion, and killing) and further inland, where the Celts were
> turned into serfs and kept their language, religion, and culture for some
> time still.

        Yes, this is exactly right, except that the Britons (or most of
them) were already de facto serfs.  They just got new masters.

> One note on the "Celtic traces in the language" issue: one thing about
> French which is cited in language histories over and over again is the small
> number of Gaulish substrate words in the language. Normally, "alouette"
> ("lark") and some agricultural terms are quoted. On the other hand, French
> phonology (and to a lesser degree grammar) is regularly described as heavily
> influenced by the Gaulish substrate. But nobody doubts that the population
> of France was basically Celtic, with only a minority of Roman settlers (and
> a later smattering of Franks). So the small number of Celtic loanwords in
> English cannot be used as an indicator for a massive eradication of Britons.

        Yes, again this is right.  As I noted before, it is simply not true
that grammatical and lexical influences march in lock-step, or anything
close to it.

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From maxdashu at LanMinds.Com  Wed Dec 13 03:12:32 2000
From: maxdashu at LanMinds.Com (Max Dashu)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 19:12:32 -0800
Subject: AS Conquest
In-Reply-To: <3A3464F6.EE04B16C@pobox.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.191232.0800.>

>well, Columbus reported on the potential value of the islanders as slaves.

He did more than that: he enslaved some of them and shipped them back to
Spain.

And the encomenderos followed up with enslavement of entire villages, while
Nicaragua was called the Land of War in De Las Casas' time, because of the
constant slave raids visited on that country. And then there were the
enslaved silver miners at Potosi, in Peru and Mexico both... Plus a bunch
of Wampanoags and assorted other Algonquin peoples got shipped off to the
West Indies for sale to the plantations.

Max Dashu


From gordonselway at gn.apc.org  Tue Dec 12 08:21:04 2000
From: gordonselway at gn.apc.org (Gordon Selway)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 08:21:04 +0000
Subject: re Northern Subject Rule
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.082104.0000.>

What about one of the basic rules of classical Greek - neuter plural nouns take
a singular verb, which I think was presented to us in my first lesson in the
early '60s (well 'before the Beatles first LP')?

The construction is similar (but not entirely so) in Gaelic - it could be
formulated as plural nouns take singular verbs - but the synthetic forms are
not common in Scots, and may be relatively rare in some Irish dialects.

How much are the similarities (between English and Insular Celtic) areal?  And
how far apart were Brittonic and Gadelic before moving into Old Welsh and Old
Irish respectively - if they were quite close, and the influences which are
supposed to be substrates were common to both islands, why should there be a
difference between the two?  [Thurneysen seems not to include this construction
explicitly in his Grammar of Old Irish, and I've not been able to unearth any
other Gadelic, or any Welsh, grammars.]

Gordon Selway
<gordonselway at gn.apc.org>

At 12:58 pm 10/12/00, David L. White wrote:
>        As noted by Klehmola (and Venneman), one of the more striking
>evidences for Brtittonic influence in English is the so-called "Northern
>Subject Rule".

[ moderator snip]


From dlwhite at texas.net  Tue Dec 12 14:46:01 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 08:46:01 -0600
Subject: Northern Subject Rule
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.084601.0600.>

>> Thus "They peel them and boils them".  This sort of construal is very rare
>> among languages of the world, and apart from Hebrew and Arabic occurs,
>> according to Klehmola) only in Welsh, Cornish, and Breton

> Not necessarily Brythonic.  Irish has this rule as well.

           Forgive me if I have repeated the errors of my source in this,
but fearing just such a possibility, I checked the facts of Irish and Scots
Gaelic and found that ... we can't tell, because (in modern times anyway)
these languages do not distinguish number in 3rd person verbs anyway.   I
have been unable to determine, from my sources here at home, what Old Irish
did.
        Nonetheless, I would not be surprised (and it would not matter much)
if at some point languages on the Irish side of the family had this rule,
because the rule is clearly related to verb-initiality: in verb-initial
languages, the personal ending and personal pronoun (if used) are
consecutive, creating at times rather obvious redundancy.  Dropping the
ending is one way to avoid this.

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Dec 12 09:26:31 2000
From: richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Richard Coates)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 09:26:31 +0000
Subject: Iberia
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.092631.0000.>

Further to Larry Trask's posting about this name: it should not be
ignored that it very closely resembles (at least the nominative form
of) the native name for Ireland, reconstructable as *_i:werjo:_, and latinized
as _(h)ibernia_ with /n/ imported from oblique case-forms.

Richard Coates

--
Richard Coates
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QH, UK

Tel.: +44 (0)1273 678030 (secretary Jackie Gains)
Fax:  +44 (0)1273 671320
Email: richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Website: www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/richardc/index.html


From maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Dec 12 18:00:19 2000
From: maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Max Wheeler)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 18:00:19 +0000
Subject: Iberia
In-Reply-To: <E145Rn1-00065P-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.180019.0000.>

--On Monday, December 11, 2000 12:10 +0000 Larry Trask
<larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk> wrote:

> The most widespread Basque word for 'river' is <ibai>, or sometimes
> <hibai> on the French side.  This is pretty clearly a derivative of
> <ibar>, whose regular combining form is <iba->.

Some further curiosities w.r.t. Latin Iberia:

1. The preferred form for this root in Latin seems to be Hibêr-; Greek
texts seem to have /ibêr-/ (with smooth breathing) though Greek may well
have lost the phomeme /h/ by the time this word came to be recorded.

2. The range of Latin forms is very similar whether Spain or Georgia is
meant; in particular the morphologically somewhat unusual Hibêr (3rd
declension consonant stem) is used for 'an Iberian' in both senses.

3. There's a problem with the derivation  of the river-name Lat. (H)ibêrum
> Sp. Ebro, Cat. Ebre. In Latin the stress was on the second syllable (it
being heavy), but the Spanish and Catalan forms must go back to a form
stressed on the first syllable (with syncope of the posttonic vowel in an
open syllable). The Greek name of the river was Nom. *íbêr, Acc. íbêra
(Polybius 3.35.2) Gen. íbêros (Strabo III, 3.8) [The refs are those given
by Coromines Onomasticon Cataloniae s.v. Ebre.] I.e. the Greek form of the
name has the right stress to give Ebro/Ebre but the wrong inflection class.
(There's a problem too with the /b/ in Cat. Ebre; regular sound change
would give WCat. */ewre/; thus Catalan borrowing from some other
Hispano-Romance variety such as Mozarabic?). One must assume that the
proto-Romance form was distinct from that represented in Classical Latin or
Greek texts, viz. */'ibero/ or similar [NB it could be */ípero/, which
would give both Sp. Ebro and Cat. Ebre regularly]. It would be nice to
think that this is, or is a direct phonological/morphological adaptation
of, the form in some indigenous language, such as Iberian or
Hispano-Celtic. But the proto-form cannot be */íbaro/ since posttonic /a/
is not subject to Romance syncope.

4. It is possible that Greek íbêr means (1) an East (Georgian) Iberian, (2)
the river Ebro; while Latin Hibêr means either an East (Georgian) Iberian or
a West (Hispanic) Iberian, but not the river Ebro, which was named with the
adjective Hibêrus.

Max
____________________________________________________________
Max W. Wheeler
School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Falmer
BRIGHTON BN1 9QH, G.B.

Tel: +44 (0)1273 678975 Fax: +44 (0)1273 671320 Email:
maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk
____________________________________________________________


From edsel at glo.be  Thu Dec 14 07:21:45 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 02:21:45 -0500
Subject: Iberia
In-Reply-To: <E145Rn1-00065P-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.022145.0500.>

At 12:10 11/12/00 +0000 (and the follow-up message), you wrote:
>Ed Selleslagh writes:

>>  -In Antiquity both Georgia and Mediterranean SE Spain were already called
>>  Iberia, puzzling the writers of the time. In Spain the name seems to be
>>  related to 'ibar', Basque (Iberian?) for 'river (valley)'(cf. the river
>>  Ebro, Lat. Hiberus, another example of a river 'River'?). Note that ancient
>>  Georgia also consisted essentially of two major river valleys parallel to
>>  the Caucasus, so it could have been called 'ibar' by non-Kartvelians.

>The idea of deriving the name 'Iberia' from a Basque word has long been
>popular, but there are big problems with it.

>The central Basque word here is <ibar>.  Today this word means 'valley',
>and it is not systematically distinguished from the other 'valley' word,
><haran>.  However, there is some textual evidence pointing to an
>earlier distinction.

[total snip]

As you must know by now, I am fully aware of all the things you wrote. But
I didn't envisage tracing the word back to the Basques themselves: I was
implicitly suggesting that the word (if it is the basis of Hiberus and
Iberia) might be of (non-attested) Iberian origin, and had popped up in
later times as the  Basque word 'ibar' (Remember, this was in the framework
of a possible influence of Iberian on a possibly much older Basque/Pyrenean
language). Anyway, I never intended to start a new thread on this ( that
has been done before on the Basque list) but to explain some things about
the actual history of Basque-Caucasianism (and the 'Vasco-Iberismo') and
the ideas that float or floated around in that environment, to some
interested people on the list, and to point out that not everything in that
context is pure fantasy or nonsense, even though unfortunately, there is
quite a bit of that around..

Ed.


From W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de  Wed Dec 13 11:36:43 2000
From: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Wolfgang Schulze)
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 12:36:43 +0100
Subject: Kurds and Georgians [and Basques]
Message-ID: <WED.13.DEC.2000.123643.0100.>

Remember that the term 'Iveria' etc. for the Georgians stems from
Armenian iver-k` (Plural) 'Georgians'. As far as I know there are
several proposals to relate the Armenian word to an IE source or to
derive it from another Armenian source such as 'i ver' 'above' etc..
This would give us 'iverk`' = 'those who live/are above (=north) of us'.

Wolfgang

********************
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze
Institut für Allgemeine und Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft
Universität München - Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1 - D-80539 München
Tel.: ++49-(0)89-2180 2486 (secretary) // ++49-(0)89-2180 5343 (office)
Fax:  ++49-(0)89-2180 5345
Email: 	W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Web:   	http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wschulze/
********************


From mcv at wxs.nl  Tue Dec 12 15:03:25 2000
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 16:03:25 +0100
Subject: "Goth"
In-Reply-To: <a2.d49d06b.2765c2de@aol.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.160325.0100.>

On Mon, 11 Dec 2000 00:40:46 EST, X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

>Basically, the word "Goth" apparently clearly first appears in Greek about
>250BC.  That is when it is applied to the "Goths" just north of the Danube.
>It seems that in Greek at this earlier time, it is written <Guto:nes> or
><Guthoi>.

>In a number of places I see the word reconstructed as from <*Gutos>, sing.,
><*Gutans> pl. (with <t> rather than <thorn>.)  I don't know when this
>reconstruction would date to.

Essentially to Gothic as we know it (Ulfila's Gothic).  Both forms are
plurals, the first in case we had an o-stem sg. *<Gut>, pl. *<Gutos>,
the second for an n-stem sg. *<Guta>, pl. *<Gutans>.  The only
attested Gothic form is <Gut-Tiuda> "Gothia".  I would favour the
n-stem variant.

>In Latin, it will appear about a hundred years after the Greek as pl <Gothi>
>(the way Ulfila's biographer apparently spelled it) and at some point I've
>read, <Gotthi>.

Unlike Latin or Greek /t/, Germanic /t/ was (and is) aspirated.

>Earlier Greek and Latin historians use similar names to refer to people in
>other places who may have been "Goths":  Strabo writing in Greek uses
><Buto:nas> which is often interpreted as a mistake for "Guto:nas", Tacitus
>mentions the <Gotones>, Ptolemy mentions both <Kw'gnoi> and up in Sweden
><Gau'tai> and something that has been Latinized as "Gythones."

<y>=<u>, so that would be Guthones.  The Swedish <Gautai> should be
kept separate.

>The Goths were sometimes also referred to as the <Getae> (Greek: Getes,
>Getae; Latin, Geta, Getae), a name used for an earlier group of people in the
>same area (north of the Danube.)  (The <Geats> appear as another northern
>Germanic peoples at some point later in time.)

The Getae were most likely a Thracian (or Daco-Thracian) people.
There is no likely connection between Germanic *Gut- "Goth", and the
Getae.  The <Ge:ats> of the Beowulf are the Swedish Gautai (OE *au >
e:a).

>Some derive the name from the <Go:eta> or <Go:te> people or section of
>Sweden, Ptolemy's <Gau'tae>.  Ingemar Nordgren has suggested that the name is
>derived from the Goeta River in Sweden (deriving it from Gaut's "aelv").

>There is a claim that early forms of the name appear within the Roman empire
>in two Greek inscriptions from Asia, one using a personal name <<gouththa>>
>the other apparently refering to <<...tes romaion arches gouththton te kai
>germanon ethnon>> (apparently from the late 3d cent AD in Persia.)

>[...]

>And are there vowel shifts in East Germanic that happen somewhere around this
>time that would yield something like /oe/> /u/ or /e/?  And doesn't Latin
>favor <thorn> > /t/?  (E.g., Tacitus - "Tuista")  And how would either /u/ or
>/oe/ or /o/ turn into /ou/ in Greek?  Is there any reason to think /oe/ > /o/
>or /ou/ could happen at this time between Greek or Celtic and Germanic in
>transcribing this word?  Is there a conventional comparative solution for any
>of this?

In Germanic, we have to tribes: the Goths (*Gut-) and the Ge:ats/Go"ts
(*Gaut-).  In Greek, their names would at first have been transcribed
as <Gut(h)ones>/<Gut(h)oi> and <Gaut(h)ones>/<Gaut(h)ai>, then, after
Greek /u/ > /u"/ and /th/ > /T/, more likely as
<Gout(t)ones>/<Gout(t)oi> and <Gaut(t)ones>/<Gaut(t)ai>.

The <o> that we find in Latin <Go(t)thi> can be due to either Gothic
or Latin phonetics: in Gothic manuscripts, short <u> sometimes
alternates with <o> (long /o:/).  In late Latin, short /u/ merged with
long /o:/ as short closed /o/ (/U/) (as opposed to /u:/ > /u/ and /o/
> /O/).  Both processes would have led to Goth. *Guta -> Lat. Gothus,
with close ("long") /o/.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Tue Dec 12 17:58:56 2000
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 12:58:56 EST
Subject: "Goth"
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.125856.EST.>

In a message dated 12/12/00 2:19:08 AM Mountain Standard Time,
X99Lynx at aol.com writes:

>Basically, the word "Goth" apparently clearly first appears in Greek about
250BC.  That is when it is applied to the "Goths" just north of the Danube.
It seems that in Greek at this earlier time, it is written <Guto:nes> or
<Guthoi>.

-- there were no Goths just north of the Danube in 250 BCE.  At that time the
ancestors of the Goths were in eastern Germany and Poland.  The first
historical attestation of the Goths has them in the Vistula valley in the
first few centuries CE, after which they moved into the Ukraine and the
Danube valley.


From dlwhite at texas.net  Tue Dec 12 18:54:40 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 12:54:40 -0600
Subject: "Goth"
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.125440.0600.>

        I don't have much of a contribution to make here, but since when has
that ever stopped me?  Besides, my adoring public (the hithertofore
unsuspected existence of which Mr. Whting was kind enough to point out to
me) demands it, no doubt.
        Latin does not of course in any meaningful sense have /th/ (thorn),
so the appearance of "th" in Latin must be, if all is in order, from
transliteration from Greek.  The Greeks, for their part, might well have
heard an aspirated /t/ in Gothic as equivalent to their /th/.  Our modern
English pronunciation is of course a spelling pronunciation. Thus the
illusion of a shifted /t/ might be created.  But the Lithuanian borrowed
form has /d/, indicating that only a /d/ to /t/ shift is real.
        As for the vowel, pre-Gothic /au/ might well have changed to some
sort of /o/ in Gothic, depending on what sort of interpretation we take of
Gothic spelling and how it reached its somewhat strange state, but as far as
I know /u/ is out.  (And Greek "ou" is of course a spelling of /u/.)
Gothic /u/ is often from pre-Gothic short /o/, but as far as I know there is
no way that /au/ can be expected to have changed to this.  So this /u/ is
probably some sort of mangling in trans-language transmission.  (I vaguely
recall that the Lithuanian form has /u/.)
        I am one of those who thinks that the "Geats" of Beowulf are Goths,
since Germanic /au/ regularly appears as "ea" (whatever that meant, probably
/aeu/) in Old English.

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From sonno3 at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 12 23:07:22 2000
From: sonno3 at hotmail.com (Christopher Gwinn)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 18:07:22 -0500
Subject: Lloegr
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.180722.0500.>

> More likely, IMHO, sources for the first (?) element might be the IE roots
> for Gaelic

> lugh, 'small, lynx, Lugh (sun-god)'
>

Perhaps we have instead an o-grade from of PIE *legh- "lay," the same root
which gives English "low," especially since the name Loegyr refers to
"Lowland England."

Lug definitely comes from a -u-stem Lugus [likely related to luige "oath"],
lug "lynx" is likely represented by the o-stem lugos on the Tommerby
[Denmark] inscription that features a picture of a feline (there is also the
alleged Gaulish lugos "raven," which might simply have meant "black"), and
l(a)ugu "small" [=Welsh llaw] comes from a Celtic root *lag-[u].
*Lagi- (Irish laugu) would give a Welsh *Llai-, *Lago- would give Welsh
*Llaw-
*Lugo- (Irish lug "lynx") would give Welsh *Lau-
*Lugu- (Irish Lug) would give Welsh *Lleu

I have recently come upon some evidence which might suggest that Lloegyr
could come from a Brythonic *Logi-cori[i] "*Logi-troops," with Loegrwys =
*Logi-cor[i]-enses "People of the *Logi-troops."

-Chris Gwinn


From g_sandi at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 12 10:52:49 2000
From: g_sandi at hotmail.com (Gabor Sandi)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 10:52:49 -0000
Subject: Celtic Germanic relationship
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.105249.0000.>

>From: X99Lynx at aol.com
>Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 00:49:14 EST

[ moderator snip ]

<Gabor Sandi's reflections on this:>

I think that the evidence is fairly clear as to the direction of the
borrowing for these words.

In the case of the "iron" words, the Scandinavian words have no sign of the
intervocalic -s- (eg Swedish jarn). As intervocalic *-s- does not get lost
in Germanic languages (as opposed to turning into -z- > -r- under Verner's
Law under certain conditions), the best explanation is that the northern
prehistoric Germanic dialects/languages borrowed the word for 'iron' from a
language where the intervocalic *-s- had disappeared. Since a similar change
indeed affected the ancestors of the known insular Celtic languages (in
Irish, *-s- was "lenited" into -h-, then nothing, whereas in Welsh and
Breton all *s > *h, with eventual loss in many cases), it is reasonable to
posit an *-s- > *-h- > nothing for some continental Celtic languages as well
for the 1st millennium BC. Other Celtic dialects/languages would have kept
intervocalic -s- (I believe Gaulish did), and it is from such a source that
the ancestors of English iron and German Eisen would have been borrowed. It
is noteworthy that English has an /r/ where German has a /z/, suggesting
(using Verner's Law) that the reconstructed Celtic source had variable
stress: */'i:sarnos/ or */i:'sarnos/, with the further suggestion that
borrowing predated the action of Verner's Law, and therefore the PGermanic
shift of stress to the initial syllable.

On *ri:k-, the key to the direction of borrowing is not so much the
consonant /k/ but the vowel /i:/. If we assume an IE etymology for the word
in question, we are more likely to find a PIE */e:/ than a PIE */i:/
(evidence: Latin rjx, rjgnna; Sanskrit rbj-). Now, PIE */e:/ either remains
*/e:/ in the Germanic languages or opens up to a long low vowel /ae:/ or
even /a:/. The conditions for these alternative developments go well beyond
what we are discussing, but the point is that PIE */e:/ never becomes */i:/
in Germanic. This is, however, the normal development in the Celtic
languages, so that IF we posit an IE origin for the Germanic word family
*ri:k-, the best explanation is again borrowing from Celtic, with the
borrowing taking place before the Grimm's Law change *g > *k.

As a subsidiary question: if the borrowing went the other way, how could a
Germanic voiceless stop *k have been borrowed with a voiced stop *g into
Celtic? Whatever funny stuff Irish did to its consonants through its complex
history, it always kept *k and *g well apart, with voicing occurring (at a
later period) after nasals only (this is called convection, I believe - any
Celtic scholars out there to confirm this?). If the proposed borrowing
predates the action of Grimm's Law, the Germanic */i:/ would still remain
unexplained, of course...

With best regards,

Gabor Sandi


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Dec 12 10:56:24 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 10:56:24 +0000
Subject: Ngaio Marsh
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.105624.0000.>

Robert Whiting writes:

> English just doesn't allow /ng/
> in initial position.  Of course, phontactical rules are relaxed
> for foreign loans.  Thus there are loans from languages like
> Maori with initial /ng/ (such as the name of the famous mystery
> writer, Ngaio Marsh) ...  So a foreign borrowing 'ngib' could
> contrast with initial /n/.

I'm interested in this.

I don't know how Ngaio Marsh herself pronounces her name.  But
John Wells, in his pronouncing dictionary, gives what I will write
as 'Naio' as the *only* English possibility.  Since he is usually
quite careful about checking names with their owners, it is possible
that Marsh herself pronounces her name this way.

I, of course, being a linguist and therefore a smart alec, pronounce
the name with eng, but I don't think many other people do, except
perhaps other linguists and phoneticians, and of course Maori-speakers.
I would have expected people to anglicize the name as 'Naio', as
Wells recommends, but, when I present the name to my British students,
they almost always respond with 'Nagaio' instead.  This is also the
pronunciation I heard on the sole occasion I heard the name uttered
on the radio.

Even after they have completed their phonetics course, few of my
students seem happy about pronouncing 'Ngaio' with eng.  And most
English-speakers seem to find initial eng impossible.  I wonder,
therefore: is it really possible for English to accept a foreign
word with initial eng?  I suspect it isn't.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)

[ Moderator's comment:
  A (semi-)authoritative source for the pronunciation [najo] is Dame Diana Rigg
  in her role as host for the U. S. PBS series "Mystery", which consists almost
  entirely of BBC programs.  I would assume that Dame Diana uses the late
  Dame Ngaio's preferred pronunciation.
  --rma ]


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Dec 12 10:23:37 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 10:23:37 +0000
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.102337.0000.>

Robert Whiting writes:

> Now there are those who say that they have no rules for the
> pronunciation of <th>.  Presumably, when they encounter in print
> an unfamiliar word with <th> in it they have to go to the
> dictionary to find out how to pronounce it.  I happen to have
> generalized rules for the pronunciation of <th> so I can usually
> make a guess that will be right about 98 times out of 100 about
> how <th> should be pronounced in an unfamiliar word.  I came
> across one the other day:  'poikilothermic'.  Without going to
> the dictionary I knew two things just by looking at it:  a) it is
> not a native English word, and therefore, b) the <th> is
> pronounced [T].

This is usually a good rule, but there are a few exceptions.  I can
think of 'rhythm', 'logarithm' and 'algorithm', and their derivatives,
all of which have eth in spite of their Greek origin.  There must be a
subrule here, though 'arithmetic' has theta.

There are also a couple of miscellaneous nasties, like 'asthma'
and 'thyme', and, in Britain, 'Anthony'. These, in spite of their
spelling and in spite of their classical origin, fail to contain
any dental fricatives at all.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From dlwhite at texas.net  Tue Dec 12 14:48:26 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 08:48:26 -0600
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.084826.0600.>

> Scottish Gaelic orthography makes allowances for something similar, cf.
> sgurr, sgian, taisbeanadh, eisd, gasda, iasg, etc.

> cf. Irish scian, taispeain, eist, gasta, iasc, etc.

        So does Danish.  But when we as English-speakers see this sort of
thing, our (or at least my) natural reaction tends to be "violation of
voicing constraint, unpronounceable".

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Tue Dec 12 15:08:29 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 09:08:29 -0600
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (was: minimal pairs ex: PIE e/o
 Ablaut)
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.090829.0600.>

> On Thu, 16 Nov 2000 David L. White <dlwhite at texas.net> wrote:

>>        Look, either we admit that English speakers could coin
>>/lith/ vs /lidh/, whereas Japanese speakers could not coin /biri/
>>versus /bili/ or we (somewhat obstructionistically) do not.

> I say we admit it.  The question then becomes "what does it
> prove?"

        That they are different phonemes, according to my definition of that
concept, which I regard, for reasons which have been indicated and will not
be re-indicated, as more useful than yours, and which is hardly original
with or unique to me.
        And if I have an adoring public, could you point them in my
direction?

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Wed Dec 13 13:54:38 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 07:54:38 -0600
Subject: Cry Foul
Message-ID: <WED.13.DEC.2000.075438.0600.>

[ snip of private note to moderator ]

        Despite the fact that I have on at least two occasions clearly
indicated that my  usage or definition of the phonemic principle differs
from Mr. Whiting's, he uses the assumption that my usage is the same as his
to accuse me of logical fallacy, despite recognizing himself later on in the
same e-missive that my usage differs from his.  This is hardly kosher.  The
proper thing to do, both in terms of logic and decency,  would have been to
excise all references to my supposed logical fallacies once it was realized
that these were not justified, instead of wasting people's time having them
slog through reams of verbiage about how everyone could be a murderer and
what not that have no conceivable application to the issue at hand.

                                                            Dr. David L. White

[ Moderator's response:
  Presumably David White means that Robert Whiting should have done these
  things.  I will use this opportunity to remind all readers that the welcome
  message for this list calls upon those who feel themselves injured by the
  statements of another first to take the matter up with the person concerned,
  and not with me.
  --rma ]


From Georg at home.ivm.de  Tue Dec 12 10:24:27 2000
From: Georg at home.ivm.de (Stefan Georg)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 11:24:27 +0100
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
In-Reply-To: <001601c0631f$adc9e680$4f903b3f@patrickr>
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.112427.0100.>

>[PR]
>In view of the existence of our sister-list, the Nostratic-List, and the
>work of many researchers including Bomhard's work, this statement is purely
>provocative.

It worked ;-)

>Instead of a priori judgments on his (and incidentally my) work (not to
>mention that of many others), why not try *showing* why Bomhard's and my
>IE-AA comparisons are worthless as evidence, switching to the
>Nostratic-List, of course, if you are up to it?

No, Pat, not again. Of course I acknowledge the fact that Nostratic
and other such proposals are being investigated by reasonable
linguists, and sometimes even defended by them. We've been through
this a thousand times on different fora.
However, and that's why I couldn't resist this little provocation, as
much as I'm willing to concede that the subject *may* be discussed
within the framework of reasonable linguistics, you should be willing
to accept that ay and others' negative attitude to N. is equally a
defendable position.

No, I won't go over all those "examples" again. As you know, but are
unlikely to admit in public, it usually amounts to wasting my time
showing that this, and that, and of course that "etymology" is
founded on faulty semantics, bad or non-existent attestation,
improper morphological analysis, sound-correspondences which are said
to hold on the basis of two examples (but ignored in 15 others),
clear (but never admitted) late inter-family loans aso. aso. aso. We
will fight over, say, ten etymologies, I will win (as always ;-), and
when I finally bring you to admit that they were not good, you'll say
that there are thousands, or zillions of others.

No way.

And, of course, not on this list (but also not on the other one, no,
not again ;-)..

You'll have to live with the fact that some people, like me, *know*
that N. is unfounded, but I'm tired of trying to convince the
believers. Look and see yourself, as hundreds of others who started
out as believers have seen before you ...

Stefan

--
Dr. Stefan Georg
Heerstraße 7
D-53111 Bonn
FRG
Tel./Fax +49-228-691332


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Thu Dec 14 06:06:04 2000
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 01:06:04 EST
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.010604.EST.>

In a message dated 12/13/2000 11:16:43 PM, dlwhite at texas.net replied to the
following:

<< Did they have a big enough presence to serve as a catalyst for the
invasion? Is there any indication that they actually formed a separate
Germanic-speaking community before the Romans left?>>

<<My impression is that the AS conquest was as much a reinforced revolt of
federates as anything else.  There is no reason to think that Germans in
Britain would not have spoken German, and though I do not specifically recall
any direct evidence of it, I would not be surprised if there is some. >>

Part of the "foederati system" entailed moving group of peoples into buffer
zones along Roman borders.  I believe that two groups from "Germania" called
"Votadini" and "Damnoni" were actually moved as such to north Wales just
around the time of Magus Maximus.  Saxons were also deployed about the same
time along the northern border against attacks by Picts.  On a number of
occasions of course the Roman Army in Britain just off and left to try to put
someone in the Emperor's Chair.  During those periods it would seem that
these Germanic troops were in fact Britain's main defense.  One of the later
chroniclers mentions that the Saxons claimed that they had once lived in
Britain and were simply returning.  After Constantine was declared emperor by
his legions and left with them for Rome in 407AD, the only "Roman" garrisons
that remained may have been foederati.  The legions never came back and it
took about another 100 years for this situation to deteriorate into a genuine
"invasion."

Although the Germanic language would be difficult to detect in Latin
inscriptions, there is some evidence of German presence in religious
inscriptions.  See,e.g., M. Henig, Religion in Roman Britain (1984)

Regards,
Steve Long


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Thu Dec 14 06:22:26 2000
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 01:22:26 EST
Subject: AS Conquest the result of a Plague
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.012226.EST.>

In a message dated 12/13/2000 11:16:43 PM, dlwhite at texas.net writes:

<< My impression is that the AS conquest was as much a reinforced
revolt of federates as anything else. >>

There is a new theory going around based on evidence of a sixth century
global event and consequent plague.  This is an excerpt from a public post
w/o signature on the EuroArch list:

"A more recent and more measured presentation and hypothesis is
provided by Elizabeth Jones of the University of North Carolina. She
has published an article titled "Climate, Archeology, History,
and the Arthurian Tradition: A Multiple-Source Study of Two Dark-Age
Puzzles" in "The Years Without Summer: Tracing A.D. 536 and
Its Aftermath", Edited by Joel D. Gunn, also of UNC.  (British
Archaeological Reports, www.archaeopress.com
http://www.archaeopress.com , ISBN 1 84171 0741 and
http://www.mindspring.com/~multisci/ad536.htm.)

Jones' hypothesis is that disease attributable to the climate
shift selectively decimated the Celtic British population in the mid
6th century, thereby facilitating the Anglo-Saxon conquest of most of
Britain between 550 and 600 AD.  Roughly summarized, her starting
points are the statements that "It is well-established that
drastic, relatively sudden changes in average global temperature -
whether warmer or colder - cause imbalances in populations of
bacteria, viruses, insects, rodents, and other animals that result in
plagues and other epidemics, which are then spread to human
populations (1: Linden 1996:56)", and "There is general
agreement that the plagues struck the Britons hard without affecting
the Anglo-Saxon populations to any extent." (2: Davis, 1982, and
others.) Among additional points, Jones argues that:

1)  It appears unlikely that the conquering Anglo-Saxons
assimilated the British because there is little evidence of
linguistic or cultural borrowing in the archaeological record of
Anglo-Saxon settlements.  At the same time, extermination of the
British seems unlikely because there is no evidence of violent
destruction of British towns, which appear to have been abandoned.

2)  There is archaeological evidence for disease of some type at
British Cirencester in the form of "unburied bodies lying in the
streets of an abandoned town".

3)  Before 550 AD, the Anglo-Saxon settlements in England were
dispersed family farms tied exclusively to a North Sea economy, which
did not even include Frankish areas in Gaul.  In sharp contrast, the
more urban Celtic Britains were still tied into the eastern
Mediterranean trade network, making them more likely to be affected
by the Justinian plague than the Anglo-Saxons.

4)  The disease hypothesis helps to explain the massive
migrations of Britains to Wales and Brittany at this time.   Jones
reports that there are records of British refugees who came to
Brittany expressly to escape contagion.

5)  The majority of invaders of late 6th century Britain "came
from more northerly areas than in the fifth century - from Denmark
and even from Sweden".  This could well be caused by the cold
produced by the 5th century climate change, "which was more
pronounced and longer-lasting in Scandinavia than in the British
Isles".

Although this was an academic response, I know it doesn't prove
anything. And Jones herself readily admits that the climate/plague
factor was probably only one factor among many driving the change in
Britain. However, Jones maintains that it provide a parsimonious
explanation for the sudden success of the Anglo-Saxons after 550A.D.,
when their previous expansion in England had been halted and even
driven back over the previous century by Celtic British resistance.
Jones' arguments are supported by another article in the same
collection by Bailey Young of the Department of History, Eastern
Illinois University, titled "Climate and Crisis in Sixth-Century
Italy and Gaul".  In that article, Young cites the multiple
instances of plague in Gaul mentioned by Gregory of Tours."

S. Long


From Tristan at MAIL.SCM-RPG.COM.AU  Sat Dec 16 11:38:37 2000
From: Tristan at MAIL.SCM-RPG.COM.AU (Tristan Jones)
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2000 06:38:37 -0500
Subject: re Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <SAT.16.DEC.2000.063837.0500.>

Well this is going to be a radical view on Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain.
However considering the minimal Celtic or Romance influence in Old English.
Even less than Aboriginal influence in Australian English, Aboriginals
currently make up 2% of Australian population , however Australia has a huge
amount of Aboriginal place names and more aboriginal loan words than Celtic
or Romance loan words in Old English. Given the attuides of early
Anglo-Saxon and Celtic relations, they lived in seperate settlements, rather
than together in same settlements and bulding of Offa's dyke between English
and Welsh. Suggests a big cultural and some psycial differences between the
Romano-British and Anglo-Saxons, I am suggesting that the aAnglo-Saxons
pretty much looked like people in Eastern part of England today and
Romano-British looked like the Welsh and British in Western part of England
today and a huge replacement of Romano-British people with Anglo-Saxon
immigrants from Germany. It is also shown in genetic record that the Eastern
part of England is more related genetically to Danes than their neighbours
in western bit of Britain.


From W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de  Thu Dec 14 09:47:01 2000
From: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Wolfgang Schulze)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 10:47:01 +0100
Subject: Iberia
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.104701.0100.>

Richard Coates wrote:

> Further to Larry Trask's posting about this name: it should not be ignored
> that it very closely resembles (at least the nominative form of) the native
> name for Ireland, reconstructable as *_i:werjo:_, and latinized as
> _(h)ibernia_ with /n/ imported from oblique case-forms.

Let me just add another aspect to the discussion: When I browse through
all the Iberia/Hibernia/Ebro etc. terms I'm left with the impression
that the Ancient world used Iberia etc. to denote all kind of places in
the outer periphery of the then known world (Spain, Caucasus). In other
words: Anything was 'Iberia' as long as there existed a local motivation
to apply this term. A local motiovation could have been any place name,
river name (Ebro for the Spanish regions ?), ethnonym (Armenian iver-k
(asp. k) for the Georgians) or what so ever as long as it 'sounded'
alike or resembled 'Iberia' in its phonetics (the same happened to the
European term 'Georgia' (in the Caucasus) which shows assimilation of
Persian Gurji etc. to 'Georgia' - here, the Christian connotation of St.
Georg plays an important role as well as the name of Gregor in terms of
the early Georgian orthodoxy). Note that we can observe the same 'folk
semantics' or 'folk constructions' for the term Albania: Because the
Ancient World knew lots of place names (esp. associated with high
mountains) that contained something like alb- (Alpes, Albion (celtic),
Alba etc.) a more general term 'albania' emerged that was used for
regions with high mountains. When the Alwan people (Classical Armenian
aluan-k (velar l, asp. k (plural)) in now Northern Azerbaijan came into
the horizon of the Ancient World (4th c. BC) their name was
reinterpreted on the basis of this general term, which gives us the
Classical name 'Albania', then used for both the Balkan und Caucasus
regions. The pity is that some people belief in the reality of such
correpondences which are - in fact - nothing but folk constructions in
the dimension of the geographic knowledge of the Ancient World.

Wolfgang
--
********************
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze
Institut für Allgemeine und Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft
Universität München - Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1 - D-80539 München
Tel.: ++49-(0)89-2180 2486 (secretary) // ++49-(0)89-2180 5343 (office)
Fax:  ++49-(0)89-2180 5345
Email: 	W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Web:   	http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wschulze/
********************


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Thu Dec 14 13:50:28 2000
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 07:50:28 -0600
Subject: Iberia
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.075028.0600.>

Dear Richard and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Coates" <richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2000 3:26 AM

> Further to Larry Trask's posting about this name: it should not be
> ignored that it very closely resembles (at least the nominative form
> of) the native name for Ireland, reconstructable as *_i:werjo:_, and
> latinized as _(h)ibernia_ with /n/ imported from oblique case-forms.

[PR]
To me, this is utterly fascinating.

Could you give the source and more of the argument for this reconstruction?

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ec at ec hecc, vindga meipi a netr allar nmo, geiri vnda~r . . . a ~eim
mei~i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rstom renn." (Havamal 138)


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Dec 14 15:08:15 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 10:08:15 -0500
Subject: Iberia
In-Reply-To: <27010750.3185632819@maxw.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.100815.0500.>

>(There's a problem too with the /b/ in Cat. Ebre; regular sound change
>would give WCat. */ewre/; thus Catalan borrowing from some other
>Hispano-Romance variety such as Mozarabic?). One must assume that the
>proto-Romance form was distinct from that represented in Classical Latin or
>Greek texts, viz. */'ibero/ or similar [NB it could be */ípero/, which
>would give both Sp. Ebro and Cat. Ebre regularly].

	A /-b-/ < /-p-/ looks like a big problem, since my understanding is
that neither Iberian nor Celtiberian had a /p/.
	Borrowing from Mozarabic does seem to be a valid solution, though.
	Aren't there also some forms of Aragonese that also unvoiced
intervocalic stops? If so [and relevant], could this have been a wider
phenomenon in the past?
	Another solution could be that the /-b-/ was retained as a "learned
pronunciation". Would that work?

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Dec 14 15:29:24 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 10:29:24 -0500
Subject: Kurds and Georgians [and Basques]
In-Reply-To: <3A375F4B.30002@lrz.uni-muenchen.de>
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.102924.0500.>

>Remember that the term 'Iveria' etc. for the Georgians stems from
>Armenian iver-k` (Plural) 'Georgians'. As far as I know there are
>several proposals to relate the Armenian word to an IE source or to
>derive it from another Armenian source such as 'i ver' 'above' etc..
>This would give us 'iverk`' = 'those who live/are above (=north) of us'.

	So, could one postulate a Lusitanian form *uper-, *iper- for Ebro?
ie. the "super river", the "river from the heights", etc.?

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Thu Dec 14 12:12:10 2000
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 07:12:10 -0500
Subject: "Goth"
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.071210.0500.>

On Tue, 12 Dec 2000 16:03:25 +0100, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <mcv at wxs.nl>
wrote:

>, so that would be Guthones.  The Swedish <Gautai> should be
>kept separate.
>>The Goths were sometimes also referred to as the <Getae> (Greek: Getes,
>>Getae; Latin, Geta, Getae), a name used for an earlier group of people in
the
>>same area (north of the Danube.)  (The <Geats> appear as another northern
>>Germanic peoples at some point later in time.)
>The Getae were most likely a Thracian (or Daco-Thracian) people. ...

If the Got- and the Gautar were different peoples, how much do we know about
the Gautar / Geats as distinct from the Goths?

Re the Getae, a more recent example of a writer using an anachronistic name
for a people, is a tomb inscription in York Minster (a cathedral in England)
that referred to modern Yorkshire or Lincolnshire people as "Trinobantes"!


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Dec 15 03:55:11 2000
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 22:55:11 EST
Subject: "Goth" (Dates)
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.225511.EST.>

In a message dated 12/14/2000 3:48:07 AM, JoatSimeon at aol.com writes:

<< -- there were no Goths just north of the Danube in 250 BCE.  At that time
the ancestors of the Goths were in eastern Germany and Poland.

My mistake.  And sorry for the confusion.  I should have written 250AD.  It
is not at all clear where the Goths were or if they were at all in 250BC.

It is Ptolemy who places the Gythones east of the Vistula circa 100AD.
Archaeologist have associated these "Goths/Gythones" with the Wielbark
culture in this area in that time.  Wielbark which arises between 100BC and
1AD shares characteristics with the somewhat later Cernjachov culture, found
in a wide area in the Ukraine and south of the Carpathians, and generally
associated with the historical Goths.

The theory that the Goths migrated from the area of the Go:te in Scandinavia,
not accepted by all, would probably have them moving about 100BC.

But less than 150 years between Wielbark and Cernjachov (they actually
overlap) does seem like a short time in which such a large migration and
transformation to have occurred.

<<The first historical attestation of the Goths has them in the Vistula valley
in the first few centuries CE, after which they moved into the Ukraine and the
Danube valley. >>

It seems general historical consensus that people called "Goths" first come
definitively into history when they make major incursions by land and sea
into the eastern Roman Empire starting in 238AD, sacking the city of Histria
at the mouth of the Danube. (Dexippus).   Peter Heather in "The Goths" (1996)
documents the extensive raiding and warfare attributed to the Goths during
the following years, including raids on Attica and Asia Minor and the burning
of the Temple to Diana in Ephesus, all culminating at the important battle of
Naissus in the northern Balkans in 272AD, at which Claudius reputedly earned
the honorary appelate, "Gothicus".

Regards,
Steve Long


From edsel at glo.be  Tue Dec 19 03:58:47 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 22:58:47 -0500
Subject: "Goth"
In-Reply-To: <cddc3tg5o0can43a2ka15gd6r4119l2fa2@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <MON.18.DEC.2000.225847.0500.>

At 16:03 12/12/00 +0100, you wrote:

>On Mon, 11 Dec 2000 00:40:46 EST, X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

[snip]

>>In Latin, it will appear about a hundred years after the Greek as pl <Gothi>
>>(the way Ulfila's biographer apparently spelled it) and at some point I've
>>read, <Gotthi>.

>Unlike Latin or Greek /t/, Germanic /t/ was (and is) aspirated.

[Ed]

Not in modern Dutch any more.

[snip]
>Miguel Carrasquer Vidal

Ed. Selleslagh


From edsel at glo.be  Tue Dec 19 04:22:46 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 23:22:46 -0500
Subject: "Goth"
In-Reply-To: <000901c0646d$0bbfb5a0$126063d1@texas.net>
Message-ID: <MON.18.DEC.2000.232246.0500.>

At 12:54 12/12/00 -0600, you wrote:

>        I don't have much of a contribution to make here, but since when has
>that ever stopped me?  Besides, my adoring public (the hithertofore
>unsuspected existence of which Mr. Whting was kind enough to point out to
>me) demands it, no doubt.
>        Latin does not of course in any meaningful sense have /th/ (thorn),
>so the appearance of "th" in Latin must be, if all is in order, from
>transliteration from Greek.  The Greeks, for their part, might well have
>heard an aspirated /t/ in Gothic as equivalent to their /th/.  Our modern
>English pronunciation is of course a spelling pronunciation. Thus the
>illusion of a shifted /t/ might be created.  But the Lithuanian borrowed
>form has /d/, indicating that only a /d/ to /t/ shift is real.

[Ed]

But in Spanish they are called 'Godos', which seems to be a voicing of the t.
This is not unusual in Spanish: Latin -atus > -ado, for instance.

[snip]

>                                                            Dr. David L. White

Ed. Selleslagh


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Dec 14 20:59:59 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 14:59:59 -0600
Subject: Further Thoughts On "Goth-"
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.145959.0600.>

        The word is sometimes connected with a word meaning 'flood' or
something of that sort (sometimes given as 'pour').  It occurs to me that
from an original /gout/ (ancestral to Germanic /gaut/), /gut/ might be a
zero-grade, such as would (since this is a strong verb) occur in past
participles (like "flooded").   A zero-grade version is, by the way,
generally taken to be the ancestor of modern English "gut", though the
semantics are unclear (to me).  The full o-grade might have meant "flood",
so that the two variants might go back to a difference of opinion as to
whether the Goths were being called in effect "the flood people" or "the
flooded people".   As for why they would be called anything of the sort, I
vaguely recall that sea-levels in the general vicinity were rising at about
the time in question.  But all this is rather speculative, and I stand ready
to be set straight.

Dr. David L. White


From sonno3 at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 14 15:02:11 2000
From: sonno3 at hotmail.com (Christopher Gwinn)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 10:02:11 -0500
Subject: Celtic Germanic relationship
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.100211.0500.>

> Since a similar change indeed affected the ancestors of the known insular
> Celtic languages (in Irish, *-s- was "lenited" into -h-, then nothing,
> whereas in Welsh and Breton all *s > *h, with eventual loss in many cases),
> it is reasonable to posit an *-s- > *-h- > nothing for some continental
> Celtic languages as well for the 1st millennium BC. Other Celtic
> dialects/languages would have kept intervocalic -s- (I believe Gaulish did)

Early (attested) Gaulish retains the intervocalic -s-, but later Gaulish
tends to lose it (especially vefore -s-). Note Isarno "iron" as compared to
late Gaulish suior "sister" (from Common Celtic *swesor)

> On *ri:k-, the key to the direction of borrowing is not so much the consonant
> /k/ but the vowel /i:/. If we assume an IE etymology for the word in
> question, we are more likely to find a PIE */e:/ than a PIE */i:/ (evidence:
> Latin rjx, rjgnna; Sanskrit rbj-). Now, PIE */e:/ either remains */e:/ in the
> Germanic languages or opens up to a long low vowel /ae:/ or even /a:/. The
> conditions for these alternative developments go well beyond what we are
> discussing, but the point is that PIE */e:/ never becomes */i:/ in Germanic.
> This is, however, the normal development in the Celtic languages, so that IF
> we posit an IE origin for the Germanic word family *ri:k-, the best
> explanation is again borrowing from Celtic, with the borrowing taking place
> before the Grimm's Law change *g > *k.

I might add that Greek and Latin speaker soften had trouble distinguishing
between the Celtic -g- and -c- (the Gauls themselves often seemed unsure
whether to use a -c- or a -g- when writing their  own language); perhaps the
Germanic tribes suffered from the same problem.

-Chris Gwinn


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 18 03:30:12 2000
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 03:30:12 -0000
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <MON.18.DEC.2000.033012.0000.>

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal (5 Dec 2000) wrote:

>As I may have mentioned here earlier, I have been investigating the
>possible ramifications of hypothesizing that not only *k/*g/*gh had
>labialized (*kw/*gw/*ghw) and palatalized (*k^/*g^/*gh^) variants, but
>that this was originally the case for *all* (pre-)PIE consonants.

>One interesting possibility is **pw, which would have mostly merged
>with *kw (for obvious reasons, a labialized labial would have been a
>highly marked phoneme), but with *p in (pre-)Germanic.

I'm not comfortable with double stars, but *pw in Early PIE which merged
with *p in Pre-Germanic and with *kw in most other dialects  makes sense.

>This could be the case in the words "liver", "four", "-leven, -lve",
> >"oven", "wolf" and some others ("leave", "sieve", etc.).

I would add the tail-end of "five"; Goth. <fimf> suggests Early PIE *pempwe.
On the other hand I would remove "wolf"; Lat. <lupus> argues against a
labialized stop. Gk. <lukos> probably results from taboo-substitution by an
epithet 'bright-eyed', 'shining-eyed' or the like. I would refer "wolf" to
PIE *wlpos. Making all attested forms into taboo-variants, as Mr. Watkins
does, is an unnecessary shell-game.

>The existence of a parallel development *ghw (I prefer to spell it >this
>way) > Gmc. *b would be most interesting.  To be fully parallel >with **pw
>-> *f, there should be quite a number of exceptions to the >"law" (that
>it's controversial is therefore a good thing in principle).

Sadly we don't have a whole lot of PIE roots with labialized aspirates, and
some of the alleged cognate-sets are dubious, particularly in regard to the
Greek members.

>I'm not too pleased with "bane", however, being from the same root as
> >*gunT- "Kampf, Schlacht", which means a putative **bhwen- (for PIE
> >*ghwen) "to kill" is out of the question.  Not that it matters for
> >judging the etymology by its own merits...

I don't follow this. OE <bana> 'slayer' and <gu:th> 'battle' hardly look
like cognates. I would refer <bana>, OHG <bano> 'death', and probably Gk.
<phonos>, <pephamai>, etc. to PIE *bhen- 'to slay'. <Gu:th> etc., Gk.
<theino:>, and Lat. <defendo> belong with PIE *ghwen- 'to strike, fight,
defend, etc.' Ger. <Guenther> 'warrior' probably represents the zero-grade
agent *ghwntr-. I'm aware that some persons link <phonos> and <theino:>, and
I can't rule this out on strictly phonologic grounds. However, there's a big
difference between merely 'slaying' and 'being a soldier, defender'. If
correct, this analysis suggests *ghw -> Gmc. *g(u) initially. We also have:

  Lat. <frendo>, Gk. <khondros>, OE <grindan> <- *ghwren-
  OL <dingua>, OE <tunge>, OHG <zunga> <- *dnghw-
  Lat. <ungula>, Gk. <onukhos>, OE <naegl>, OHG <nagal> <- *Hnoghw-
  Lat. <levis>, Gk. <elaphros>, OE <le:oht>, OHG <li:hti> <- *Hleghw-

The last three suggest *ghw -> Gmc. *g medially unless the latter is
assimilated into *h (i.e. [x]) before *t.

In my opinion, PIE roots containing a labialized aspirate (traditional *gwh)
which becomes Gmc. *w are most easily explained by assuming that the Early
PIE root had *bhw. The phonetic realization in Early Gmc. was probably close
to [vw], and this could plausibly have been reduced to [w]. In "mainstream"
PIE, *bhw merged with *ghw. I hypothesize:

  Lat. <formus>, Gk. <thermos>, Skt. <gharmas>, OE <wearm> <- *bhwermos
  Lat. <nivis>, <ninguit>, Gk. <niphei>, OE <sni:wan> <- *sneibhw-
  Lat. <nefrendes>, Gk. <nephroi>, ME <nere>, Ger. <Niere> <- *nebhwr-

Early PIE *dhw may be represented in "deer", OE <de:or>, assuming this is
connected with Lat. <ferus>, Gk. <the:r>. The latter has the Aeolic form
<phe:r> which suggests a PIE labialized aspirate, just as Aeol. <pisures>
'four', <pempe> 'five' have <p> for Attic <t> where PIE had a labialized
stop. I would refer "deer" to *dhwer- which became *ghwer- in "mainstream"
PIE.

Doug Kilday


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Dec 14 18:59:41 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 12:59:41 -0600
Subject: re Northern Subject Rule
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.125941.0600.>

> What about one of the basic rules of classical Greek - neuter plural nouns
> take a singular verb, which I think was presented to us in my first lesson in
> the early '60s (well 'before the Beatles first LP')?

> The construction is similar (but not entirely so) in Gaelic - it could be
> formulated as plural nouns take singular verbs - but the synthetic forms
> are not common in Scots, and may be relatively rare in some Irish dialects.

            Thinking that (the last bit) is precisely the error I made,
which Dr. Orr will no doubt point out to us all very soon.   In Irish, as
defined by O'Siadhail, the rule does occur in the habitual present, among
other places.  So Klehmola was wrong on this (and I was wrong to take his
word for it, when I should have known better.)
        Hamp has an article on all this, "Miscellanea Celtica ..." in Studia
Celtica10-1: 54-73, that interested members may wish to consult (and perhaps
refresh my memory on: it's been nearly 13 years).

> How much are the similarities (between English and Insular Celtic) areal?
> And how far apart were Brittonic and Gadelic before moving into Old Welsh and
> Old Irish respectively -

        The rule occurs in Breton (p.108 of Hardie's grammar, for those of
you who are beginning to suspect, quite rightly, that my grasp of facts
cannot necessarily be trusted), so it could be quite old in Brittonic.  Or
it could conceivably be a common innovation impelled by similar causes, like
umlaut in Germanic, though as far as I know there is no partcular reason to
believe this.  Does anybody out there know whether the rule occurs in Middle
Breton, or what a good grammar of Middle Breton might  be?  Having to rely
on Modern Breton alone is risky business.

> if they were quite close, and the influences which are supposed to be
> substrates were common to both islands, why should there be a difference
> between the two?

           If the origin, whatever it is, of this rule (or set of related
rules) is remote, there is no particular reason to think that the languages
in question might not have drifted apart in detail over the intervening
years.   Furthermore, the rule is not necessarily directly due to external
influences (though it probably is), but might have been an independent, or
semi-independent, reaction to verb-initiality.

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From sarima at friesen.net  Fri Dec 15 02:23:28 2000
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 18:23:28 -0800
Subject: re Northern Subject Rule
In-Reply-To: <v01540b00b65a5e914141@[62.188.15.56]>
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.182328.0800.>

At 08:21 AM 12/12/00 +0000, you wrote:

>What about one of the basic rules of classical Greek - neuter plural nouns
>take a singular verb, which I think was presented to us in my first lesson in
>the early '60s (well 'before the Beatles first LP')?

>The construction is similar (but not entirely so) in Gaelic - ...

On this basis some have reconstructed this construction to PIE.

Is this a viable explanation still?

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Dec 14 19:14:43 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 13:14:43 -0600
Subject: Danish Spelling
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.131443.0600.>

     Heavens to Betsy, I appear to have suffered a major neurological
malfunction, one of two recently (the other one regards Irish, as will be
seen shortly, no doubt).  Danish does not use the sort of spellings I said
it does.  The source of my error, upon examination, is a "phonetic"
transcription of Danish (which can hardly be right), not actual Danish
spelling.

                                                       Dr. David L. White


From thorinn at diku.dk  Thu Dec 14 13:19:10 2000
From: thorinn at diku.dk (Lars Henrik Mathiesen)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 13:19:10 -0000
Subject: Ngaio Marsh
In-Reply-To: <E145n6d-00067r-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
 (larryt@cogs.susx.ac.uk)
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.131910.0000.>

> Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 10:56:24 +0000
> From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)

> Even after they have completed their phonetics course, few of my
> students seem happy about pronouncing 'Ngaio' with eng.  And most
> English-speakers seem to find initial eng impossible.  I wonder,
> therefore: is it really possible for English to accept a foreign
> word with initial eng?  I suspect it isn't.

If anecdotes about surname pronunciation are really on topic here, I'd
like to know what happens to the (Korean?) family name Ng in the
mouths of English-speaking non-linguists.

(I'm guessing that the native pronunciation is a vocalic eng, but I've
never heard anyone pronounce it in either Korean or English).

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Dec 14 15:22:33 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 10:22:33 -0500
Subject: cebolla/tipula/kipula
In-Reply-To: <27010750.3185632819@maxw.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.102233.0500.>

	In Lapesa's Historia de la lengua española I came across
Basque tipula, kipula "onion" < cepulla
The Spanish form is cebolla

	The question is why tipula?
	Was it borrowed at a time when /ke-, ki-/ was in the process of
changing to /ce-, ci-/>? and both pronunciations were in use i.e. *kepulla,
*cepulla
	Was the word borrowed from 2 different dialects of Romance? or at
two different times by different dialects of basque?
	Or did /ki-/ > /ti-/ occur later in Basque?

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From whiting at cc.helsinki.fi  Thu Dec 14 13:06:02 2000
From: whiting at cc.helsinki.fi (Robert Whiting)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 15:06:02 +0200
Subject: minimal pairs
In-Reply-To: <E145mav-0003Xo-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.150602.0200.>

On Tue, 12 Dec 2000, Larry Trask wrote:

> Robert Whiting writes:

>> Now there are those who say that they have no rules for the
>> pronunciation of <th>.  Presumably, when they encounter in print
>> an unfamiliar word with <th> in it they have to go to the
>> dictionary to find out how to pronounce it.  I happen to have
>> generalized rules for the pronunciation of <th> so I can usually
>> make a guess that will be right about 98 times out of 100 about
>> how <th> should be pronounced in an unfamiliar word.  I came
>> across one the other day:  'poikilothermic'.  Without going to
>> the dictionary I knew two things just by looking at it:  a) it is
>> not a native English word, and therefore, b) the <th> is
>> pronounced [T].

> This is usually a good rule, but there are a few exceptions.

That's why I say it only works 98 times out of 100.

> I can think of 'rhythm', 'logarithm' and 'algorithm', and their
> derivatives, all of which have eth in spite of their Greek origin.
> There must be a subrule here, though 'arithmetic' has theta.

First, 'algorithm' is not greek, but comes from Arabic.  The final
cluster, however, is probably by analogy to 'logarithm' since it was
originally '-ism'.  Second, I already pointed these out in a posting
on Fri, 14 Apr 2000.  It seems likely that the environment /___ m#
has an effect on the pronunciation of theta.

> There are also a couple of miscellaneous nasties, like 'asthma'
> and 'thyme', and, in Britain, 'Anthony'. These, in spite of their
> spelling and in spite of their classical origin, fail to contain
> any dental fricatives at all.

I find the same thing in my pronunciation of 'clothes', which sounds
just like my pronunciation of 'close' (v.).  There are also names
like Thomas and Thames.

Bob Whiting
whiting at cc.helsinki.fi


From r.clark at auckland.ac.nz  Fri Dec 15 03:29:27 2000
From: r.clark at auckland.ac.nz (Ross Clark (FOA LING))
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 16:29:27 +1300
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <FRI.15.DEC.2000.162927.1300.>

-----Original Message-----
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk [mailto:larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk]
To: Indo-European at xkl.com

Robert Whiting writes:

> Now there are those who say that they have no rules for the
> pronunciation of <th>.  Presumably, when they encounter in print
> an unfamiliar word with <th> in it they have to go to the
> dictionary to find out how to pronounce it.  I happen to have
> generalized rules for the pronunciation of <th> so I can usually
> make a guess that will be right about 98 times out of 100 about
> how <th> should be pronounced in an unfamiliar word.  I came
> across one the other day:  'poikilothermic'.  Without going to
> the dictionary I knew two things just by looking at it:  a) it is
> not a native English word, and therefore, b) the <th> is
> pronounced [T].

>This is usually a good rule, but there are a few exceptions.  I can
>think of 'rhythm', 'logarithm' and 'algorithm', and their derivatives,
>all of which have eth in spite of their Greek origin.  There must be a
>subrule here, though 'arithmetic' has theta.

Compare "arrhythmia" for a near-minimal contrast.

Ross Clark


From edsel at glo.be  Tue Dec 19 08:27:00 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 03:27:00 -0500
Subject: minimal pairs
In-Reply-To: <E145mav-0003Xo-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.032700.0500.>

[LT]

>There are also a couple of miscellaneous nasties, like 'asthma'
>and 'thyme', and, in Britain, 'Anthony'. These, in spite of their
>spelling and in spite of their classical origin, fail to contain
>any dental fricatives at all.

>Larry Trask

[Ed]

Note that 'Anthony', 'author' etc. are a class apart: the English spelling
does not correspond to Latin spelling, which has 't': Antonius, auctor...I
guess the th-spelling reflects an older English spelling rule for aspirated
t (like in German, cf. Goethe, Luther,...).

Ed. Selleslagh


From petegray at btinternet.com  Thu Dec 14 20:33:03 2000
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 20:33:03 -0000
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.203303.0000.>

>'asthma' ... fail to contain
> any dental fricatives at all.

It does in my speech and that of those around me, and in my dictionary.

Peter


From sarima at friesen.net  Thu Dec 14 15:40:37 2000
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 07:40:37 -0800
Subject: minimal pairs are not always there
In-Reply-To: <Pine.OSF.4.30.0012112228240.1270-100000@vesuri.Helsinki.FI>
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.074037.0800.>

At 10:35 PM 12/11/00 +0200, you wrote:

>On Tue, 07 Nov 2000 Stanley Friesen <sarima at friesen.net> wrote:

>> Seems reasonable, though perhaps a bit overstated.  There are
>> plenty of words with some sort of sound-symbolism involving
>> perfectly good phonemes to make this too strong a statement.

>Yes, I grant you the point about sound-symbolism.  I always try
>to allow for this, ...

>But what kind of sound symbolism are you proposing that accounts
>for the fact that pronouns and deictic words in English have [D]
>while other words have [T]?

*I* am not proposing such a thing.  I just felt your original
counter-argument was overstated.  I actually agree with you that there is
no such thing in this particular case.  I just maintain that you cannot
conclude what you do from the data.

>   You can't just make the original
>point go away by some vague reference to sound symbolism without
>showing some connection to the present discussion.  For, if, as
>you agree, when sound symbolism isn't involved, the presence of a
>particular phoneme in a particular word shouldn't tell you
>anything about the meaning of that word, then how is it
>possible that the phoneme /D/ in initial position belongs
>exclusively to pronouns and deictic words?

I would rather say that the presence of a particular phoneme does not
*normally* tell one anything about the meaning of a word.  In addition to
sound-symbolism, I would allow for historical accidents in the origin of
the vocabulary making for temporary statistical anomalies of this sort.  In
other words, a bias in the distribution of a pair of sounds does not *by*
itself* constitute evidence that they are *currently* not distinct
phonemes, but only that at some fairly recent time they were not such.

>   When you can provide
>a convincing answer for this, then you will have made your point.
>Until then, I will continue to maintain that the presence of a
>particular phoneme in a particular word should tell you nothing
>about the meaning of that word (leaving aside the possibility of
>sound symbolism).

I maintain this is only a *statistical* *average* situation, and thus its
violation is not evidence for lack of phonemicity per se.

>>> In the pair ether/either, 'ether' belongs to a class of words
>>> where the pronunciation of <th> as [th] is required (by rule
>>> based on a clearly established pattern [Greek loans originally
>>> containing theta]);

>> I disagree. I do not respond to any such rule in my own
>> listening.  No such rule governs any pattern in my speech
>> production.  As far as I am aware, I just memorized the word
>> 'ether' as such.

>Well I can't argue with your perceptions, because they are in
>your head, not mine.  But this means that you have memorized
>the pronunciation of all other English words with <th> as well
>and when you see a new word with <th> you don't have a clue how
>to pronounce it.

Yep.  Though my vocabulary is so large, and I know so many foreign words I
can often recognize a word and guess its pronunciation based on its
cognates. (Which makes no use of any rule other than that, other things
being equal, related words have similar pronunciations).

>>>    Since the respective pronunciations of these words are
>>> required by rule, this cannot be a phonemic distinction because
>>> the choice of these sounds is not arbitrary.

>> It is in MY speech.  And I doubt many other English speakers
>> could be shown to have even a subliminal awareness of any such
>> rules.

>You still seem to be operating on the assumption that it is
>necessary to know how a system works in order to be able to use
>it.  By and large, native speakers do not know what the rules are
>in any conscious way.

That isn't the point.  Not only do I see no evidence that any speaker is
conscious of such a rule, I see precious little, if any, evidence that they
*act* on any such *unconscious* rule.  I require *evidence* from *behavior*
before I am willing to postulate an unconscious rule.  The mere fact of a
statistical anomaly is insufficient evidence for such without evidence that
speakers are at least subliminally *aware* of it.

>   They just know what sounds right.  And it
>is fully automatic.  ...

Perform an experiment on ordinary English speakers using made up words to
show that they in fact behave as if they had such a rule, and I will
consider your hypothesis.  (Leave out people with any substantial
linguistic training, as they may know too much consciously).

>> Not at all - there is such a thing as a *relictual* pattern. one
>> that is left over from prior history, but which has no *current*
>> linguistic significance.

>The entire language is a relictual pattern left over from prior
>history.  Otherwise you have a creole.  There are only relictual
>patterns that are no longer fully productive and ones that are.

And there are ones that at not *at* *all* productive.  I generally only
accept synchronic rules for *currently* *productive* patterns, at least
without considerable additional evidence.

>The latter are used to create new forms in the language by its
>speakers; the former are not.  Here is a good example of a
>relictual pattern that is no longer productive:  the English
>personal pronoun system.  Now tell me that this pattern has no
>significance for the *current* language or that native speakers
>aren't aware of it because it is a "relictual pattern left over
>from prior history."

They are aware of no *rules* generating it, we just memorize it, and how to
use it.  The sort of rule you are proposing is more of the sort that would
be used in generating *new* pronouns - it is a rule of word formation word
use (or, in traditional  terminology, phonemics not syntax).

>> The only evidence I would accept for a synchronic rule is
>> evidence from the speech behavior of native speakers.

>Okay, so you won't accept the list of words and pronunciations
>that I provided based on a contemporary corpus and dictionary.

Not *by* *itself* - not as evidence for an internal rule for *generating*
words.  There are many sets of words in the dictionary that are not related
by any rule whatsoever.

>Fine.  Take the same list and ask a couple of hundred native
>speakers how they pronounce these words.

How does this prove anything?  Native speakers *already* know how to
pronounce all of the words in their vocabulary - indeed, it is by asking
native speakers that the dictionary writers arrive at the pronunciations
therein.  To demonstrate a rule you have to use words the speaker does
*not* already know, and show they determine the pronunciation based on the
particular factor that you are proposing as a rule.

>   If you find significant
>differences from what I have provided, then you will have made
>your point.  But I think that you will find that this is the way
>that these words are pronounced by native speakers today.

Of course it is.  Alll that proves is that the dictionary writers wrote
down the right pronunciation for the words.  Memorization is as good an
explanation of this pattern as any other.  The sort of behavior pattern I
am talking about is one that goes beyond this in that it shows deeper
patterning than mere historical accident.

>> The mere existence of a pattern is not, by itself, sufficient to
>> establish a rule.

>The existence of patterns is the only basis for establishing
>rules.

But you are making your claim from one *static* pattern of words in the
dictionary.  That is not the only sort of pattern that exists.  There is
also the way in which speakers derive new words, and they ways in which
they mis-hear words when they are pronounced in opposition to rules, and
how they sound out written words they do not have in their active
vocabulary (though one must be careful here to rule out prior exposure to
the word).

To establish *linguistic* *rules* it is the *latter* sorts of patterns that
are required, as there are too many ways that mere static patterns of words
could have been caused to make any valid conclusion from that sort of
pattern alone.

>find patterns.  Now when you have a pattern that you can't
>account for, you are justified in saying that you can't account
>for the pattern, but you aren't justified in saying that the
>pattern has no significance because you can't account for it.

Fine.  I am not saying that.  I am saying that I can account for it just
fine thank-you as a non-productive, relictual pattern. I find that a
sufficient account, and see no need for anything more, at least not without
evidence that the pattern goes beyond old words.

>But above a certain level of coincidence or randomness, patterns
>not created by rules are ruled out by the second law of
>thermodynamics.

Only when the system has had time to reach equilibrium - which English has
not yet done with regard to /D/ vs. /T/.  (If any language in fact ever
does reach equilibrium).

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com


From r.clark at auckland.ac.nz  Fri Dec 15 06:07:37 2000
From: r.clark at auckland.ac.nz (Ross Clark (FOA LING))
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 19:07:37 +1300
Subject: minimal pairs (was: PIE e/o Ablaut)
Message-ID: <FRI.15.DEC.2000.190737.1300.>

[For obvious reasons I have considerably shortened this exchange]

[Topic I went through a good deal of first-year linguistics stuff and ended
with a conclusion -- you need data to do historical grammar -- which I guess
we can agree on]

<snip>
[Topic II - mental reality]

>RW>Realistic means based on realia -- things that actually exist
>RW>as opposed to mental constructs.

[RC]
>This is not sufficient to make any discrimination among
>linguistic descriptions. Any linguist of any theoretical
>persuasion will claim that their description is "based on"
>"things that actually exist".

[RW]
Any theorist will tell you that his theories are based on things
that actually exist.  The problem is that for any given set of
data there are virtually an infinite number of hypotheses that
will account for it.  Some will just be more plausible than
others.  However, it is usually not too difficult to see how far
beyond the data any particular theory has gone, and, more
important, whether it is falsifiable or not.

[RC]
>As linguists, I think we should simply admit that insofar as our
>synchronic descriptions are any more than mere transcription,
>they are attempts to capture some aspect of mental reality.

[RW]
I don't say that we shouldn't; in fact, I think we pretty much
have to.  What I say is that such a thing is presently beyond our
reach.  Until we can get inside the human mind, there is no way
to verify whether what we have captured is "mental reality" or
not.  It may be a useful model to explain certain things (like
Niels Bohr's planetary model of the atom) but it also may have
nothing to do with reality (like Niels Bohr's planetary model of
the atom).  I don't say that we shouldn't try to get there, only
that there is no direct road there presently available.  So
whether all our rules of synchronic grammar actually reflect
something that actually goes on in the mind (which is what I
assume you mean by "mental reality") is something that remains to
be seen.

[RC]
Although I don't think we're getting very far with this quasi-philosophical
discussion, it may be important in understanding our disagreement. You seem
to be more pessimistic than I am about knowing anything about what actually
goes on in speakers' minds.

[Snip preamble to Topic III - Grimm & Verner]

RW>But I can see that I shouldn't expect connections to be made when
RW>these connections have not been expressly stated.  So let's start
RW>again.  Grimm's Law says that certain PIE consonants shift in a
RW>certain way in Germanic.  But there are a large number of
RW>exceptions.  One exception is that unvoiced stops don't shift
RW>when the stop is the second part of a voiceless cluster (thus
RW>/sp/, /st/, and /sk/ remain unshifted).  However, even with this,
RW>there are still a large number of exceptions to Grimm's Law.
RW>Verner's Law says that when the PIE stress fell after the
RW>consonant then the consonant shifted in a different way.  So
RW>Verner's Law in effect *excludes* hundreds of Germanic words from
RW>the effects of Grimm's Law thereby producing a nice phonological
RW>generalization.

[RC]
>This is the most peculiar interpretation of Verner's Law I have
>ever seen. The fact is that Verner made it possible to *include*
>many words which had previously simply been sidelined as
>"exceptions".

[RW]
To include in what?  Certainly not Grimm's Law.  Verner's Law
justifies certain exceptions to Grimm's Law.  The consensus is
that Verner's Law operated after Grimm's Law (thus Grimm's Law
feeds Verner's Law by providing voiceless fricatives for it to
operate on).

[RC} But it provides them in *precisely* those cases which were previously
put aside as mere exceptions!

[RW]
 The words "in effect" above indicate that what I
said is not what actually happened, but rather that this is the
result that it produced.

So once again:  Grimm's Law says (inter alia) that PIE voiceless
stops become Germanic voiceless fricatives:

            PIE           Germ.

            *p             f
            *t             T
            *k             x

But considering the dental, PIE *t results in Germanic T, d, and
t.  Now T is the normal outcome of Grimm's Law; t is the result
of Grimm's Law not acting on the second member of a voiceless
cluster (Latin 'sto:', Goth. 'standan' "stand"; this sound is
"in actuality" excluded from the effect of Grimm's Law rather
than "in effect" excluded).  Until Verner discovered his law, d
was just an unexplained exception to Grimm's Law.  Verner's Law
is:

   [+fric., -voice] > [+voice, (±stop)] / [+voice, -accent] ___
   {+voice, #}
   (the notation (±stop) is included because this rule apparently
   also voiced PIE *s in this environment; for those who may not
   be able to read the 8-bit character, this is a "plus or minus"
   sign)

This rule explains the shift of PIE *t to Germanic d (Latin
'pater', Goth. 'fadar').  Although the actual rule has shifted
T to d (where T was the result of Grimm's Law), the effect is to
exclude this word from having to have the expected outcome
(*faTar) if only Grimm's Law had operated.  This is why I said
that *in effect* Verner's Law excludes this word from the effects
of Grimm's Law.  It doesn't actually exclude it from the
operation of Grimm's Law (otherwise the fricative wouldn't have
been there for Verner's Law to convert).

[RC] All your "in effect" seems to do is to take us back to the fact that
the end result ("effect") is the same whether we say (a) "Grimm's Law
applies, except in this list of words, where something else happens" or (b)
"Grimm's Law applies generally, followed by another sound change which
occurs under certain specifiable phonological conditions". The fact that (b)
is universally reckoned to be a scientific advance on (a) does not seem to
show up on your screen.

[Here we move toward Topic IV(The Original) -- English [T] and [D]]

>RW> This seems rather like asking what evidence I have for
>RW> Grimm's Law or Verner's Law other than hundreds of examples and
>RW> the fact that they provide a nice phonological generalization.

>RC>No, because you are not presenting this as a historical law. As
>RC>a historical explanation of why /th/ occurs in certain places and
>RC>/dh/ in others, it is not in dispute.

>RW>Historical law - historical explanation -- What's the difference
>RW>in your mind?

[RC]
>You misunderstood me. I was not proposing an antithesis.

[RW]
I'm sorry.  It rather sounded like you were.  But if there is no
antithesis, why is it a valid historical explanation but not a
valid historical law?

[RC] It's both. See below.

RW>What happened happened.  If the explanation can be
RW>stated as a rule and is not in dispute, what is the problem?

[RC}
>What I said was that the *historical* explanation of the
>distribution of [th] and [dh] in native English words was not in
>dispute. What we are arguing about is a *synchronic* account of
>[th] and [dh] in Modern English. This is why the comparison with
>Grimm/Verner was not appropriate.

[RW]
The point is that sound laws (changes) are historical events that
occur at a certain time in a certain language under certain
conditions.  Once the change goes to completion, that's it.  If a
word got missed by the change, it stays.  If new words that would
have undergone the change if they had been in the language when
it took place come into the language after the change, they
stay.  These words don't have to be loans; they could be new
coinings.  So if you know of any new coinings in English that
have intervocalic [T] (and aren't neologisms based on Greek or
Latin), I'd be happy to know.  Otherwise, if you find an English
word with intervocalic [T] there is about a 98% chance that it
is a loanword borrowed after the change.  And all loanwords that
came into the language after the change with intervocalic [T]
still have it.

[RC] I don't see how this is "the point" of anything that's gone before.

[RW]
So the further point is that sound laws (changes) that took place
long, long ago are still present (and significant) in the
language until some other change eliminates their effects.

[RC] No, the *effects* of long-ago sound changes may be observable in
languages for thousands of years, but whether the "sound laws (changes)" are
in any sense still in the language is what we are discussing.

[RW]
Therefore, you can't disqualify the sound patterns of the modern
language from being significant simply because they are based on
*historical* events that happened in the distant past.  The sound
law (change) that voiced intervocalic [T] in Old English is
qualitatively no different from Grimm's Law that operated in
Pre-Germanic to produce the [T] in the first place.

[RC] Of course. And I did nothing so sweeping as to "disqualify the sound
patterns of the modern language from being significant".

[RW]
So the *synchronic* pattern is the same as the historical
explanation.

[RC] I hope you don't mean this. The historical explanation is an
explanation *of* the synchronic pattern. If the two are the same thing, this
becomes unintelligible.

[RW] Native English words have intervocalic [D] (with a
few exceptions) and borrowed English words have intervocalic [T]
(if that's what they were borrowed with).

It seems to be very difficult for people to grasp the concept
that synchronic grammar and historical grammar have to have the
same result because they both describe the same entity (the
modern language as it is produced by its speakers).

[RC] I don't have any difficulty grasping it. What evidence do you have that
others do?

[RW]  The modern language is not produced by historical events, it is
produced by
its modern speakers.

[RC] Surely it is both, as is implicit in the historical explanations you've
been discussing, and indeed in what you go on to say:

[RW]  A knowledge of history is only useful to
help explain *why* modern speakers produce the language that they
do rather than some other or some previous version.  The modern
speakers tell us *what* they produce.  What modern speakers
produce and what historical explanations tell us to expect them
to produce must be the same thing, or else our historical
reconstruction must be wrong (because the native speakers of the
language can't be).  But neither the native speakers nor
historical explanations can tell us *how* they produce their
language.

[snip]

>RW> But ultimately, it is unimportant whether speakers can still
>RW> recognize foreign words after several centuries or not. The
>RW> pronunciation rules are marked in the lexicon.  The native
>RW> speaker learns these rules and follows them.  It is these rules
>RW> that produce the pattern, not the speaker's perception of the
>RW> words as native or non-native.

>RW> For other evidence that native speakers distinguish by rule
>RW> the [th] of loan words from the [dh] of native words I offer the
>RW> pattern created by the presence of intervocalic [th] and [dh] in
>RW> English words.

RC>This is not "other evidence". This *is* your evidence.

RW>Then my position is unassailable.

[RC]
>I think you should be worried about this. "Self-validating"
>might be another way of putting it.

[RW]
Are you now denying the existence of the pattern?  Or are you
still just saying that this pattern can't have any significance?
Because if the pattern is there, then this is not self-validation;
it is validation through evidence.

[RC] It is validation through evidence only of the existence of a certain
pattern in the distribution of [D] and [T] in a certain subset of English
words. As you've pointed out, there is a clear historical explanation for
this pattern. It is not validation for your particular account of how native
speakers produce this pattern.

>RW>As with Verner's Law, the fact that the rule by which the
>RW>exclusions are made is valid and leads to a valid generalization
>RW>is sufficient.

[RC]
>Not in the slightest like Verner's Law, as I've pointed out.
>Consider: For any pair of English phonemes (say /p/ and /b/) it
>is possible to extract a subset of the words in which they occur
>where the two are in "complementary distribution". (Say [p]
>initially and [b] medially, so we include pig, nibble and rubber,
>but exclude big, nipple and supper.) We then state that there is
>only one phoneme, but that the excluded words "follow a different
>rule". What principle would exclude such a ridiculous analysis?

[RW]
Surely the principle that the "different rule" would have to be
in direct conflict with (the opposite of) the first rule would
reveal that this analysis is self-contradictory.

[RC] Where does this principle come from?

[RW]t why make
your ridiculous analysis so complicated?  Why not just extract a
subset of English words that begin with /b/ and say that all
English words begin with /b/ and that all the excluded English
words "follow different rules"?  The fact that the different
rules must be in conflict with the original rule makes such an
analysis impossible because P and ~P ("a proposition and its
opposite" or "P and not-P") cannot both be true.  The principle
is known as contradiction or mutual exclusivity.

[RC] I really would suggest to you that you are much too quick (here and in
the other thread)to assume that your interlocutors are guilty of elementary
logical fallacies, rather than simply disagreeing with your views.

In the present instance, there is no logical contradiction, since the words
to which each rule applies would be marked in some way (the same way as your
[T] and [D] words must be marked as following "different rules").

Perhaps you wish to propose as a universal constraint that "rules which have
opposite effects may not, under any circumstances, co-exist in the same
grammar". You might be right, although I believe examples of just this have
been discussed in the (phonological) literature.

[RC]
But are you trying to say that you consider this to be in any way
parallel to saying that native English words have intervocalic
[D] and borrowed words have intervocalic [T]?  If so, then you
are clearly not even close to grasping what I have been talking
about.

[RC} You may be right. I'm beginning to realize that it would have been a
good idea to ask you much earlier to state clearly just what your "rules"
look like and how they are constrained to apply to certain words and not
others.

[snip]

RC>As I understand your position, you are claiming that there is a
RC>single phoneme, say /th/, with a realization rule that says
RC>(among other things) that /th/ is realized as [dh]
RC>intervocalically, except in certain exceptional words.

RW>Close.  I claim that there was once a single phoneme /th/ in
RW>English.  Then that this phoneme became voiced to [dh]
RW>intervocalically without creating any new contrasts (/th/ now
RW>has allophones [th, dh]).  Then that any words that came into the
RW>language with intervocalic [th] after this sound change operated
RW>retain [th] intervocalically (this is not necessarily restricted
RW>to loanwords; it could also include new coinings -- there just
RW>don't seem to be any with intervocalic [th]).  There is nothing
RW>particularly exceptional about words with intervocalic [th]
RW>except that the vast majority of them came into the language
RW>after the sound change.  There are a few native words with
RW>intervocalic [th] (for reasons that can be accounted for), but
RW>there are no loanwords that originally had intervocalic [th] that
RW>now have [dh].  This is exceptional, at least to the extent that
RW>there are no exceptions.

[snip]

RC>Meanwhile, how do we know that children and the less educated
RC>actually formulate the rule this way? If they did, one would
RC>expect that errors consisting of pronouncing [dh]
RC>intervocalically in words which should have [th] would be common.
RC>I don't recall any such tendency from my experience as a native
RC>speaker of English, but surely it's you that should be looking
RC>for such evidence.

RW>My point is that we don't know how any speaker actually
RW>formulates the rule.  What goes on on the left side of the arrows
RW>is a mystery.  All we know is that there is a pattern, the
RW>historical reason for the pattern, and that, synchronically,
RW>patterns must be accounted for by rules.  My further point is
RW>that it doesn't matter that we can't formulate the synchronic
RW>rule.  There must be one, or the pattern wouldn't be there.

[RC]
>Since you are sure there is a rule, and are even willing to state
>it, I don't see why you claim it is such a mystery.

[RW]
This is just your same philosophical question in a different
guise.  As I said earlier this is something that can be discussed
indefinitely (in both senses of the word), and I don't have time
to go into it here, nor do I consider it appropriate to this list
(it belongs on a list devoted to the philosophy of science).  A
good (philosophical) discussion on hypothesis confirmation will
be found in S. F. Barker, _Induction and Hypothesis_,
Contemporary Philosophy (Ithaca, 1957).  An extensive discussion
of Linguistic applications (including a bibliography of more
recent general studies) will be found in D. Wunderlich,
_Foundations of Linguistics_, Cambridge Studies in Linguistics
(Cambridge, 1979) [translation of the German version, _Grundlage
der Linguistik_, published in 1974].

But in brief, theories do not eliminate mysteries, they provide a
plausible explanation for them.  A theory is just an explanation
put forward to account for some observation or set of
observations (the evidence).  A theory can account for all the
observations (evidence) in a plausible manner and still be wrong.
Until direct observation and objective verification of cause and
effect are possible, a theory remains a theory.  Now there are
those, apparently including you, who believe that once we have a
theory to account for something, there is no longer any mystery.
But a theory is just a plausible story.  It is not evidence.
Plausible stories are what we use to bridge the gaps where there
is no evidence.  Innocent people have been executed on the basis
of plausible stories well told.  But once the plausible story
breaks down, the mystery reappears, implying that it never really
went away.  So plausible stories (theories) don't really
eliminate mysteries, they just give them something to hide behind
so that people who don't look beyond the explanations can't see
them.

<snip>

[RC]
>We may be working from fundamentally different conceptions of how
>languages are organized here. I repeat your schema from the
>discussion of historical grammar:

> speakers     +     rules      -->      Old English

>>From this it would appear that, for you, "rules" includes all
>the information commonly thought of as being part of the lexicon.

[RW]
No, rules are generally marked in the lexicon only if they are
not the productive rule.

[snip some paragraphs which show that your understanding of lexicon/rules
seems to be more or less the same as mine]

[RC] So where is the lexicon in the above formula?

[RC]
>Just above, you stated that "The pronunciation rules are marked
>in the lexicon", which makes me wonder whether you share an
>assumption that I had been taking as given, namely that there are
>two different types of information/knowledge relevant here:

>   (i) information about the phonological shape of particular
>lexical items -- for example, the fact that the English word for
>"fish" has an /f/ in initial position.

>   (ii) general information about the realization of particular
>segments and configurations (such as allophonic and
>morphophonemic rules).

>In my experience, most people would use the term "rules" of the
>latter type of information, but not the former.

[RW]
Yes, rules are generalized statements of repeated (and
repeatable) observations.  What you give in (i) above is a single
instantiation of a more general rule (graphically, initial <f> in
English represents /f/ or, as a phonotactical rule, /f/ is a
permissible initial segment in English).  Now this single
instantiation would not be sufficient to formulate the general
rule (there is even an aphorism about this: "one swallow does not
a summer make"; or, as my professor always said: "testis unus,
testis nullus").

Basically, information about the phonological shape of lexemes
needs to be given in the lexicon only if it is not transparent
from the orthography.

[RC]?? How did orthography get in here??

[snip five paragraphs in which I realize, with growing horror, that all
along you have been talking about rules to convert *spellings* to *sounds*.
Is this a new school of phonology I haven't caught up with? Or how does what
you are doing here relate to what is conventionally called "phonology"? More
to the point, how does it relate to the original point of departure, namely
the question of whether e/o ablaut was a synchronic rule in early stages of
IE, when spelling was unknown? Are you by any chance a deconstructionist
linguist of the Roy Harris school, who thinks that writing is older than
speech?]

RC>The pattern has been created by historical changes in the
RC>language. That is what creates the distribution of [dh] and [th]
RC>that is the input to each speaker's language-learning task. There
RC>is no general principle that speakers must recognize (consciously
RC>or unconsciously) any such pattern, or make use of it in their
RC>rule-governed language behaviour.

RW>No, the modern language is not created by the historical events
RW>that brought it about.

[RC]
>There is obviously a distinction in your mind between "create"
>and "bring about" which I am not picking up. Otherwise you have
>contradicted yourself. Or is it the tense distinction between "is
>created" (by speakers,now) and "brought it about" (in the past).
>In either case, I am happy to re-state my claim above as:

>The historical changes *brought about* the present distribution
>of [dh] and [th].

[RW]
My point about "create" is that history doesn't create things.
History is just a record of what happened -- a record of people
and events.  People and events create things (sometimes people
create events as well), but the record of people and events
doesn't create things.

[RC] "History" is also, in a perfectly ordinary sense, a set of events.
Since I didn't say that "history" created the pattern, but rather "the
historical changes", I would have thought that my meaning was clear enough.

[RW]
 The modern language (in the form of
modern speech and modern writing) is "created" by its modern
speakers.  And at any point in time the "modern" language is the
one currently in use.  So this "historical" change was "created"
by the speakers of the language at that time, not by history.
The fact that it is still present in the language of modern
speakers just shows that it has been successfully passed on from
generation to generation.  If it hadn't, it wouldn't still be in
the language.

[RC] Again, you are not distinguishing between changes and their results.

[RW]
The fact that these are historical changes just means that they
happened in the past.  But that doesn't necessarily mean anything
to the modern speakers of the language because for the most part
they don't know anything about the history of the language they
speak.  And this doesn't make any difference because the pattern
is present in the language *synchronically*.  You claim that
there is no dispute about this and have even suggested that my
demonstration of the existence of this pattern in the modern
language was unnecessary.  But now you seem to be claiming that
the fact that these are "historical" changes means that this
pattern has no significance for the modern language.  It may not
be significant in the "why" sense, but it must be in the "what"
sense.

[RC] No, not "must be". That's what we're arguing about.

[RW]  But this doesn't matter because, by and large, speakers
don't know the "why" of their language, only the "what."

RW>The modern language is created by what
RW>goes on on the left side of the arrows in the diagram above.
RW>This is the assumption of generative grammar.  And it is a basic
RW>premise of generative grammar that patterns must be accounted for
RW>by rules.  If you have evidence, rather than just an intuition,
RW>that linguistic patterns are not created by rules, then please
RW>share it.  It will revolutionize synchronic grammar.

[RC]
>No, I don't think it will. My view is one you have probably heard
>before: That there are two distinct phonemes /th/ and /dh/, which
>occur in various words in various positions. A subset of the
>English vocabulary shows a pattern of complementary distribution
>between these phonemes. The pattern is there in the vocabularies
>of English speakers because it is there in the corpus of
>presently spoken English on which they have based their
>internalized knowledge of English. And it is in the corpus as a
>consequence of changes which took place long ago in the history
>of the language.

[RW]
Well, I can't say that I've heard the idea that changes that took
place long ago in the history of a language have no significance
for the modern language before.

[RC]I wouldn't want to defend either that woolly proposition or its
contrary. Neither of them is a paraphrase of what I just said. Please read
it again.

[RW]
 If the results of changes are
still part of the language, it doesn't matter when they happened.
Speakers of the modern language don't know and don't care when
they happened.  They just learn them as part of the language.

[RC] And what we are discussing is: In exactly what sense are they "part of
the language"?

>Your analysis (again, correct me if I'm wrong) postulates a
>single phoneme /th/ with two different "pronunciation rules".
>Some words follow a rule that says intervocalic /th/ is
>pronounced [th], and others a rule that says it is pronounced
>[dh]. Which words follow which rule presumably has to be marked
>on individual lexical items.

[RW]
Well, the first thing to correct is that "my analysis" does not
say that there is only a single phoneme /T/.  I have no basis
for saying this.  My analysis is only about the validity of the
evidence that is used to "prove" that there are two phonemes /T/
and /D/.  The fact that I consider this evidence inconclusive is
not proof that there is only one phoneme, nor does "my analysis"
require that there be only one phoneme.

[snip repetition of basic facts]

This then, is the basis for my analysis.  As I said, I think that
there is nothing here that can be questioned.  If anyone sees
something that is not an empirically verifiable observation based
on data, please let me know.

Now my analysis says that you can't be certain that a contrast is
caused by different phonemes when there may be some other basis
for establishing the contrast.  My analysis says that you can
prove phonemicity using minimal pairs only through arbitrary
contrasts, contrasts where the presence of one phoneme or the
other doesn't tell you anything about the words involved except
that they are different words.  Thus if the presence of one sound
always tells you that the word is a pronoun or a deictic and the
presence of the other always tells you that the word is not a
pronoun or a deictic, then the contrast of these two sounds is
not necessarily the basis for the contrast between the words and
this contrast should not be considered evidence of the
phonemicity of the two sounds.  Please note, however, that this
is not the same as proving or even claiming that the two sounds
are not phonemes.

Similarly, if the presence of one sound tells you that the word
is a substantive and the presence of the other tells you that the
word is a verb, then the contrast predicts meaning (or function)
class.  This is not a phonemic contrast but a morphophonemic
alternation. While morphophonemic alternations do not preclude
the sounds involved from being phonemes as well, using
morphophonemic alternations to prove phonemicity is not
acceptable in my analysis.

When we come to the difference between intervocalic [T] and [D],
the division of the words into classes is admittedly on less firm
ground.  While I don't have many qualms about using grammatical
information that is based on meaning as a means of distinguishing
words (because as Stefan Georg pointed out, words that can't
appear in the same context don't have to be otherwise
distinguished), using lexico-historical information is going
outside of the grammatical structure of the language.  Using such
distinctions does not involve meaning in any specific way.  But
I still say that when a certain sound is required in one clearly
defined set of words and another sound is required in another
clearly defined set of words then contrasts between those sounds
when they appear as required in members of those sets should not
be allowed as evidence of phonemic contrast.

[RC] But the classes are "clearly defined" only in the light of the sort of
historical information that even you are dubious about!

[RW]
 Again, however,
this is not the same as saying that the two sounds can't be
phonemes.

[RC] Is your position, then, that you're not sure whether they are distinct
phonemes or not?
And supposing you decided they were not, you still have not explained how
your rules would work.

[Side trip to New Zealand]

[RW]
But on the subject of phonological nativization of loan words, I
have a few questions about New Zealand English (NZE) that I
expect that you can answer.  I presume that NZE has a number of
Maori loan words, and that many of these loans have been in the
language for a couple of centuries (but none before 1740).  Now
based on what you have said about Greek and Latin loans
(neologisms) in English, I would expect that New Zealanders
consider loans from Maori to be just good English words, and that
they would see nothing unusual about Maori segments in contexts
in which they would not appear in English.  I realize that
initial /ng/ in words of Maori origin is not a realistic parallel
to intervocalic [T] in words of Greek or Latin origin because the
prohibition against initial /ng/ in English is a phonotactic one
while there is no such prohibition against intervocalic [T].  But
here are my questions:  Do native speakers of NZE recognize Maori
loanwords as Maori words or do they just consider them English?
If they do recognize them, on what basis do they do it?  Do
native speakers of NZE Anglicize the pronunciation of initial
/ng/ in any way or do they pronounce it as it would be in Maori?
Would native speakers of NZE be able to coin new words with
initial /ng/?  Have they actually done so?

[RC]
Maori loanwords in NZ English are largely concentrated in the familiar
colonial domains of flora, fauna and some aspects of Maori culture. When
written in English, they use Maori spelling conventions. Those two types of
clue would be enough for most literate people to recognize most of them.
However, there are a few that early acquired an English-looking spelling and
probably are unrecognized by most people, like "biddy-bid" for a
burr-bearing plant (Maori /piripiri/).

Borrowings with initial <ng> are not numerous -- Orsman's very comprehensive
dictionary of NZ English lists only 10, only a couple of them common, though
place names would account for more. In general the initial consonant is
nativized to /n/. Orsman gives this pronunciation for the two most common:
<ngaio> (a tree) and <Ngati> (prefix to tribal names); for the remainder he
doesn't specify an English pronunciation, but just notes that the Maori has
an initial velar nasal. I've never heard of any new words coined with
initial /ng/.

All of this is complicated by the fact that many people actually know Maori
-- some as native speakers, and many more who have studied it. There has
also been a move in the last couple of decades to de-nativize the
pronunciation of words of Maori origin in English, making them phonetically
more like Maori. Many people nowadays use an apical tap [r] in the word
"Maori" (at least), rather than an English-type [R]. For the town of
<Whangarei>, you can hear older local people of European descent saying
something like [woNg at Ri:], while the news reader on TV will pronounce it
something like [fa:Na:rei].

All of which means that these words have been through a period of
nativization into English, but that their foreignness has never been
entirely lost sight of, and they may be becoming more foreign as we
speak.:-)

[Back to the Original Topic]

[RC]
>In the broad sense implicit in your schema, both analyses
>produce the [th]/[dh] pattern by "rules". (In the narrower sense,
>however, your analysis has "rules" that mine doesn't.)

>Now that we have two analyses to compare, perhaps you can
>explain why you think yours is superior.

[RW]
Well, as far as I am concerned, both analyses have the same
linguistic rules.  Your analysis just ignores some of them.

[RC] What you mean is that they *ought* to be part of my analysis. They are
not.

[RW] It excludes them by saying that they happened too long ago to have
any effect on the modern language,

[RC] Wrong. I have never said this.

or it excludes them by saying
that modern speakers can't possibly be aware of the rules that
linguistic analysis uncovers,

[RC] For someone who takes others to task for supposed imprecision with
modals, you have a rather loose way with them yourself. Again, I have never
said that they "can't possibly" be aware of these rules. I do believe,
however, that they "may not" be aware of such rules/patterns, and I do not
assume that they "must" be aware of them.

[RW}
or it excludes them by saying that
some rules about how words are pronounced can't have any bearing
on phonology.

[RC] Three out of three. I never said that, whatever it may mean.

[RW]
But again, my analysis is not about the distribution of [T]/[D]
in English, it is about what is acceptable evidence for the
distribution (and collaterally about such distributions in
general).

[RC] I'm pleased to hear that -- otherwise we have wasted a huge amount of
the IE List's space.

[RW]
 So if my analysis has rules that yours doesn't, one of
them is that evidence that is offered as unequivocal proof of
some condition should not have any other possible explanation.

[RC] What begins here is, of course, not a discussion of differences in the
"rule" content of our analyses, but of philosophical/methodological virtues
which you apparently believe your analysis possesses and mine does not. I
decided to snip it rather than respond at every turn to the insults implicit
in it. I am getting tired.

When I first got involved in this discussion, you had asserted that
complementary distribution of [T] and [D] was a characteristic of "English",
full stop. When I adduced some counterexamples, you professed to find it
bizarre that I should think loanwords relevant to the matter. Now it appears
that you think these words are very much part of English, and you're not
even willing to say that your single-phoneme analysis is definitely correct.
Fine. I'm willing to leave it there.

Ross Clark


From ALDERSON at xkl.com  Tue Dec 19 18:56:46 2000
From: ALDERSON at xkl.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 10:56:46 -0800
Subject: Admin:  Indo-European and Nostratic lists on vacation
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.105646.0800.ALDERSON@XKL.COM>

Dear Readers,

The lists will be suspended for the next week while I travel.  Those messages
that come in before 18:00 Pacific Standard Time (UTC - 8:00) will be posted
tonight.  Regular service will resume on or after Wednesday, 27 December 2000.

May you all find peace and joy in this season of the turning of the year.

						Rich Alderson
						Indo-European and Nostratic
						list owner and moderator


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 19 01:52:05 2000
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 01:52:05 -0000
Subject: Iberia
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.015205.0000.>

Max Wheeler (12 Dec 2000) wrote:

>Some further curiosities w.r.t. Latin Iberia:

>1. The preferred form for this root in Latin seems to be Hibjr-; Greek
>texts seem to have /ibjr-/ (with smooth breathing) though Greek may well
>have lost the phomeme /h/ by the time this word came to be recorded.

This resembles the discrepancy between Lat. <Hannibal> and Gk. <Annibas> in
transcribing <Channi:ba`al> 'favor of Ba`al'. Greek makes <e:ta> out of West
Semitic <che:th> and sometimes transcribes the pharyngeal `ayin initially
with the smooth breathing: LXX <Astarte:> for Heb. <`As^to:reth>, Punic
<`s^trt>. The Greek smooth breathing was probably not as smooth as our
simple glottal stop.

The discrepancy suggests that the initial sound was close to che:th, which
is usually taken as [x]. It is worth noting that West Semitic has a radical
Ch-B-R 'to bind, unite, join, etc.' which forms several nouns including Heb.
<cha:be:r> 'associate', pl. <chabe:ri:m>. It is conceivable that Gk.
<ibe:res>, Lat. <Hiberes> are derived from the Punic term for 'allies,
foederati', applied originally to those natives whose leaders agreed with
Carthaginian policy in Spain.

Obviously this speculation says nothing about Georgia and doesn't apply to
river-names at all. If only we had the Carthaginian account of the
colonization of Spain.....

Doug Kilday


From Georg at home.ivm.de  Tue Dec 19 08:53:56 2000
From: Georg at home.ivm.de (Stefan Georg)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 09:53:56 +0100
Subject: Iberia
In-Reply-To: <3A389715.7030109@lrz.uni-muenchen.de>
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.095356.0100.>

Thanks, Wolfgang, for this excellent lesson. In connection with it, I
have to mention that a few weeks ago we had a public lecture here (I
didn't attend) on the "two ancient Albaniae", in the Balkans and the
Caucasus, arguing that there is a connection after all, because of,
surprise, the name ! It was read by a certain Dr. Hecht ...

>Let me just add another aspect to the discussion: When I browse through
>all the Iberia/Hibernia/Ebro etc. terms I'm left with the impression
>that the Ancient world used Iberia etc. to denote all kind of places in
>the outer periphery of the then known world (Spain, Caucasus). In other
>words: Anything was 'Iberia' as long as there existed a local motivation
>to apply this term. A local motiovation could have been any place name,
>river name (Ebro for the Spanish regions ?), ethnonym (Armenian iver-k
>(asp. k) for the Georgians) or what so ever as long as it 'sounded'
>alike or resembled 'Iberia' in its phonetics (the same happened to the
>European term 'Georgia' (in the Caucasus) which shows assimilation of
>Persian Gurji etc. to 'Georgia' - here, the Christian connotation of St.
>Georg plays an important role as well as the name of Gregor in terms of
>the early Georgian orthodoxy). Note that we can observe the same 'folk
>semantics' or 'folk constructions' for the term Albania: Because the
>Ancient World knew lots of place names (esp. associated with high
>mountains) that contained something like alb- (Alpes, Albion (celtic),
>Alba etc.) a more general term 'albania' emerged that was used for
>regions with high mountains. When the Alwan people (Classical Armenian
>aluan-k (velar l, asp. k (plural)) in now Northern Azerbaijan came into
>the horizon of the Ancient World (4th c. BC) their name was
>reinterpreted on the basis of this general term, which gives us the
>Classical name 'Albania', then used for both the Balkan und Caucasus
>regions. The pity is that some people belief in the reality of such
>correpondences which are - in fact - nothing but folk constructions in
>the dimension of the geographic knowledge of the Ancient World.

>Wolfgang
>--
>********************
>Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze
>Institut für Allgemeine und Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft
>Universität München - Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1 - D-80539 München
>Tel.: ++49-(0)89-2180 2486 (secretary) // ++49-(0)89-2180 5343 (office)
>Fax:  ++49-(0)89-2180 5345
>Email:	W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de
>Web:  	http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wschulze/
>********************

--
Dr. Stefan Georg
Heerstraße 7
D-53111 Bonn
FRG
Tel./Fax +49-228-691332


From thorinn at diku.dk  Tue Dec 19 08:34:16 2000
From: thorinn at diku.dk (Lars Henrik Mathiesen)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 08:34:16 -0000
Subject: Danish Spelling
In-Reply-To: <002e01c06602$1e7ab5a0$8d6063d1@texas.net> (dlwhite@texas.net)
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.083416.0000.>

> From: "David L. White" <dlwhite at texas.net>
> Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 13:14:43 -0600

> Danish does not use the sort of spellings I said it does. The source
> of my error, upon examination, is a "phonetic" transcription of
> Danish (which can hardly be right), not actual Danish spelling.

And why can't that phonetic spelling be right? Danish has no voiced
stops --- to the first approximation, at least, though I've been told
that instruments will show some voicing in some contexts.

But assume for the argument that the facts are like this: In absolute
initial position, /ptk/ are aspirated voiceless and /bdg/ are plain
voiceless. In all other positions, including after /s/, you find only
plain voiceless stops. (The symbols are assigned historically --- the
Danish distinction maps very well onto German unvoiced/voiced stops,
for instance).

Which phoneme do those plain voiceless stops belong to? They sound
exactly like the /bdg/ you get in initial position. They don't sound
like initial /ptk/. So why shouldn't <stave> (spell) be /sda:u/?

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)


From Georg at home.ivm.de  Tue Dec 19 08:56:23 2000
From: Georg at home.ivm.de (Stefan Georg)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 09:56:23 +0100
Subject: Ngaio Marsh
In-Reply-To: <20001214131910.18176.qmail@tyr.diku.dk>
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.095623.0100.>

>If anecdotes about surname pronunciation are really on topic here, I'd
>like to know what happens to the (Korean?)

Cantonese

>family name Ng in the mouths of English-speaking non-linguists.

--
Dr. Stefan Georg
Heerstraße 7
D-53111 Bonn
FRG
Tel./Fax +49-228-691332


From semartin at pacifier.com  Tue Dec 19 18:24:47 2000
From: semartin at pacifier.com (Sam Martin)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 10:24:47 -0800
Subject: Ngaio Marsh
In-Reply-To: <20001214131910.18176.qmail@tyr.diku.dk>
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.102447.0800.>

The surname Ng is not Korean. It is the Cantonese version of the
Chinese name Wu. I believe the usual western pronunciation of the name is,
as you suggest, "eng", like the name of the IPA symbol (n with a tail).

On 14 Dec 2000, Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

> If anecdotes about surname pronunciation are really on topic here, I'd
> like to know what happens to the (Korean?) family name Ng in the
> mouths of English-speaking non-linguists.

> (I'm guessing that the native pronunciation is a vocalic eng, but I've
> never heard anyone pronounce it in either Korean or English).

> Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Dec 19 10:02:13 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 10:02:13 +0000
Subject: cebolla/tipula/kipula
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.100213.0000.>

Rick Mc Callister writes:

>       In Lapesa's Historia de la lengua española I came across
>  Basque tipula, kipula "onion" < cepulla
>  The Spanish form is cebolla

>       The question is why tipula?
>       Was it borrowed at a time when /ke-, ki-/ was in the process of
>  changing to /ce-, ci-/>? and both pronunciations were in use i.e. *kepulla,
>  *cepulla
>       Was the word borrowed from 2 different dialects of Romance? or at
>  two different times by different dialects of basque?
>       Or did /ki-/ > /ti-/ occur later in Basque?

The answer to the last question is "no".

This fluctuation in the place of an initial plosive is not normal
in Basque, and the word for 'onion' appears to be unique in exhibiting
this particular variation.  The traditional view, still taken seriously
today, is that the word was borrowed at a time when the Romance
palatalization was well advanced, and that the unfamiliar Romance
[kj-] was variously rendered by the Basques as [k-] or as [t-].
But nobody really knows, and other interpretations are possible.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Tue Dec 19 16:31:38 2000
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 11:31:38 -0500
Subject: cebolla/tipula/kipula
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.113138.0500.>

On Thu, 14 Dec 2000 10:22:33 -0500, Rick Mc Callister
<rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu> wrote:
> In Lapesa's Historia de la lengua española I came across
>Basque tipula, kipula "onion" < cepulla
>The Spanish form is cebolla

Another example of a Romance language, or a language taking words from a
Romance language, keeping hard K and G before front vowels, is Sardinian:
{kentu} = "100", {iskit} = "he knows" - and even {omne} = "all" whereas
every other Romance language that I know has a form derived from {totus}. In
the case of Sardinian, the island was likely too rocky and mostly goat
pasture to attract much mass Roman settlement, and the most Latin that the
Sardinians were likely exposed to was educated correct classical Latin of
appointed governers and suchline. Similar may have happened in the Basque
mountains, and the Basques when trying to understand what Romans were
saying, may most often have heard onions called by some educated Roman's
educated correct "kepulla" and not some ex-legionary settler's colloquial
"tsepolla".

I read somewhere that late Latin's habits of softening C and G, and shifting
short I and U to E and O, may be features of an Osco-Umbrian accent that
gradually pervaded all Latinity as the peoples of Italy mixed under the
Roman Empire.


From dlwhite at texas.net  Tue Dec 19 13:27:36 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 07:27:36 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest the result of a Plague
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.072736.0600.>

        Yes, the plague of Justinian does indeed seem to have been relevant.
This idea goes back to Morris 1973, at least.  However, Higham (1992) denies
that we even know there was a plague.  My view is that 1) yes, there was a
plague, and 2) though it demoralized and weakened the Britons, it did not
exterminate them, or come close.

Dr. David L. White


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Tue Dec 19 20:11:34 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 15:11:34 -0500
Subject: AS Conquest
In-Reply-To: <e.61fac29.2769bd4c@aol.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.151134.0500.>

This is interesting. Didn't both the Votadinii (Gododdin-sp?) and the
Damnoni (same as Dyfed?) become nuclei of medieval Welsh statelets? The
Votadini were originally in the area between Edinburgh and Northumbria,
weren't they?

>Part of the "foederati system" entailed moving group of peoples into buffer
>zones along Roman borders.  I believe that two groups from "Germania" called
>"Votadini" and "Damnoni" were actually moved as such to north Wales just
>around the time of Magus Maximus.

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Tue Dec 19 16:15:27 2000
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 11:15:27 -0500
Subject: Further Thoughts On "Goth-" :: another similar name
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.111527.0500.>

On Thu, 14 Dec 2000 14:59:59 -0600, David L. White <dlwhite at texas.net>
wrote:

>  The word is sometimes connected with a word meaning 'flood' or
>something of that sort (sometimes given as 'pour').  It occurs to me that
>from an original /gout/ (ancestral to Germanic /gaut/), ...

Another Germanic tribe name with a somewhat similar possible origin is
"Angle", "English" from IE root {ang} = "narrow", because they lived around
the "Narrow Water", i.e. the Schlei estoary.


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Wed Dec 20 01:12:36 2000
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 20:12:36 EST
Subject: "Goth"/ Getae
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.201236.EST.>

In a message dated 12/14/2000 3:18:28 AM, mcv at wxs.nl writes:
<< The Getae were most likely a Thracian (or Daco-Thracian) people.  There is
no likely connection between Germanic *Gut- "Goth", and the Getae.>>

In a message dated 12/18/2000 10:17:52 PM, anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK
writes:
<< Re the Getae, a more recent example of a writer using an anachronistic
name for a people, is a tomb inscription in York Minster (a cathedral in
England) that referred to modern Yorkshire or Lincolnshire people as
"Trinobantes"! >>

First, thanks MCV for the help.

The name "Getae," whether earlier identified as a Thracian group or later on
as Dacians, passes to the Goths soon after they make their first appearance
in the 3d century BC.  From that time, a fair number of writers and
inscriptions use the words Getae and Goth interchangeably right up until
Jordanes merges the legends and histories of the two groups in his famous
"Getica."  Also, beginning at about the same time, references to Getae as
Thracians or Dacians disappear from the records.

So I'm coming at this from the angle (suggested by Ingemar Nordstram in his
work) that the people may have changed but that the names might be related.

It may be relevant that Getae also referred not only to peoples but also to a
place -- the "Getian desert" of the various Greek writers in BCE -- located
northeast of the lower Danube and into the Ukraine.  The term desert in Greek
was not necessarily a negative.  It was also used to refer to a "free zone"
so to speak.  This area is in the general location of the pre-literate Goths.

Now I do see instances where for example it has been suggested that Lat
<-e->, Gr <-o-> where < PIE <-e> in some forms involving <ghw->.   If "Goth"
in some form were a borrowed word from Greek or some intermediary tongue (?
Thracian, Scythian), could not "Getans" or "goet- > "Gutans"?  I am not
saying this happened but that it is not probibited by the sound rules?
(Especially since the very name is a reconstruction in early Gothic?)

With regard to anthony.appleyard's comment, there are much closer examples of
Getae and Goth than the "Trinobantes" reference.   Note that the "Germanic"
Franks > "Romance" French.  In the past we've examined on this list the fact
that vlack, welsh, valsk, volock, walloon, uualah and possibly volcae may be
related words all describing very different people in very different places.
 And it occurs to me that there's no small irony in the heirs of Horsa and
Hengist describing themselves as British.

Regards,
Steve Long


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Tue Dec 19 20:00:40 2000
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 15:00:40 -0500
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
In-Reply-To: <F164okPcFOPgWqL0keH00002305@hotmail.com> (acnasvers@hotmail.com)
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.150040.0500.>

On 18 Dec 2000, Douglas G Kilday wrote:

> On the other hand I would remove "wolf"; Lat. <lupus> argues against a
> labialized stop. Gk. <lukos> probably results from taboo-substitution by an
> epithet 'bright-eyed', 'shining-eyed' or the like. I would refer "wolf" to
> PIE *wlpos. Making all attested forms into taboo-variants, as Mr. Watkins
> does, is an unnecessary shell-game.

Since Latin frequently borrowed vocabulary from p-Italic sources (cf. _bo:s_ <
*g{^w}o:ws), _lupus_ is irrelevant in an argument against a labiovelar here.
The /k/ in Greek _lukos_ is regulrly derived from *k{^w} ("labiovelars > velars
next to pre-Greek *u"), and the velars in the Slavic and Indic cognates
*require* a labiovelar.

Thus, your *wlpos poses more questions than it solves, in contradistinction to
the standard *wlk{^w}os.

								Rich Alderson


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Tue Dec 19 20:12:34 2000
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 15:12:34 -0500
Subject: re Northern Subject Rule
In-Reply-To: <4.3.1.2.20001214182209.00af9b70@getmail.friesen.net> (message
 from Stanley Friesen on Thu, 14 Dec 2000 18:23:28 -0800)
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.151234.0500.>

On 14 Dec 2000, Stanley Friesen wrote:

>> What about one of the basic rules of classical Greek - neuter plural nouns
>> take a singular verb, which I think was presented to us in my first lesson
>> in the early '60s (well 'before the Beatles first LP')?

>> The construction is similar (but not entirely so) in Gaelic - ...

> On this basis some have reconstructed this construction to PIE.

Actually, the same rule ("neuter plural nouns govern singular verbs") is found
in Vedic Sanskrit and in Hittite.  It was the presence of this rule in Indic
and Greek that led Schmidt to the conclusion that neuter plurals were in origin
collective singulars.

Note that the feminine in *-a: < *-eH{_1} is formally identical to the neuter
plural = collective, which has led some to postulate a common origin, with the
semantics developing from "member of a herd" => "female".  This proposal does
not mesh well, in my opinion, with the proposal that the early IE verb system
was active/stative.

								Rich Alderson


From dlwhite at texas.net  Wed Dec 20 00:45:13 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 18:45:13 -0600
Subject: Kle(h)mola
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.184513.0600.>

        The name I have been spelling "Klehmola" is in fact "Klemola".  Yet
another neurological malfunction.  I'm on quite a negative roll here.
There's one still outstanding on Gothic that MCV is sure to catch ...

Dr. David L. White


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Dec 19 10:07:32 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 10:07:32 +0000
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.100732.0000.>

Pete Gray writes:

[LT]

>> 'asthma' ... fail to contain
>> any dental fricatives at all.

> It does in my speech and that of those around me, and in my dictionary.

Most interesting.  I have sometimes seen this pronunciation given
as a possible alternative in dictionaries, but I have hardly ever
heard it.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Dec 19 10:04:44 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 10:04:44 +0000
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.100444.0000.>

Robert Whiting writes:

>  First, 'algorithm' is not greek, but comes from Arabic.  The final
>  cluster, however, is probably by analogy to 'logarithm' since it was
>  originally '-ism'.

Oops -- mea culpa.  I've said some dozy things on this list in my time,
but this one takes the biscuit.  My apologies for this brainless
blunder.  I should *not* send e-mails before my second cup of coffee.
;-)

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Tue Dec 19 13:55:10 2000
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 07:55:10 -0600
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.075510.0600.>

Dear Pete and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "petegray" <petegray at btinternet.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2000 2:33 PM

>> 'asthma' ... fail to contain
>> any dental fricatives at all.

> It does in my speech and that of those around me, and in my dictionary.

[PR]
I have never heard a pronunciation of 'asthma' that was not /azm6/; and, of
course, /z/ is a dental fricative.

Obviously, we must make a distinction between dental fricatives and
interdental fricatives: /dh/.

[ Moderator's note:  /D/ in ASCII IPA notation. ]

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ec at ec hecc, vindga meipi a netr allar nmo, geiri vnda~r . . . a ~eim
mei~i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rstom renn." (Havamal 138)


From brent at bermls.oau.org  Tue Dec 19 12:47:22 2000
From: brent at bermls.oau.org (Brent J. Ermlick)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 07:47:22 -0500
Subject: minimal pairs
In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.16.20001215101019.29b7de6e@online.be>; from edsel@glo.be
 on Fri, Dec 15, 2000 at 10:10:19AM +0000
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.074722.0500.>

On Fri, Dec 15, 2000 at 10:10:19AM +0000, Eduard Selleslagh wrote:
> Note that 'Anthony', 'author' etc. are a class apart: the English spelling
> does not correspond to Latin spelling, which has 't': Antonius, auctor...I
> guess the th-spelling reflects an older English spelling rule for aspirated
> t (like in German, cf. Goethe, Luther,...).

I believe that the "th" in Goethe and Luther (which I've also seen
as Ludher) is an orthographic survival of the dental fricatives
in German.

--
Brent J. Ermlick		Veritas liberabit uos
brent at bermls.oau.org


From bronto at pobox.com  Wed Dec 20 04:34:50 2000
From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 20:34:50 -0800
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.203450.0800.>

Eduard Selleslagh wrote:
> Note that 'Anthony', 'author' etc. are a class apart: the English
> spelling does not correspond to Latin spelling, which has 't':
> Antonius, auctor...

<Anthony> was misderived from Greek <anthos> `flower'.

A large fraction of Roman gentile names come from Etruscan, so it's
unlikely that we latter-day Antonii will ever find our root(s).

--
Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/


From evenstar at mail.utexas.edu  Wed Dec 27 19:11:16 2000
From: evenstar at mail.utexas.edu (Shilpi Misty Bhadra)
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 13:11:16 -0600
Subject: Bulletin of the Asia Institute 11 (fwd)
Message-ID: <WED.27.DEC.2000.131116.0600.>

>Forwarded on behalf of the undersigned, to whom responses and
>inquiries should be directed.

>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>BULLETIN OF THE ASIA INSTITUTE 11
>              (published November, 2000)

>To order volume 11, send $65 +$8 shipping in U.S. funds (either a check
>drawn on a U.S. bank or as an International Money Order) to:

>Bulletin of the Asia Institute
>3287 Bradway Blvd.
>Bloomfield Hills, MI 48301
>U.S.A.

>or contact bai34 at aol.com

>			Contents

>A. Nikitin, V. Shkoda, and M. Alram
>In Memoriam Evgeny Vladislavovich Zeymal"

>Nicholas Sims-Williams
>"Four Bactrian Economic Documents"

>P. Leriche, Sh. Pidaev, K. Abdullaev et P. Gentelle
>"Bilan de la campagne 1997 de la MAFOuz de Bactriane"		

>Albert de Jong
>"A New Syrian Mithraic Tauroctony"

>A. S. Melikian-Chirvani
>"The Iranian Wine Leg from Prehistory to Mongol Times"

>Prods Oktor Skj>rv?
>"The Joy of the Cup: A Pre-Sasanian Middle Persian Inscription on  a
>Silver Bowl"

>David Frendo
>"The Religious Factor in Byzantine-Iranian Relations"

>A. S. Melikian-Chirvani
>"Ancient Iranian Jade" 	

>Prods Oktor Skj>rv?
>"Eastern Iranian Epic Traditions III: Zarathustra and Diomedes--an
>Indo-European Epic Warrior Type"

>Richard Salomon
>"Another Reliquary Inscription of the Apraca Princess Uttara>-"

>Guitty Azarpay
>"The Sasanian Complex at Bandian: Palace or Dynastic Shrine"

>Sanjyot Mehendale
>"New US-Uzbek Collaborative Archaeological Project in Uzbekistan"

>Reviews
>ALLCHIN ET AL., EDS. Gandharan Art in Context: East-West Exchanges at the
>Crossroads of Asia (Carol Altman Bromberg)

>Bemman et Al. Die Feldsbildstation Oshibat (Richard  Salomon)

>FRYE. The Heritage Of Central Asia: From Antiquity to the Turkish
>Expansion (B. K. Waghmar)

>GRARD FUSSMAN ET AL. Die Felsbildstation Shatial (Jason Neelis)

>RIKA GYSELEN, ED. Sceaux d'Orient et leur emploi (A. D. H. Bivar)

>GUENE, TISSOT, AND CALLIERI. Bibliographie analytique des ouvrages parus
>sur l'art du Gandhara entre 1950 et 1993  (Carol Altman Bromberg)

>HAERINCK AND OVERLAET.  Luristan Excavation Documents. Vol. 2, Chamahzi
>Mumah An Iron Age III Graveyard (Oscar White Muscarella)

>KOTWAL AND KREYENBROEK, EDS. AND TRANS. The Herbedestan and Nerangestan.
>Vol. 2,  Nerangestan, Fragard 1 (Prods Oktor Skj>rv?)

>SALOMON ET AL. Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhara: he British Library
>Kharosthi Fragments (Carol Altman Bromberg)

>ZIMANSKY.  Ancient Ararat: A Handbook of Urartian Studies (Oscar White
>Muscarella)

>ZWALF. A Catalogue of the Gandhara Sculpture in the British Museum (Carol
>Altman Bromberg)

>__________________________________________________________________________

>To order volume 11, send $65 +$8 shipping in U.S. funds (either a check
>drawn on a U.S. bank or as an International Money Order) to:

>Bulletin of the Asia Institute
>3287 Bradway Blvd.
>Bloomfield Hills, MI 48301
>U.S.A.

>or contact bai34 at aol.com

Shilpi Misty Bhadra
University of Texas at Austin
Ancient History, Classics, and Humanities (focus: Indo-European Studies)
senior undergraduate
evenstar at mail.utexas.edu
512-320-0229 (ph)
512-476-3367 (fax)


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Wed Dec 20 12:00:16 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 12:00:16 +0000
Subject: Danish Spelling
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.120016.0000.>

Lars Henrik Mathieson writes:

> And why can't that phonetic spelling be right? Danish has no voiced
> stops --- to the first approximation, at least, though I've been told
> that instruments will show some voicing in some contexts.

> But assume for the argument that the facts are like this: In absolute
> initial position, /ptk/ are aspirated voiceless and /bdg/ are plain
> voiceless. In all other positions, including after /s/, you find only
> plain voiceless stops. (The symbols are assigned historically --- the
> Danish distinction maps very well onto German unvoiced/voiced stops,
> for instance).

> Which phoneme do those plain voiceless stops belong to? They sound
> exactly like the /bdg/ you get in initial position. They don't sound
> like initial /ptk/. So why shouldn't <stave> (spell) be /sda:u/?

Roman Jakobson famously wrote on this very point.  I'm afraid I cannot
recall the reference, but maybe somebody can.

As I dimly recall, Jakobson reported that uneducated Danish-speakers --
apparently there *were* some in his day -- consistently assigned phones
to phonemes on the basis of phonetic similarity, producing a result
very different from the one recognized in the Danish orthography.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From dlwhite at texas.net  Wed Dec 20 15:41:18 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 09:41:18 -0600
Subject: Danish Spelling
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.094118.0600.>

> Which phoneme do those plain voiceless stops belong to? They sound
> exactly like the /bdg/ you get in initial position. They don't sound
> like initial /ptk/. So why shouldn't <stave> (spell) be /sda:u/?

        Because "d" is not the IPA symbol for any voiceless stop.

        But what I was working up to here, before I got derailed by my own
errors, was that the spelling of Gaelic, and "phonetic" transcription of
Danish) indicate that an original contrast of voice can be re-analyzed as a
contrast of aspiration, in which case spellings like "sg-" and
"transcriptions" like [sd-] can make sense.

Dr. David L. White


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Wed Dec 20 17:27:52 2000
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 11:27:52 -0600
Subject: Further Thoughts On "Goth-" :: another similar name
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.112752.0600.>

[ Moderator's note:
  I assume that the humour is unmarked.
  --rma ]

Dear Anthony and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk" <anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK>
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2000 10:15 AM

> On Thu, 14 Dec 2000 14:59:59 -0600, David L. White <dlwhite at texas.net>
> wrote:

>>  The word is sometimes connected with a word meaning 'flood' or
>> something of that sort (sometimes given as 'pour').  It occurs to me that
>> from an original /gout/ (ancestral to Germanic /gaut/), ...

> Another Germanic tribe name with a somewhat similar possible origin is
> "Angle", "English" from IE root {ang} = "narrow", because they lived around
> the "Narrow Water", i.e. the Schlei estoary.

Could this not simply be a professional nomenclature:

fishermen?

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ec at ec hecc, vindga meipi a netr allar nmo, geiri vnda~r . . . a ~eim
mei~i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rstom renn." (Havamal 138)


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Wed Dec 20 23:04:57 2000
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 17:04:57 -0600
Subject: Further Thoughts On "Goth-"
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.170457.0600.>

Dear David and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "David L. White" <dlwhite at texas.net>
Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2000 2:59 PM

>         The word is sometimes connected with a word meaning 'flood' or
> something of that sort (sometimes given as 'pour').  It occurs to me that
> from an original /gout/ (ancestral to Germanic /gaut/), /gut/ might be a
> zero-grade, such as would (since this is a strong verb) occur in past
> participles (like "flooded").   A zero-grade version is, by the way,
> generally taken to be the ancestor of modern English "gut", though the
> semantics are unclear (to me).  The full o-grade might have meant "flood",
> so that the two variants might go back to a difference of opinion as to
> whether the Goths were being called in effect "the flood people" or "the
> flooded people".   As for why they would be called anything of the sort, I
> vaguely recall that sea-levels in the general vicinity were rising at about
> the time in question.  But all this is rather speculative, and I stand ready
> to be set straight.

[PR]
I would have thought some mention of Gutium, the bane of the Babylonians,
might be appropriate here.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ec at ec hecc, vindga meipi a netr allar nmo, geiri vnda~r . . . a ~eim
mei~i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rstom renn." (Havamal 138)


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Wed Dec 20 17:37:52 2000
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 11:37:52 -0600
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.113752.0600.>

Dear Rich and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rich Alderson" <alderson+mail at panix.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2000 2:00 PM

<snip>

> Thus, your *wlpos poses more questions than it solves, in contradistinction
> to the standard *wlk{^w}os.

[PR]

I have always been intrigued with the possibility of a connection between
Egyptian wnS, 'jackal', which, according to the correspondences I have
developed, would result in IE *we/o--n/l---g{^w}/k{^w}.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ec at ec hecc, vindga meipi a netr allar nmo, geiri vnda~r . . . a ~eim
mei~i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rstom renn." (Havamal 138)


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 23 19:39:40 2000
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 19:39:40 -0000
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.: Retraction
Message-ID: <SAT.23.DEC.2000.193940.0000.>

On 19 Dec 2000, Rich Alderson wrote:

> On 18 Dec 2000, Douglas G Kilday wrote:

>> On the other hand I would remove "wolf"; Lat. <lupus> argues against a
>> labialized stop. Gk. <lukos> probably results from taboo-substitution by an
>> epithet 'bright-eyed', 'shining-eyed' or the like. I would refer "wolf" to
>> PIE *wlpos. Making all attested forms into taboo-variants, as Mr.  Watkins
>> does, is an unnecessary shell-game.

>Since Latin frequently borrowed vocabulary from p-Italic sources (cf. _bo:s_ <
>*g{^w}o:ws), _lupus_ is irrelevant in an argument against a labiovelar here.
>The /k/ in Greek _lukos_ is regulrly derived from *k{^w} ("labiovelars >
>velars next to pre-Greek *u"), and the velars in the Slavic and Indic cognates
>*require* a labiovelar.

>Thus, your *wlpos poses more questions than it solves, in contradistinction to
>the standard *wlk{^w}os.

[DK] (opening mouth, removing foot)

Agreed. I need to do a better job of checking cognates. Lat. <lupus> is best
explained as a p-Italic loan, Gk. <lukos> requires no special theory, and
*wlpos is unacceptable as a PIE reconstruction. It is usable only as an
intermediate Proto-Germanic form after separation from PIE, assuming *pw ->
*p -> *f in PGmc.

Lat. <nefrendes> 'kidneys' also has p-Italic phonology. I should have quoted
the Lanuvian form <nebrundines> in my comparisons.

Doug Kilday


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Wed Dec 20 17:44:20 2000
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 11:44:20 -0600
Subject: re Northern Subject Rule
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.114420.0600.>

Dear Rich and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rich Alderson" <alderson+mail at panix.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2000 2:12 PM

[ moderator snip ]

> Actually, the same rule ("neuter plural nouns govern singular verbs") is
> found in Vedic Sanskrit and in Hittite.  It was the presence of this rule in
> Indic and Greek that led Schmidt to the conclusion that neuter plurals were
> in origin collective singulars.

> Note that the feminine in *-a: < *-eH{_1} is formally identical to the neuter
> plural = collective, which has led some to postulate a common origin, with
> the semantics developing from "member of a herd" => "female".  This proposal
> does not mesh well, in my opinion, with the proposal that the early IE verb
> system was active/stative.

[PR]

I favor a feminine from -/ha/ and a collective from -/?a/.

However, I would be most interested to learn how this affects the proposal
of an early IE active/stative verbal system in your opinion.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ec at ec hecc, vindga meipi a netr allar nmo, geiri vnda~r . . . a ~eim
mei~i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rstom renn." (Havamal 138)


From colkitto at sprint.ca  Thu Dec 21 07:46:31 2000
From: colkitto at sprint.ca (Robert Orr)
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 02:46:31 -0500
Subject: re Northern Subject Rule
Message-ID: <THU.21.DEC.2000.024631.0500.>

Subject: Re: re Northern Subject Rule

On 14 Dec 2000, Rich Alderson wrote:

"Note that the feminine in *-a: < *-eH{_1} is formally identical to the
neuter plural = collective, which has led some to postulate a common origin,
with the semantics developing from "member of a herd" => "female".  This
proposal does not mesh well, in my opinion, with the proposal that the early
IE verb system was active/stative."

Then the "proposal that the early IE verb system was active/stative" needs
more work.  The common origin of the feminine *-a-stem nom sg and the neuter
*-o-stem pl is about as established as anything in IE studes can be, and is
typologically well supported.  I will take the liberty of quoting myself.

"The emergence of the new fem gender cannot be separated from the rise of
the *o -/ a-stem opposition, which underwent a great deal of development to
accommodate the new gender system.  The  *a -stem nom sg ending *-a
originally had collective meaning (some *-a  forms were eventually to evolve
into neut pl forms, with subsequent generalisation of *-a  as a neut nom/acc
pl ending; although still taking sg agreement in some instances), and in
some forms this meaning later shifted to individual.  It actually appears
that one of these forms, which may be reconstructed as IE *guen  (> Gk gune,
OCS  zena, Go qino, OIr ben 'woman', etc.), provided the impetus for the
formation of the new gender.  Miranda 1975 provides a partial outline of how
such an evolution could have taken place, citing Brugmann 1897, 1904:
354-62, 1911: 82-109, and citing the example of a development in Konkani as
a typological parallel, where the rise of a new fem gender (Miranda 1975:
209 fn.15 discusses the terminology for this new gender, tentatively
suggesting 'feminine juvenile') from the old neut can be traced back to one
form,  cedu , which has undergone the semantic change 'child' > 'girl'; see
also Weiss 1993: 91-94 for similar data from Polish.  Konkani is an
appropriate example; as Miranda shows, its gender system already has a long
evolution attested, traceable back to IE itself via Indo-Iranian and
Sanskrit.

One part of the proposed evolution that causes Miranda a little difficulty
involves the proposed shift from collective to individual ("Brugmann's other
(1897) suggestion that an original collective noun ending in *-a  might have
undergone a semantic change to denote a female (e.g., *ekwa  'mare'
developing from *ekwa 'drove of horses') is questionable since such changes
are hard to find"; 1975: 202 fn. 5).  Examples of such a shift, although
fairly rare, do actually exist: the Sele Fara dialect of Carinthian
Slovenian shows a form  zijstu in the meaning 'woman' < * zenistvo, which
originally had collective meaning, cf. also Ge Frauenzimmer 'woman'.  These
forms, taken together with Miranda's Konkani evidence, show that the entire
chain of development by which IE gender is said to have evolved according to
Brugmann and Miranda is possible, even if not very common.

(references available on request)

Robert Orr


From dlwhite at texas.net  Wed Dec 20 22:46:19 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 16:46:19 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.164619.0600.>

> This is interesting. Didn't both the Votadinii (Gododdin-sp?) and the
> Damnoni (same as Dyfed?) become nuclei of medieval Welsh statelets? The
> Votadini were originally in the area between Edinburgh and Northumbria,
> weren't they?

        Yes.  I don't know who orginally wrote this (below), but it is
somewhat mangled.   The groups in question were moved from places in Britain
to North Wales and Devon, not direct from Germania. The North Welsh
migration is the one I referred to earlier that might have resulted in a
counting system originally from Northern Britain becoming established in
Wales.

Dr. David L. White

>> Part of the "foederati system" entailed moving group of peoples into buffer
>> zones along Roman borders.  I believe that two groups from "Germania" called
>> "Votadini" and "Damnoni" were actually moved as such to north Wales just
>> around the time of Magus Maximus.

> Rick Mc Callister
> W-1634
> Mississippi University for Women
> Columbus MS 39701

[ Moderator's note:
  The material quoted by Rick Mc Callister on 19 December 2000 was from a
  post by Steve Long on 13 December 2000.

  May I take this opportunity to ask that everyone be conscientious about
  identifying the posts from which quotes are taken, both by author and by
  date?
  --rma ]


From sarima at friesen.net  Thu Dec 21 06:02:01 2000
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 22:02:01 -0800
Subject: AS Conquest
In-Reply-To: <l0313031ab665707ed35e@[209.147.211.22]>
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.220201.0800.>

At 03:11 PM 12/19/00 -0500, you wrote:

>This is interesting. Didn't both the Votadinii (Gododdin-sp?) and the
>Damnoni (same as Dyfed?) become nuclei of medieval Welsh statelets?

I believe this is the case, yes.  I believe it was Gwynedd and Dyfed.
[I have certainly long assumed that 'Dyfed' was derived from the older
tribal name].

>  The
>Votadini were originally in the area between Edinburgh and Northumbria,
>weren't they?

So I have heard.

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com


From jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr  Sun Dec 24 23:08:17 2000
From: jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr (=?windows-1250?Q?Mate_Kapovi=E6?=)
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2000 00:08:17 +0100
Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro....
Message-ID: <MON.25.DEC.2000.000817.0100.>

There was a discussion some time ago about relation of the words like Bask.
txakur, Logudor dzhagaru, Spanish/Port. cachorro... I was just lurking but now
I must add something to the subject because I think it could be interesting to
those who participated in that discussion earlier.

I accidentally came across a sizeable amount of information about words I
mentioned and others similar to them in a Croatian etymological dictionary by
Petar Skok. The starting word is Croatian ogar which would be something like a
hound. There is version of it - zagar. It seems as if those are two words with
a same root and different prefixes - o- and za-. There is also a mention of the
form bigar.

The autor says ogar > Magyar agár, Romanian ogar. Other Slavic languages -
OCS and Old Russian ogar7 (7-jor), Czech ohař, Polish oharz.

There is a claim that the form zagar is a Balkanic word: Bolg. zagár, Alb.
zagá:r/za:r, Middle Greek zágaron, Modern Greek zagári/zagarós, Turkish
zagár. All have the meaning "Jagdhund".

And the author goes outside Balkan and Slavic languages:
Avarian (Caucasus) - eger
Ossetic - yegar
Logudor (as mentioned here) - gˇagaru; Corsica - yakaru/gˇakaru "shepherd
dog"

Then already known here Bask txakur and Port./Spanish cachorro "young dog".

Also Georgian dzagli; all-European words like jackal (Eng.), çakal (Turkish)
(i would add) etc. which comes, as he says, from Sanskrit šrgala "canis
aureus".

In the end he staits that Oštir was surely right when he put it with Alarodic
elements and that it could be a part of pre-IE substratum as an old hunting
term.

As I have already said, these are not my claims, there are those of the author
of the dictionary which was written about 3 decades ago. These example are, if
not all correct and related, surely interesting and could point to some
consclusions.

Thanks,
M. Kapović


From Squaliace at netscape.net  Tue Dec 26 06:01:32 2000
From: Squaliace at netscape.net (Squaliace at netscape.net)
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2000 01:01:32 -0500
Subject: Dark L in Portuguese
Message-ID: <TUE.26.DEC.2000.010132.0500.>

 There is no need to specify Brazilian as the variety of Portugugese that has
dark final Ls.

 The approximation to /u/ is shared with European Portuguese. European
Portuguese tends to swallow the sound vigorously, but the sound it swallows
is the same. The minimal pair would be mau and mal, which have fallen
together in all positions, including pre-vocalic, in both European Portuguese
and Brazilian.

Chester Graham
Chester at britanic-ih.com.br


From petegray at btinternet.com  Wed Dec 20 15:06:30 2000
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 15:06:30 -0000
Subject: Ngaio Marsh
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.150630.0000.>

Ngaio Marsh is usually pronounced by English speakers as if it were Naio.
This is true even of NZers (though things may ave changed since I left the
country.)

The surname Ng is normally pronouned by English speakers as "ing".

Peter


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Wed Dec 20 20:49:28 2000
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 20:49:28 -0000
Subject: Ngaio Marsh
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.204928.0000.>

Lars Henrik Mathiesen (14 Dec 2000) wrote:

>If anecdotes about surname pronunciation are really on topic here, I'd
>like to know what happens to the (Korean?) family name Ng in the
>mouths of English-speaking non-linguists.

>(I'm guessing that the native pronunciation is a vocalic eng, but I've
>never heard anyone pronounce it in either Korean or English).

If I'm not mistaken, this surname is Chinese and means "crow". I used to
work in a place where someone named Ng was employed. His name was always
pronounced "Ing" over the public-address system and by other
English-speaking employees, never "Eng". Oddly, this person abbreviated his
surname, signing his initials as "W.N."

Doug Kilday


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Wed Dec 20 20:31:07 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 15:31:07 -0500
Subject: Ngaio Marsh
In-Reply-To: <f04310101b664d3259372@[195.247.65.70]>
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.153107.0500.>

	My youngest daughter has a classmate with the name Ng "ung" /@N/ in
Mississippi English
	No more bastardized than the students I've had named Georg who
pronounced it /jorj/ :>

>>If anecdotes about surname pronunciation are really on topic here, I'd
>>like to know what happens to the (Korean?)

>Cantonese

>>family name Ng in the mouths of English-speaking non-linguists.

>Dr. Stefan Georg
>Heerstraße 7
>D-53111 Bonn
>FRG
>Tel./Fax +49-228-691332

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From colkitto at sprint.ca  Thu Dec 21 01:22:52 2000
From: colkitto at sprint.ca (Robert Orr)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 20:22:52 -0500
Subject: Ngaio Marsh
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.202252.0500.>

>If anecdotes about surname pronunciation are really on topic here, I'd
>like to know what happens to the (Korean?)

Cantonese

>family name Ng in the mouths of English-speaking non-linguists.

Ing (sometimes even spelled that way)

Robert Orr


From petegray at btinternet.com  Thu Dec 21 08:41:48 2000
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 08:41:48 -0000
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <THU.21.DEC.2000.084148.0000.>

>> First, 'algorithm' is not greek, but comes from Arabic.  The final
>> cluster, however, is probably by analogy to 'logarithm' since it was
>> originally '-ism'.

A simpler source of the analogy is the Greek artihmos = number.

The 1934 edition of the concise Oxford, gives:
  Algorism,  Arabic (decimal) notation ...[f. OF augorisme f. med L.
algorismus f Arab al-Khowarazmi the man of Khiva, surname of a
mathematician;  mod. misspelling -ithm by confus. w. Gk arithmos number]

Striking that both the meaning and the spelling have changed.
In 1934 was this descriptive of actual pronunciation, or prescriptive of
"best" pronunciation?

Peter


From jrader at Merriam-Webster.com  Wed Dec 20 20:28:43 2000
From: jrader at Merriam-Webster.com (Jim Rader)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 15:28:43 -0500
Subject: Pronunciation of <asthma> (Was: minimal pairs)
In-Reply-To: <E148JgC-00026D-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.152843.0500.>

I checked Merriam-Webster's' pronunciation files, which go back
about 50 years, and there is virtually zero evidence for a
pronunciation with an interdental consonant--however, most of the
citational evidence is from professionals in medicine and science.
Our unabridged dictionary of 1934 did contain variant
pronunciations with interdental fricatives, but they were dropped
from the more recent _Webster's Third New International_ of 1961.

A very deliberate pronunciation with edh is noted from a TV
commercial made in 1972 by Carroll O'Connor, who played the
character Archie Bunker in the U.S. television series _All in the
Family_ (1971-79).  Of course, malapropisms and
mispronunciations were part of O'Connor's "Archie Bunker" shtick,
and if he was in character when making the commercial, the
pronunciation with edh would have been taken as part of the shtick
and hence a deliberate mispronunciation.

Jim Rader

> Pete Gray writes:

> [LT]

>>> 'asthma' ... fail to contain
>>> any dental fricatives at all.

>> It does in my speech and that of those around me, and in my dictionary.

> Most interesting.  I have sometimes seen this pronunciation given
> as a possible alternative in dictionaries, but I have hardly ever
> heard it.

> Larry Trask


From gordonselway at gn.apc.org  Wed Dec 20 23:43:33 2000
From: gordonselway at gn.apc.org (Gordon Selway)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 23:43:33 +0000
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.234333.0000.>

As an asthmatice, I am not aware of anyone within my personal acquaintance
***who does not say 'asDm@'***.  'asma' may be heard, but would be taken as
likely to be on the lips of the possessor of a lisp.  I have heard the 'azma'
pronunciation from those who have acquired in no doubt from some kinematic or
televisual contagion.  A cispontine/transpontine difference?

Gordon Selway
<gordonselway at gn.apc.org>

At 7:55 am 19/12/00, proto-language wrote:
>Dear Pete and IEists:

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "petegray" <petegray at btinternet.com>
>Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2000 2:33 PM

>>> 'asthma' ... fail to contain
>>> any dental fricatives at all.

>> It does in my speech and that of those around me, and in my dictionary.

>[PR]
>I have never heard a pronunciation of 'asthma' that was not /azm6/; and, of
>course, /z/ is a dental fricative.

>Obviously, we must make a distinction between dental fricatives and
>interdental fricatives: /dh/.

>[ Moderator's note:  /D/ in ASCII IPA notation. ]

>Pat


From petegray at btinternet.com  Thu Dec 21 08:35:10 2000
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 08:35:10 -0000
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <THU.21.DEC.2000.083510.0000.>

>>> 'asthma' ... with a dental fricative.

>I have hardly ever heard it.

Is the form with /T/ a spelling pronunciation?  Or is the form without /T/
related to the loss of /T/ near /s/ in some American dialects in words such
as "clothes"?

Peter


From petegray at btinternet.com  Thu Dec 21 08:45:49 2000
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 08:45:49 -0000
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <THU.21.DEC.2000.084549.0000.>

> I have never heard a pronunciation of 'asthma' that was not /azm6/; and, of
> course, /z/ is a dental fricative.

To clarify, my pronunciation is /asTmi/.   Unvoiced /s/, unvoiced /T/,
voiced nasal /m/.  /i/ at the end 'cos I'm a kiwi.  Real English has /@/.

The only colleague of mine I can find at the moment, this close to
Christmas, says /asm@/  (unvoiced /s/, no dental fricative).  He comments
"It would be very pretentious to pronounce it /asTma/."   Curses!

Peter


From BMScott at stratos.net  Wed Dec 20 19:52:36 2000
From: BMScott at stratos.net (Brian M. Scott)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 14:52:36 -0500
Subject: minimal pairs
In-Reply-To: <20001219074722.A84425@bermls.oau.org>
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.145236.0500.>

BJE> I believe that the "th" in Goethe and Luther (which I've also
BJE> seen as Ludher) is an orthographic survival of the dental
BJE> fricatives in German.

<Luther> is from earlier dithematic <Liut-hari> and <Hlud-hari>.  The
earliest example of <Go"the> of which I'm aware is <Nikolaus Go"the>
in Badra; the spelling is said to be a High German reworking of Low
German <Go"de>, a pet form of <Godefrid> and the like.

Brian M. Scott


From Georg at home.ivm.de  Wed Dec 20 18:10:15 2000
From: Georg at home.ivm.de (Stefan Georg)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 19:10:15 +0100
Subject: minimal pairs
In-Reply-To: <20001219074722.A84425@bermls.oau.org>
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.191015.0100.>

>On Fri, Dec 15, 2000 at 10:10:19AM +0000, Eduard Selleslagh wrote:

>>  Note that 'Anthony', 'author' etc. are a class apart: the English spelling
>>  does not correspond to Latin spelling, which has 't': Antonius, auctor...I
>>  guess the th-spelling reflects an older English spelling rule for aspirated
>>  t (like in German, cf. Goethe, Luther,...).

>I believe that the "th" in Goethe and Luther (which I've also seen
>as Ludher) is an orthographic survival of the dental fricatives
>in German.

No, it isn't.
--
Dr. Stefan Georg
Heerstraße 7
D-53111 Bonn
FRG
Tel./Fax +49-228-691332


From tmcfadde at babel.ling.upenn.edu  Wed Dec 20 19:13:21 2000
From: tmcfadde at babel.ling.upenn.edu (Thomas McFadden)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 14:13:21 -0500
Subject: minimal pairs
In-Reply-To: <20001219074722.A84425@bermls.oau.org>
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.141321.0500.>

This is incorrect.  For one thing, the modern German t (which these th's
are standing in for) doesn't have a fricative as its immediate
predecessor.  It comes, via the 2nd consonant shift, from WGmc. *d, which
seems to come from a Gmc. voiced fricative, but if I'm not mistaken, the
frication on the Gmc. d is thought to have been lost quite early, earlier
than that on g and b.  The outcome of Gmc/WGmc thorn (voiceless
fricative) in the high German dialects is, again via the 2nd consonant
shift, d.  Now, in early OHG there are spellings of this as th, suggesting
that the change had not gone to copmpletion yet, but they disappear
quite early.  But like I said, this isn't the sound represented by the th
in Goethe and Luther.  the spellings of german t with th are a relatively
recent phenomenon (the last few centuries) and I believe are usually
thought of as an imitation of the Latin rendering of Greek aspirates/
a sort of overly correct attempt at representing the aspiration on German
t.  no frication is or ever was intended.  consider for example the word
tun, which was very commonly spelled with th in the 19th century.  the
normal OHG spelling was tuon - with a t - and this is cognate of course
with English do.  it is thus not possible for the 19th cent. thun to be a
holdover of some Gmc. *edh that has been forgotten in all intervening
spellings.

> I believe that the "th" in Goethe and Luther (which I've also seen
> as Ludher) is an orthographic survival of the dental fricatives
> in German.

> --
> Brent J. Ermlick		Veritas liberabit uos
> brent at bermls.oau.org


From connolly at memphis.edu  Wed Dec 20 19:09:59 2000
From: connolly at memphis.edu (Leo A. Connolly)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 19:09:59 +0000
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.190959.0000.>

"Brent J. Ermlick" wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 15, 2000 at 10:10:19AM +0000, Eduard Selleslagh wrote:

>> Note that 'Anthony', 'author' etc. are a class apart: the English spelling
>> does not correspond to Latin spelling, which has 't': Antonius, auctor...I
>> guess the th-spelling reflects an older English spelling rule for aspirated
>> t (like in German, cf. Goethe, Luther,...).

> I believe that the "th" in Goethe and Luther (which I've also seen
> as Ludher) is an orthographic survival of the dental fricatives
> in German.

Not a bit.  It is utterly lacking in Middle High German.  But the custom arose
of writing <th> next to long vowels and diphthongs, and this was common until
the spelling reform of c. 1900.  Before that time we find spellings such as
Rath 'council' (as in _Rath-skeller_), _thun_ 'do', _That_ 'deed'.  But since
then it's been _Rat_ (and _Ratskeller_), _tun_, _Tat_ etc.

BTW, I believe Luther's father spelled the name _Luder_, a most unfortunate
spelling, since it means approximately 'slob', as Martin's enemies were only to
happy to point out.

Leo Connolly

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From W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de  Thu Dec 21 09:36:29 2000
From: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Wolfgang Schulze)
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 10:36:29 +0100
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <THU.21.DEC.2000.103629.0100.>

> I believe that the "th" in Goethe and Luther (which I've also seen
> as Ludher) is an orthographic survival of the dental fricatives
> in German.

Goethe: The name stems from what is known as the North Thüringen mixed zone
(Low - High German). Historically is had -d-, hence 'Gode' which is an
abbreviation of 'Godefried'(in which the concepts of 'god' (Germanic *guth)
and 'good' (Germanic *go:da) appear to be mixed up).

Luther: The same problem as Goethe: The name stems from the Thüringer mixed
zone.

The father of M. Luther still wrote his name as 'luder'< Liuthari (in a Low
German variant)
= liut 'people' x (h)lu:t 'clear', 'famous' (?) + hari 'army'.
In the source language (Low German) we had the voiced dental fricative
(cf. Old Engl. leod '(first) man' x (h)lu:d 'laud' (West Germanic
*hlu:da- (-to particple)).

For both names, we have to start with a voiced dental stop (in Old Saxonian
and/or Middle Low German (Luder / Gode)) which was artificially transformed to
-t- (then written -th- à la mode).

Sorry, no better news...

Merry Cristmas to all,
Wolfgang
--
********************
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze
Institut für Allgemeine und Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft
Universität München - Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1 - D-80539 München
Tel.: ++49-(0)89-2180 2486 (secretary) // ++49-(0)89-2180 5343 (office)
Fax:  ++49-(0)89-2180 5345
Email: 	W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Web:   	http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wschulze/
********************


From laura at rconnect.com  Sat Dec 23 03:10:19 2000
From: laura at rconnect.com (Mark Odegard)
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 21:10:19 -0600
Subject: minimal pairs
In-Reply-To: <20001219074722.A84425@bermls.oau.org>
Message-ID: <FRI.22.DEC.2000.211019.0600.>

On 19 Dec 00, at 7:47, Brent J. Ermlick wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 15, 2000 at 10:10:19AM +0000, Eduard Selleslagh wrote:

>> Note that 'Anthony', 'author' etc. are a class apart: the English
>> spelling does not correspond to Latin spelling, which has 't': Antonius,
>> auctor...I guess the th-spelling reflects an older English spelling rule
>> for aspirated t (like in German, cf. Goethe, Luther,...).

> I believe that the "th" in Goethe and Luther (which I've also seen
> as Ludher) is an orthographic survival of the dental fricatives
> in German.

This comment will not appear until after New Years (I
saw RMA's note)

I don't think any high-German speakers do Luther or
Goethe that way. I do wonder what Low-German speakers
do, tho'.

Orthographic survival? I wonder. It's rather like doing
the 'c' in Andalucia as a soft, waggle-tongued thorn.
--
Mark Odegard
laura at rconnect.com


From edsel at glo.be  Fri Dec 22 12:50:13 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 13:50:13 +0100
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <FRI.22.DEC.2000.135013.0100.>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Anton Sherwood" <bronto at pobox.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2000 5:34 AM

> Eduard Selleslagh wrote:

>> Note that 'Anthony', 'author' etc. are a class apart: the English
>> spelling does not correspond to Latin spelling, which has 't':
>> Antonius, auctor...

> <Anthony> was misderived from Greek <anthos> `flower'.

[Ed]

I have never heard that one. It looks very implausible to me, since English
writers were undoubtedly more familiar with Latin than with ancient or any
other kind of Greek, and in Latin texts, classic and later, the name Antonius
is very common. I know of no other West European language that uses the
th-spelling. The same is true for 'author', which is certainly not misderived
from Greek.

> A large fraction of Roman gentile names come from Etruscan, so it's
> unlikely that we latter-day Antonii will ever find our root(s).
> Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/

[Ed]

It is true that many a nomen gentile is - or pretended to be - of Etruscan
origin (Maecenas, Maro, most names ending in -(n)na or -(m)nus, maybe even
Caesar ['from Caere' - now Cerveteri - ??]...). On the other hand, the
Etruscans often Etruscicized (actually: obliterated) Greek, Latin and oriental
names or designations (e.g. Macstarna < Magister-na, Clu(tu)msta <
Klytaimnestra). And the (in origin Anatolian) Etruscans are linguistically
second cousins of the Italic speaking peoples, so the search for the roots of
the latter day Antonii (etc...) risks becoming cyclical ('cercle vicieux').

I don't know the origin of the name 'Antonius'. Does anybody?

To me it looks like definitely IE, and - just maybe - with Greek roots (ant-,
-o:n, or -o:ne:, referring to someone who stands up against xxx, or bids
against xxx...???) even though it could be Italic as well, but that is just
wild guesswork of mine.

The -ius is of course a usual Latin ending of a nomen gentile (an adjectival
form).

Ed. Selleslagh


From bronto at pobox.com  Thu Dec 28 07:46:41 2000
From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood)
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 23:46:41 -0800
Subject: II subgroups
Message-ID: <WED.27.DEC.2000.234641.0800.>

A story about Bombay (see below sig) makes me ask myself what is
Bombay's principal language, and more generally which Indic languages
belong where.  I look in various books for maps.  Crystal's <Cambridge
Encyclopedia of Language> distinguishes the major Dravidian languages,
but shows Indo-Iranian as an undifferentiated lump.  Where should I look
for a more detailed map, and for a subclassification of the Indic
languages?

--
Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/

  http://www.forbes.com/global/1998/0810/0109078a.html
  http://www.csupomona.edu/~gurey/urp475/dabbawallah.htm


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Thu Dec 28 08:19:08 2000
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 03:19:08 EST
Subject: Meaning of "Goth"
Message-ID: <THU.28.DEC.2000.031908.EST.>

In a message dated 12/18/2000 11:48:13 PM, dlwhite at texas.net writes:

<< The word is sometimes connected with a word meaning 'flood' or
something of that sort (sometimes given as 'pour').  It occurs to me that
from an original /gout/ (ancestral to Germanic /gaut/), /gut/ might be a
zero-grade, such as would (since this is a strong verb) occur in past
participles (like "flooded").   A zero-grade version is, by the way,
generally taken to be the ancestor of modern English "gut", though the
semantics are unclear (to me).  The full o-grade might have meant "flood",
so that the two variants might go back to a difference of opinion as to
whether the Goths were being called in effect "the flood people" or "the
flooded people".   As for why they would be called anything of the sort, I
vaguely recall that sea-levels in the general vicinity were rising at about
the time in question. >>

Thank you, Dr. White, for the help.

It was the Cimbri, I believe, who explained their invasions into Roman
territory in the late BC as the result of a flood that overcame their dikes
and forced them to leave home.  Perhaps there is some relation.

The original meaning of the word "Goth" is confused by many factors, not the
least by the assumption that the word is Germanic.  The common names for many
groups is in fact the ones applied by outsiders (e.g., "Greek", "Apache",
"Basque"), so it is never clear with names of obscure origins whether the
name was in fact indigenous.

There is a weak verb <us-gutan> recorded in Ulfila that means 'pour out' and
would appear to have some connection with such words as 'gutter'.   But in
the earliest attested writings, we already see <Gu<thorn>> as 'God'; plural,
<guda>.   So the idea that the 'pour' reference may be to religious libations
rather than floods or waterways is there from the start, if the name has its
roots in Gothic.

In a message dated 12/14/2000 3:18:28 AM, mcv at wxs.nl wrote: <<The only
attested Gothic form is <Gut-Tiuda> "Gothia".>>  I can't for the life of me
find the source for this attestation though it is often mentioned.  However,
it's worth noting that in Ulfila, <<thorn>iuda> is often used to refer to
"heathens" or "Gentiles" and has a load of similar terms in Greek that refer
to certain kinds of non-Christian religious worship (e.g., <Thuiades>,
whorshippers at the Dionysian festival of <Thuia>).  On its face, however,
<Gut-Tiuda> appears to mean "God-people", certainly not an unusual
self-appelation for people in history who have felt a certain special
connection to the Deity, be they Israelites or Mormons.  But I do not know if
this attested form referred to pre-Christian or Christian Goths.

One question that all of this raises is how this word "Goth" works with a
regular <PIE development?  If the word were <gut> in east Germanic, than what
transformations should it have gone through.  I have for example this from
Lehrman:  "Initial position: Gk anser (for hanser) Goth. gans, OHG kans --- Gk
khéoth (fundo), Gk khutós (fusus) Goth. giutan, OHG kiozan --- Gk khol*,
ON gall, OHG kalla --- Gk khthés, heri, hesternus, Goth. gistra, OHG këstar
--- Gk khórtos, hortus, gards, OHG karto --- hostis (peregrinus) gasts, kast
--- homo, Goth. guma, OHG komo --- Gk khth*n like khthés for khés for
khóm, cf. khamái, humi, humus; to be compared with Goth. gauï, OHG kouwi,
kou--- "

 Note in the above that the <g-> is consistently unique to Gothic. If "Goth"
is Gothic, shouldn't we expect the kind of development seen in the examples
given above?

Regards,
Steve Long


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Thu Dec 28 12:56:29 2000
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 06:56:29 -0600
Subject: Further Thoughts On "Goth-" :: another similar name
Message-ID: <THU.28.DEC.2000.065629.0600.>

Dear Rich and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "proto-language" <proto-language at email.msn.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2000 11:27 AM

> [ Moderator's note:
>   I assume that the humour is unmarked.
>   --rma ]

<snip>

> Could this not simply be a professional nomenclature:

> fishermen?

[PR]
In this world of woe, any humor is welcome.

However, the suggestion was not humorous.

OHG angul, 'fish-hook' from *Hang-, 'bend'.

[ Moderator's note:
  I accept the rebuke and offer my apologies.
  --rma ]

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ec at ec hecc, vindga meipi a netr allar nmo, geiri vnda~r . . . a ~eim
mei~i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rstom renn." (Havamal 138)


From petegray at btinternet.com  Thu Dec 28 14:55:01 2000
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 14:55:01 -0000
Subject: Gk gen plural
Message-ID: <THU.28.DEC.2000.145501.0000.>

Does anyone happen to know if there is any actual evidence for the genitive
plural ending -a:so:m in Greek, rather than the normal -a:o:n and its
derivatives?

If not, what basis is there for the assumption that this ending was imported
from the pronouns?  Can't the attested forms be derived (with the help of
paradigmatic analogy) from an original -ah2-om?  Mycenaean seems to show no
sign of the -s-.

Peter


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 28 10:26:57 2000
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 10:26:57 -0000
Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro....
Message-ID: <THU.28.DEC.2000.102657.0000.>

On 25 Dec 2000, Mate Kapovif wrote:

>There was a discussion some time ago about relation of the words like Bask.
>txakur, Logudor dzhagaru, Spanish/Port. cachorro... I was just lurking but now
>I must add something to the subject because I think it could be interesting to
>those who participated in that discussion earlier.

>There is a claim that the form zagar is a Balkanic word: Bolg. zagar, Alb.
>zaga:r/za:r, Middle Greek zagaron, Modern Greek zagari/zagarss, Turkish zagar.
>All have the meaning "Jagdhund".

These particular forms are probably derived from Classical Greek. <Zagra>
and <zagrion> are attested as offensive terms (cf. "you dog!") and
<Zagraios> is an epithet of Dionysos. <Zagr-> probably results from *diagr-
(cf. Gk. <agra> 'hunting', <agreus> 'hunter', <agremios> 'taken in hunting',
etc.). The meaning 'Jagdhund' as opposed to simply 'Hund' agrees with this
analysis.

Doug Kilday


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Dec 28 21:00:44 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 16:00:44 -0500
Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro....
In-Reply-To: <001701c06dfe$8c2db3a0$d9811dc3@219.205.255.5>
Message-ID: <THU.28.DEC.2000.160044.0500.>

I hope I'm not dogging everyone too much with this puppy :>

I looked in Buck and found

	Latin catulus, catellus "puppy, cub" [Buck 1949: 180]
	Rumanian catel, Old Italian catello, Old French cael, obsolete
French cheau [Buck 1949: 180]
	Old Norse hadhna "kid", Russian kotot'sja, Polish kocic'sie "bear
cub" [Buck 1949: 180]
	Posner also cites Sardinian kateddu "little dog, puppy" < *ket- +
-ellu [Posner 1996: 86]

	Monteagudo [1976: 94] gives a "pre-Romance" root *kats, *kac^ "dog"

	which suggests the possibility of
catulus/catellus > *katlu > *katju/kakju/kacju > *kac^o > cach-orro

	although I imagine an /e/ would be expected, as in lacte- > leche

	so maybe there was influence from Spanish cazar, Italian cacciare
"to hunt" < Vulgar Latin *captiare "to hunt" < Latin capio "I take"

and BIG MAYBE a methathesis (or some type of sequence in which the
palatalization was scrambled) in Basque > txakur and BIGGER MAYBE a
backformation to zakur--but I don't expect anyone to take my word without
proof :>

	I'd appreciate suggestions

btw: would you be kind enough to repost your info in ASCII or TEX for the
examples that got garbled

	Does anyone know how recent the terms are in the Balkan and
Caucasus languages cited?
	Is it possible that they all spring from a Slavic, Greek or Turkish
term for a specific type of dog?

[snip]

>In the end he staits that Oötir was surely right when he put it with
>Alarodic elements and that it could be a part of pre-IE substratum as an old
>hunting term.

	Alarodic?

[snip]
>M. KapoviÊ

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From petegray at btinternet.com  Thu Dec 28 14:41:38 2000
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 14:41:38 -0000
Subject: Danish Spelling
Message-ID: <THU.28.DEC.2000.144138.0000.>

>an original contrast of voice can be re-analyzed as a
> contrast of aspiration,

The opposite, of course, has happened in the Pinyin spelling of Mandarin,
where the English letters p and b are chosen to represent aspirated and
unaspirated labial plosives.

Peter


From thorinn at diku.dk  Fri Dec 29 01:04:24 2000
From: thorinn at diku.dk (Lars Henrik Mathiesen)
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 01:04:24 -0000
Subject: Danish Spelling
In-Reply-To: <E148hup-0003uu-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
 (larryt@cogs.susx.ac.uk)
Message-ID: <FRI.29.DEC.2000.010424.0000.>

> Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 12:00:16 +0000
> From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)

> Lars Henrik Mathieson writes:

>> Which phoneme do those plain voiceless stops belong to? They sound
>> exactly like the /bdg/ you get in initial position. They don't sound
>> like initial /ptk/. So why shouldn't <stave> (spell) be /sda:u/?

> Roman Jakobson famously wrote on this very point.  I'm afraid I cannot
> recall the reference, but maybe somebody can.

> As I dimly recall, Jakobson reported that uneducated Danish-speakers --
> apparently there *were* some in his day -- consistently assigned phones
> to phonemes on the basis of phonetic similarity, producing a result
> very different from the one recognized in the Danish orthography.

Well, I can report that Danish first graders do it too --- <sdau> for
<stave> or <sgreud> for <skrevet> are both examples I think I recall
from my daughter's first attempts.

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)


From thorinn at diku.dk  Fri Dec 29 01:12:13 2000
From: thorinn at diku.dk (Lars Henrik Mathiesen)
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 01:12:13 -0000
Subject: Danish Spelling
In-Reply-To: <000701c06a9b$4c4a8080$626163d1@texas.net> (dlwhite@texas.net)
Message-ID: <FRI.29.DEC.2000.011213.0000.>

> From: "David L. White" <dlwhite at texas.net>
> Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 09:41:18 -0600

>> Which phoneme do those plain voiceless stops belong to? They sound
>> exactly like the /bdg/ you get in initial position. They don't sound
>> like initial /ptk/. So why shouldn't <stave> (spell) be /sda:u/?

>         Because "d" is not the IPA symbol for any voiceless stop.

I was using // to denote phonemic transcription, which I think is
common practice. ([] being phonetic, and <> graphemic).

By your criterion, phonemic transcription would have to use something
like /p_ht_hk_h/ and /ptk/ to denote the two series of stops in
Danish, which would be inconvenient.

>         But what I was working up to here, before I got derailed by my own
> errors, was that the spelling of Gaelic, and "phonetic" transcription of
> Danish) indicate that an original contrast of voice can be re-analyzed as a
> contrast of aspiration, in which case spellings like "sg-" and
> "transcriptions" like [sd-] can make sense.

I think we agree, then.

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)


From douglas at nb.net  Thu Dec 28 13:12:27 2000
From: douglas at nb.net (Douglas G. Wilson)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 08:12:27 -0500
Subject: minimal pairs
In-Reply-To: <000b01c06b85$69863780$74dc7ad5@xpoxkjlf>
Message-ID: <THU.28.DEC.2000.081227.0500.>

>> I have never heard a pronunciation of 'asthma' that was not /azm6/; and, of
>> course, /z/ is a dental fricative.

>To clarify, my pronunciation is /asTmi/.   Unvoiced /s/, unvoiced /T/,
>voiced nasal /m/.  /i/ at the end 'cos I'm a kiwi.  Real English has /@/.

>The only colleague of mine I can find at the moment, this close to
>Christmas, says /asm@/  (unvoiced /s/, no dental fricative).  He comments
>"It would be very pretentious to pronounce it /asTma/."

Some say /&s(T)m@/, some say /&z(D)m@/ (I say the latter but probably the
former is preferable logically). Both are common. Some speakers omit the
/T/ or /D/ always, most others probably do in rapid speech. None of these
is 'pretentious' IMHO.

Maybe the /T/ or /D/ comes from a spelling pronunciation; nothing wrong
with that.

"Isthmus" is /Is(T)m at s/, with similarly optional /T/, IMHO.

What about /krIs(t)m at s/?

-- Doug Wilson


From stevegus at aye.net  Thu Dec 28 16:12:05 2000
From: stevegus at aye.net (Steve Gustafson)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 11:12:05 -0500
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <THU.28.DEC.2000.111205.0500.>

Peter Gray wrote:

>>>> 'asthma' ... with a dental fricative.

>> I have hardly ever heard it.

> Is the form with /T/ a spelling pronunciation?  Or is the form without /T/
> related to the loss of /T/ near /s/ in some American dialects in words such
> as "clothes"?

I suspect that the pronunciation /klo:z/ for "clothes" is an old, inherited
one; cf. Norwegian "klaer".

The pronunciation of transliterations of ungainly Greek consonant clusters
in English is bound to vary widely; most of these words were encountered in
writing before heard on anyone's lips.  Even similar groups can resolve
differently: "diphthong" is often spoken differently than "diphtheria,"
(diphthong occasionally has diff-, diphtheria is always dip-).  Neither of
them track "phthisis."

--
   Cain:  Are ye happy?
   Satan:  We are mighty.
                                 --- Byron, "Cain"


From BMScott at stratos.net  Thu Dec 28 22:02:44 2000
From: BMScott at stratos.net (Brian M. Scott)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 17:02:44 -0500
Subject: minimal pairs
In-Reply-To: <005a01c06c17$5a7a8380$4102703e@edsel>
Message-ID: <THU.28.DEC.2000.170244.0500.>

On Friday, 22 December, 2000, at 07:50:13, Eduard Selleslagh wrote:

ES> From: "Anton Sherwood" <bronto at pobox.com> Sent: Wednesday,
ES> December 20, 2000 5:34 AM

>> <Anthony> was misderived from Greek <anthos> `flower'.

ES> I have never heard that one. It looks very implausible to me,
ES> since English writers were undoubtedly more familiar with Latin
ES> than with ancient or any other kind of Greek, and in Latin texts,
ES> classic and later, the name Antonius is very common.

I don't know whether the misapprehension was responsible for
establishing the <th> spelling, but it certainly existed. William
Camden's _Remains Concerning Britain_ (1605) includes a chapter on
'Usuall Christian Names'. Of <Anthonie> he writes: '_Gre._ as
_Antheros_, Flourishing, from the Greeke _Anthos_ a floure, as
_Florens_ and _Florentius_ with the Latines, and _Thales_, _Euthalius_
with the Greekes. There are yet some that drawe it from _Anton_ a
companion of _Hercules_.'

ES> I don't know the origin of the name 'Antonius'. Does anybody?

Emidio De Felice's _dizionario dei nomi italiani_ s.n. <Antonio> says
(unfortunately without citation) that the name is probably of Etruscan
origin, though the etymology is unknown. He adds that in the
Renaissance it was arbitrarily associated with Gk. <a'nthos> 'flower',
so the connection isn't solely English. In this connection it may be
worth noting that in general <th> spellings become common in much of
Europe in the 15th and 16th c.  E.g., in notarial documents from
Bordeaux ca.1500 the name appears consistently with <th>
(<Anthoin(n)e>, <Anthoyne>, <Anthony>, <Anthoni>, <Anthonio>), and
<th> spellings seem to have been usual in Sweden and the Low Countries
even a bit earlier.

Brian M. Scott


From mc2499 at mclink.it  Thu Dec 28 16:44:30 2000
From: mc2499 at mclink.it (Ian Hutchesson)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 17:44:30 +0100
Subject: Ng
Message-ID: <THU.28.DEC.2000.174430.0100.>

>>family name Ng in the mouths of English-speaking non-linguists.

I went to school with a person of that surname in Australia long ago. It was
always pronounced Ning -- even by the Chinese students --, though the /i/
was almost non-existent.

Ian


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Fri Dec 29 03:04:21 2000
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 22:04:21 -0500
Subject: re Northern Subject Rule
In-Reply-To: <200012192012.PAA11704@panix2.panix.com> (message from Rich
 Alderson on Tue, 19 Dec 2000 15:12:34 -0500 (EST))
Message-ID: <THU.28.DEC.2000.220421.0500.>

On 19 Dec 2000, I wrote:

> ... the feminine in *-a: < *-eH{_1}

where the subscript on the laryngeal symbol should be "2" rather than "1".
*-e{H_1} yields *-e:, as in the instrumental singular.

								Rich Alderson


From stevegus at aye.net  Fri Dec 29 16:33:27 2000
From: stevegus at aye.net (Steve Gustafson)
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 11:33:27 -0500
Subject: Gk gen plural
Message-ID: <FRI.29.DEC.2000.113327.0500.>

petegray wrote:

> Does anyone happen to know if there is any actual evidence for the genitive
> plural ending -a:so:m in Greek, rather than the normal -a:o:n and its
> derivatives?

> If not, what basis is there for the assumption that this ending was imported
> from the pronouns?  Can't the attested forms be derived (with the help of
> paradigmatic analogy) from an original -ah2-om?  Mycenaean seems to show no
> sign of the -s-.

Wouldn't they both end up the same, in that -a:so:m turns into -a:ho:m with
the typical Greek loss of intervocalic -s-; then Greek loses the -h-, and
turns final -m to -n, to yield -a:o:n?

I don't believe that the Linear B material preserves any intervocalic *s
that would have been lost in Greek.  There is a Linear B ko-to-na-o (Gk.
ktoina:o:n) identifiable as a genitive plural, but given the severe
limitations of the script it there is no reason to say it doesn't just
represent the mainstream attested form.

In Latin (and Italic generally), -a:som is borrowed from its proper place in
the pronouns to yield -arum (Oscan -azum).  I'm not sure in what
circumstances in Greek you could expect to see a difference between the
result of -aso:m and -aH2o:m.

--
   Cain:  Are ye happy?
   Satan:  We are mighty.
                                 --- Byron, "Cain"


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Sun Dec 31 09:05:25 2000
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 04:05:25 -0500
Subject: Gk gen plural
Message-ID: <SUN.31.DEC.2000.040525.0500.>

On Thu, 28 Dec 2000 14:55:01 -0000, petegray <petegray at btinternet.com>
wrote:
>Does anyone happen to know if there is any actual evidence for the genitive
>plural ending -a:so:m in Greek, rather than the normal -a:o:n and its
>derivatives? ...
> ...Can't the attested forms be derived (with the help of paradigmatic
> analogy) from an original -ah2-om?  Mycenaean seems to show no
> sign of the -s-.

Mycenean Greek's spelling system is a syllabary (Linear B), which as far as
I remember ignores [h] except before [a]. I.e. it has a symbol for HA but
not for HI etc. So, in Mycenean Greek *[asom], the S would not show in
writing even if it was pronounced.


From rohan.oberoi at cornell.edu  Fri Dec 29 09:22:17 2000
From: rohan.oberoi at cornell.edu (rohan.oberoi at cornell.edu)
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 04:22:17 -0500
Subject: II subgroups
Message-ID: <FRI.29.DEC.2000.042217.0500.>

Try:

http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/didact/karten/indi/indicm.htm

for a map and accompanying classifications, albeit in German.

Regards,
Rohan.

Anton Sherwood wrote:

>A story about Bombay (see below sig) makes me ask myself what is
>Bombay's principal language, and more generally which Indic languages
>belong where.  I look in various books for maps.  Crystal's <Cambridge
>Encyclopedia of Language> distinguishes the major Dravidian languages,
>but shows Indo-Iranian as an undifferentiated lump.  Where should I look
>for a more detailed map, and for a subclassification of the Indic
>languages?

>Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/
>
>  http://www.forbes.com/global/1998/0810/0109078a.html
>  http://www.csupomona.edu/~gurey/urp475/dabbawallah.htm


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sat Dec 30 20:37:52 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 15:37:52 -0500
Subject: II subgroups
In-Reply-To: <3A4AEFE1.6CDC732B@pobox.com>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.DEC.2000.153752.0500.>

	Bombay is around where Marathi and Gujurati meet. I had a friend
from there who spoke Marathi, which he said was the local language of the
countryside and that Gujurati was spoken to the northwest. I think I
remember him saying that because of migration that Hindi was common in the
city.

>A story about Bombay (see below sig) makes me ask myself what is
>Bombay's principal language, and more generally which Indic languages
>belong where.  I look in various books for maps.  Crystal's <Cambridge
>Encyclopedia of Language> distinguishes the major Dravidian languages,
>but shows Indo-Iranian as an undifferentiated lump.  Where should I look
>for a more detailed map, and for a subclassification of the Indic
>languages?

>Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/

>  http://www.forbes.com/global/1998/0810/0109078a.html
>  http://www.csupomona.edu/~gurey/urp475/dabbawallah.htm

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sat Dec 30 08:53:01 2000
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 08:53:01 -0000
Subject: II subgroups
Message-ID: <SAT.30.DEC.2000.085301.0000.>

> Where should I look
> for a more detailed map, and for a subclassification of the Indic
> languages?

Hi Anton.  Colin Masica "The Indo-Aryan Languages" Cambridge Language
Surveys 1991 is excellent and not too expensive - my copy was GBpounds
12-50.

According to Masica, the languages of Bombay include:
(a) Urdu, and its southern form Dakhini (both spoken by urban Muslims)
(b) Marathi (The main language of the whole surrounding area)
(c) The groups of dialects clumped together as "Bhili".  (This is found
north of Bombay, extending around the Gujarati area to southern Rajasthan).

Bombay being what it is, no doubt there are others!

Peter


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Dec 29 16:58:02 2000
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 11:58:02 EST
Subject: Anthony as Greek?
Message-ID: <FRI.29.DEC.2000.115802.EST.>

In a message dated 12/29/2000 1:39:12 AM, BMScott at stratos.net writes:
<< He adds that in the Renaissance it was arbitrarily associated with Gk.
<a'nthos> 'flower', >>

Let me apologize, but it is escaping me why "Anthony" cannot come from Gk
<anthos> or <antho:n>.   Aeschylus before 400BC already uses the term to also
denote "pride", "honor" and "height of achievement".  It was also used to
connote "brightness" or "brilliance."  Parallel the name with Gk <stephanos>,
garland, and the fact that <Stephanus> appears as a Roman name at least by
the first century BC.

Is there a clear reason why Ant[h]onius cannot be Greek?

Regards and a Happy New Year,
Steve Long


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Sat Dec 30 12:50:30 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 12:50:30 +0000
Subject: 'Anthony'
Message-ID: <SAT.30.DEC.2000.125030.0000.>

Ed Selleslagh writes:

>  I don't know the origin of the name 'Antonius'. Does anybody?

According to Hanks and Hodges, this was originally a Roman family
name, it is very old, it is of unknown origin, but it is widely
suspected of being of Etruscan origin.

Source: Patricia Hanks and Flavia Hodges (1990), A Dictionary of
First Names, Oxford: Oxford UP.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Dec 30 20:33:59 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 14:33:59 -0600
Subject: Meaning of "Goth"
Message-ID: <SAT.30.DEC.2000.143359.0600.>

> It was the Cimbri, I believe, who explained their invasions into Roman
> territory in the late BC as the result of a flood that overcame their dikes
> and forced them to leave home.  Perhaps there is some relation.

    There was, I believe, more than one group that suffered some such fate.
The AS conquest may have been motivated by the same sort of thing.  Actually
the Baltic (like part of the North) is not a stable sea.  It is recent, and
unstable.  Maybe someone out there can fill us in on its recent history.

> The original meaning of the word "Goth" is confused by many factors, not the
> least by the assumption that the word is Germanic.  The common names for many
> groups is in fact the ones applied by outsiders (e.g., "Greek", "Apache",
> "Basque"), so it is never clear with names of obscure origins whether the
> name was in fact indigenous.

> There is a weak verb <us-gutan> recorded in Ulfila that means 'pour out' and
> would appear to have some connection with such words as 'gutter'.  But in the
> earliest attested writings, we already see <Gu<thorn>> as 'God'; plural,
> <guda>.

        That (the final thorn) is from final devoicing.  It is not original,
as the plural shows.  If the word "Goth" is from "God-folk" (thiuda), the
final thorn would have to be a secondary development, from later redivision.
But since the "pour" word and the "god" word seem to be different extentsion
of the same root, it is difficult to tell.  I myself think that most
polytheistic people are not so (self)-righteous, for lack of a better word,
as to name themselves "God-folk".

> So the idea that the 'pour' reference may be to religious libations rather
> than floods or waterways is there from the start, if the name has its roots
> in Gothic.

> In a message dated 12/14/2000 3:18:28 AM, mcv at wxs.nl wrote: <<The only
> attested Gothic form is <Gut-Tiuda> "Gothia".>> I can't for the life of me
> find the source for this attestation though it is often mentioned.  However,
> it's worth noting that in Ulfila, <<thorn>iuda> is often used to refer to
> "heathens" or "Gentiles" and has a load of similar terms in Greek that refer
> to certain kinds of non-Christian religious worship (e.g., <Thuiades>,
> whorshippers at the Dionysian festival of <Thuia>).  On its face, however,
> <Gut-Tiuda> appears to mean "God-people", certainly not an unusual
> self-appelation for people in history who have felt a certain special
> connection to the Deity, be they Israelites or Mormons.  But I do not know if
> this attested form referred to pre-Christian or Christian Goths.

        Since there are so many "got-" place-names back in Scandinavia, it
would seem that the name must be pre-Christian (assuming that "Gotland" and
"Goeteburg" are to be related to "Goth", which may not be true.)

> One question that all of this raises is how this word "Goth" works with a
> regular <PIE development?  If the word were <gut> in east Germanic, than
> what transformations should it have gone through.

       In other Germanic, you mean?  Not much, apart from the OHG examples.

> I have for example this from Lehrman:  "Initial position: Gk anser (for
> hanser) Goth. gans, OHG kans --- Gk khéoth (fundo), Gk khutós (fusus)
> Goth. giutan, OHG kiozan --- Gk khol*, ON gall, OHG kalla --- Gk khthés,
> heri, hesternus, Goth. gistra, OHG këstar --- Gk khórtos, hortus, gards,
> OHG karto --- hostis (peregrinus) gasts, kast --- homo, Goth. guma, OHG komo
> --- Gk khth*n like khthés for khés for khóm, cf. khamái, humi, humus;
> to be compared with Goth. gauï, OHG kouwi, kou--- "

>  Note in the above that the <g-> is consistently unique to Gothic.

        No it isn't.  /g/ appears in Norse, as it should in all Germanic
apart from Old High.  Note as well that English, of all periods, being
fairly typical in this regard, has /g-/ in its 'god' word.
        By the way (displaying my ignorance here), how does OHG "kans"
appear as modern German "gans"?  Did only the /d/ -> /t/ part of this shift
get fully established in standard German?

Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Dec 30 20:38:06 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 14:38:06 -0600
Subject: Further Thoughts On "Goth-" :: another similar name
Message-ID: <SAT.30.DEC.2000.143806.0600.>

>> Could this not simply be a professional nomenclature:

>> fishermen?

> [PR]
> In this world of woe, any humor is welcome.

> However, the suggestion was not humorous.

> OHG angul, 'fish-hook' from *Hang-, 'bend'.

> [ Moderator's note:
>   I accept the rebuke and offer my apologies.
>   --rma ]

        Something like /angl/ does indeed seem to have been the Germanic
word for fish-hook, and the word "angler" in English may well be old.

Dr. David L. White


From BMScott at stratos.net  Fri Dec 29 07:23:36 2000
From: BMScott at stratos.net (Brian M. Scott)
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 02:23:36 -0500
Subject: minimal pairs
In-Reply-To: <008501c070e8$ec922c20$f3c407c6@oemcomputer>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.DEC.2000.022336.0500.>

On Thursday, 28 December, 2000, at 11:12:05, Steve Gustafson wrote:

SG> Even similar groups can resolve differently: "diphthong" is often
SG> spoken differently than "diphtheria," (diphthong occasionally has
SG> diff-, diphtheria is always dip-).

I have always said /dif-/ in both. Both the American Heritage Dict.
(3rd ed.) and Merriam-Webster Online recognize both /dif-/ and and
/dip-/ pronunciations of <diphtheria>.

Brian M. Scott


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Fri Dec 29 20:32:01 2000
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 20:32:01 -0000
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <FRI.29.DEC.2000.203201.0000.>

On 22 Dec 2000, Eduard Selleslagh wrote:

>And the (in origin Anatolian) Etruscans are linguistically second cousins of
>the Italic speaking peoples, so the search for the roots of the latter day
>Antonii (etc...) risks becoming cyclical ('cercle vicieux').

This is the second time in a month you have represented this flimsy
hypothesis of Etruscans coming from Anatolia as though it were an
established fact. If you actually have any non-cyclical arguments
(preferably linguistic) in favor of an eastern homeland for the Etruscans,
perhaps you could post them here or on the other list.

Doug Kilday

[ Moderator's note:
  The hypothesis that the Etruscans may have originated in Anatolia appears to
  be supported by the presence on the island of Lemnos of a stele inscribed in
  a language clearly related to but differing from the Etruscan of Italy.
  --rma ]


From douglas at nb.net  Fri Dec 29 08:30:52 2000
From: douglas at nb.net (Douglas G. Wilson)
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 03:30:52 -0500
Subject: Ng
In-Reply-To: <007601c070ed$74e81220$88916ec3@nergal>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.DEC.2000.033052.0500.>

>>> family name Ng in the mouths of English-speaking non-linguists.

It seems to me that one should approximate the native sound as best one
can, unless the named person prefers something else. We do this all the
time (to varying degrees) when we talk about Goethe or Dvorak or Khrushchev
[or Cholmondeley]. Distinction of aspirated vs. nonaspirated stop or front
vs. back "l" may be difficult for English speakers; distinction of /N/ from
/IN/, /EN/, /VN/, /@N/, /nIN/, etc. should not be, IMHO. Reproducing the
tone in casual speech in English may be awkward, however -- at least it's
too awkward for me (some do it "successfully" though).

I'm no expert but I think the name Ng corresponds to "Mandarin" Wu,
rendering several family names, of which "Crow", "Five", and one named
after a place-name (having the character sometimes called "sky-mouth") come
to mind.

Pronunciation of "ng" (in different tones) can be heard on the Web:

http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Canton/sound/ng4.wav

http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Canton/sound/ng5.wav

http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Canton/sound/ng6.wav

-- it's just about what one would expect, and I don't see why the typical
English-speaker would have trouble recognizing it or approximating it in
casual speech (tone aside).

Of course, an American named Ng might himself abandon the original
pronunciation, out of expedience or politeness (just as some Dvoraks have
done, for example), and introduce himself as "Eng" or "Ing" or whatever he
chooses; some may change the spelling also.

Incidentally, I've read that INITIAL /N/ is tending to disappear in
Cantonese (e.g., "ngo" /No/ > /o/). Possibly there are variations in
pronunciation of syllabic "ng" within Cantonese also.

-- Doug Wilson


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Dec 30 20:42:30 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 14:42:30 -0600
Subject: Danish Spelling
Message-ID: <SAT.30.DEC.2000.144230.0600.>

> By your criterion, phonemic transcription would have to use something
> like /p_ht_hk_h/ and /ptk/ to denote the two series of stops in
> Danish, which would be inconvenient

        The technically proper thing would be to use /p/ versus /ph/, and so
on, with superscript "h", not available to most of us.  Yes, it would be
inconvenient.
        But anyway what I was really working up to was a semi- (or perhaps
pseudo-)Sapirian observation that people do know what the phonemes of their
own language are, and things like "illiterate" (or perhaps "naive")
spellings can show us what they think.  Thus Danes, seeing that /p/ is, so
it seems, spelled /b/, tend to think that /sp/ should be spelled "sb", which
is reasonable enough.  (I marvel that the Gaels had the temerity to update
their spelling to fit their perceptions.  Usually spelling conservativism
rules.)   But in any event over-wrought abstract analysis is not, in my
opinion, necesary.  Blank stares are likley to be the response to any
question along the lines of "What are the phonemes of your language?", but
if we are inspired by Liddell Hart and use "the indirect approach", the
truth will come out.

Dr. David L. White


From jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr  Fri Dec 29 13:20:31 2000
From: jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr (=?iso-8859-2?Q?Mate_Kapovi=E6?=)
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 14:20:31 +0100
Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro...
Message-ID: <FRI.29.DEC.2000.142031.0100.>

Here are all the examples again. Sorry if you could not have read them all the
first time. I hope it's ok now.

Cro. - ogar/zagar/bigar.
Magyar - aga:r
Romanian - ogar
OCS/Old Russian - ogar7 (7-jor)
Czech - ohaR (R- r with a diacritic over it - ř)
Polish - oharz.
Bolg. - zagar
Alb. - zaga:r/za:r
Middle Greek - zagaron
Modern Greek - zagari/zagaros
Turkish - zagar
Avarian - eger
Ossetic - yegar
Logudor - dzhagaru (dzh - eng. j)
Corsica - yakaru/dzhakaru
Bask - txakur
Port./Spanish - cachorro
Georgian - dzagli
all-European words - jackal (Eng.), cakal (Turkish) (c with a hook under - eng.
ch) etc.
Sanskrit - Srgala (S- eng. sh, cerebral)

Rick Mc Callister wrote:

<<Russian kotot'sja, Polish kocic'sie "bear cub">>

That would be all-Slavic *kotiti seN. It could be from the same Ie. root as
Latin catulus, maybe not. It's compared to Slavic *kot7(ka) "cat" (7 - jor) but
these are almost certainly borrowings (originally African - Egyptian(?) word,
cf. Latin cattus) and it's hard to believe that *kotiti seN ("to bear cub (for
some animals)") a would have come from *kot7, because cats were not so
(economically) important. Some contamination of the roots has almost certainly
been present.

Lat. catulus could exclude Spanish cachorro (much harder for Bask) from these
comparisons.

All these words seem to come from one (pre-Ie substrat word?). All the forms
are of a *JaKaR- kind or similar- J- affricate or fricative (j, ch, sh, z, y
etc.); K- k or g; R- r or l...

<<Alarodic?>>

Sorry, don't know what that is. That's what my dictionary source says.

Mate Kapovic


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Sat Dec 30 05:12:00 2000
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 00:12:00 EST
Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro....
Message-ID: <SAT.30.DEC.2000.001200.EST.>

In a message dated 12/28/2000 11:18:17 PM, acnasvers at hotmail.com writes:

<< <Zagr-> probably results from *diagr- (cf. Gk. <agra> 'hunting', <agreus>
'hunter', <agremios> 'taken in hunting', etc.). The meaning 'Jagdhund' as
opposed to simply 'Hund' agrees with this analysis. >>

If the word can be read as coming from Gk <agra>, then it can just as easily
be seen as coming from the more basic form, Gk <agros>, field, farm, tilled
land, pasture, country (vs. city). (Cf., <agraulos>, of field dweller,
shepherds, oxen; <agreios>, of the field or country-side).

This would suggest that the word could refer as much to a sheep or herding
dog or some other kind of dog that lives or works on a farm, as opposed to
perhaps a hunting or a fighting dog.

With regard to "Spanish/Port. cachorro" and maybe "txakur", there is some
reason to think that the words originated in a more complex and ancient
usage.  See Latin <cicur>, tame; <cicurare> to tame.  (Which might refer to
nothing more than a trained dog or animal as opposed to some larger idea like
domestication.)  Also, attested is "Gk <churra>, a call used by swineherds;
<churrabios>, swine-collar; <churrabos>, a bird."  Cf., Pol <kura>, hen.

In such examples as Lat <cicura>, <cura>, <sirius> and Gk <kurma>, <surma>,
<surte:s>, <koura>, <gurgathos>, etc., etc., we see all kinds of words that
involve many kinds of relationships with animals or those who handle or catch
them.   These words seem to show dramatic semantic drift and it is a tricky
matter to interpret any form like -kur or - garu for a specific
animal-related meaning.

Regards,
Steve Long


From kastytis.beitas at gf.vu.lt  Mon Dec  4 21:52:07 2000
From: kastytis.beitas at gf.vu.lt (Kastytis Beitas)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 22:52:07 +0100
Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro....
In-Reply-To: <51.57547f4.277ec8a0@aol.com>
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.225207.0100.>

At 00:12 30.12.2000 -0500, Steve Long wrote:

>In a message dated 12/28/2000 11:18:17 PM, acnasvers at hotmail.com writes:

><< <Zagr-> probably results from *diagr- (cf. Gk. <agra> 'hunting', <agreus>
>'hunter', <agremios> 'taken in hunting', etc.). The meaning 'Jagdhund' as
>opposed to simply 'Hund' agrees with this analysis. >>

>If the word can be read as coming from Gk <agra>, then it can just as easily
>be seen as coming from the more basic form, Gk <agros>, field, farm, tilled
>land, pasture, country (vs. city). (Cf., <agraulos>, of field dweller,
>shepherds, oxen; <agreios>, of the field or country-side).

>This would suggest that the word could refer as much to a sheep or herding
>dog or some other kind of dog that lives or works on a farm, as opposed to
>perhaps a hunting or a fighting dog.

As I remember there is an old Russian verb polevat' that means 'to hunt in
fields' (from Russian word pole 'field')...

**********************************
Kastytis Beitas
----------------------------------
Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics
Faculty of Natural Sciences
Vilnius University
Ciurlionio 21
Vilnius 2009, Lithuania
----------------------------------
Fax:     (370 2)235409
E-Mail:  kastytis.beitas at gf.vu.lt
**********************************


From kastytis.beitas at gf.vu.lt  Mon Dec  4 21:43:02 2000
From: kastytis.beitas at gf.vu.lt (Kastytis Beitas)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 22:43:02 +0100
Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro...
In-Reply-To: <005101c071a0$f2ed06e0$05811dc3@219.205.255.5>
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.224302.0100.>

At 14:20 29.12.2000 +0100, Mate Kapovic wrote:

>Rick Mc Callister wrote:

><<Russian kotot'sja, Polish kocic'sie "bear cub">>

>That would be all-Slavic *kotiti seN. It could be from the same Ie. root as
>Latin catulus, maybe not. It's compared to Slavic *kot7(ka) "cat" (7 -
>jor) but
>these are almost certainly borrowings (originally African - Egyptian(?) word,
>cf. Latin cattus) and it's hard to believe that *kotiti seN ("to bear cub (for
>some animals)") a would have come from *kot7, because cats were not so
>(economically) important. Some contamination of the roots has almost certainly
>been present.

>Lat. catulus could exclude Spanish cachorro (much harder for Bask) from these
>comparisons.

The word shchenit'sja means 'to bear cub; to cub, to whelp' in Russian
(shchenok 'dog cub'),
and Russian kotit'sja means 'to bear kitten (about cats) or other youngling
(about small carnivorous mammal - ferret etc)'.
It is a general model for creation of words that mean 'to bear younglings'.
The Russian telit'sja means 'to bear calve (of cattle, deer etc.)'
(telionok 'calf'),
zherebit'sja 'to bear colt' (zherebenok 'colt'),
yagnit'sja 'to bear lamb' (yagnionok 'lamb')...

The were wild cats (Felis silvestris) in East European forests.

**********************************
Kastytis Beitas
----------------------------------
Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics
Faculty of Natural Sciences
Vilnius University
Ciurlionio 21
Vilnius 2009, Lithuania
----------------------------------
Fax:     (370 2)235409
E-Mail:  kastytis.beitas at gf.vu.lt
**********************************


From sarima at friesen.net  Fri Dec  1 02:07:07 2000
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 18:07:07 -0800
Subject: Motivating the Root Restrictions of PIE
In-Reply-To: <001301c05965$3ad23ec0$d16263d1@texas.net>
Message-ID: <THU.30.NOV.2000.180707.0800.>

At 12:01 PM 11/28/00 -0600, David L. White wrote:
>         Yes, I am serious.  And yes, what I posit is typologically weird,
>but what more normal system motivates the root restrictions?  Are we to
>imagine that these were invented out of sheer phonological perversity?  It
>is, obviously, a matter of the relative claims of typology versus
>motivation.

I do not think it is quite that simple.

Many of my ideas on the phonetics of PIE came from a symposium I read - I
think it was "The New Sound of PIE" or something like that.  In addition to
several articles supporting some variant of the glottalic hypothesis, there
were several proposing various less radical alternatives.  As I remember it
(vaguely), some of these articles addressed the issue of motivation of the
root restrictions within their respective models.  The glottalic approach
does not have a monopoly on providing a possible answer to the basis for
these constraints.

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Dec  1 05:49:14 2000
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 00:49:14 EST
Subject: Celtic Germanic relationship
Message-ID: <FRI.1.DEC.2000.004914.EST.>

In a message dated 11/30/2000 11:23:14 PM, brent at bermls.oau.org writes:

<< <Eg., the PrtGrmc word for "iron" is a Celtic loan, as are several other
    terms (ruler and servant, for instance) and the form of these loans
    indicates that they were borrowed before the first Germanic sound-shift,
    since it underwent that change.>

  Do these loans provide evidence for all three consonant grades?
  The only words that come to mind are *i:sarn- (iron) and *ri:k- (power),
  which only provide evidence for PIE *g -> PGmc *k.>>

Just a note that the fact that those words underwent a sound shift does not
mean necessarily that they were not borrowed after the sound shift.

Note that these words may have been subjected to the "phonotactics" of the
borrowing language.  Larry Trask mentioned an example recently of how complex
the conversion may be:

<<A Latin noun is normally borrowed into Basque in its accusative
singular form.  Assuming that the accusative of <incubus> would
have been <incubum>, the expected Basque treatment of this would
be *<ingubu>, without nasalization, or *<ingumu>, with nasalization.
But I don't know what inflectional class <incubus> belonged to.>>

Thus the word "incubus" would be expected to go through a sound
transformation as it enters the language rather than remaining in its foreign
form.  So that Celtic words in Germanic may also have gone through a
conversion irrespective of when the sound change occurred.

With respect to the word iron, we have clear evidence that iron was known
before iron metalurgy was introduced.  In fact, use of meteoric and surface
iron (gathered from eroding streams) appears in Asia Minor at least a
thousand years before the "iron age."  I can't look it up right now, but
there may be evidence of the incidental use of iron in the bronze age in
Denmark.  In any case, familiarity with the metal might be enough to give it
a name, whether or not it was being turned into something.  And so that name
could well seriously predate the iron age.

Another point-of-view worth mentioning is the one which sees the "consonant
shifts" in Germanic as archaisms rather than innovations.  In which case, the
time of borrowing would be almost indeterminable. Or the word could have been
common and then undergone changes in the respective languages in the reverse
direction, ie, as a change in Celtic rather than in Germanic.

Regards,
Steve Long


From BMScott at stratos.net  Fri Dec  1 06:52:23 2000
From: BMScott at stratos.net (Brian M. Scott)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 01:52:23 -0500
Subject: Celtic Germanic relationship
In-Reply-To: <20001130061309.A74794@bermls.oau.org>
Message-ID: <FRI.1.DEC.2000.015223.0500.>

>> Eg., the PrtGrmc word for "iron" is a Celtic loan, as are several
>> other terms (ruler and servant, for instance) and the form of these
>> loans indicates that they were borrowed before the first Germanic
>> sound-shift, since it underwent that change.

BJE> Do these loans provide evidence for all three consonant grades?
BJE> The only words that come to mind are *i:sarn- (iron) and *ri:k- (power),
BJE> which only provide evidence for PIE *g -> PGmc *k.

What about Goth. <andbahts>, OHG <ampahti>, ON <amba'tt> (specialized
to 'bondswoman'), etc., from Celt. <ambactus> 'Dienstmann' (here with
Latin ending)? Or OHG <Walh> from the Celtic tribal name <Volcae>?
They appear to offer evidence for PIE *k -> PGmc *h.

Brian M. Scott


From jrader at Merriam-Webster.com  Fri Dec  1 15:06:50 2000
From: jrader at Merriam-Webster.com (Jim Rader)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 10:06:50 -0500
Subject: Turkish
In-Reply-To: <l03130316b64c1407ba2a@[209.147.211.21]>
Message-ID: <FRI.1.DEC.2000.100650.0500.>

I think Prof. Schulze has addressed the matter in his post of 29
Nov.  If I may quote him, "Nogays (Kipchak)  can be spotted in the
Dobrucha [i.e., Dobru(d)ja, Dobrogea] area esp. north of Constantia
in Romania[;] they came to this place in the 19th century (after the
Crimea[n] war) from the eastern parts of the Crimea[n] peninsula
(due to Russian pressure)."

I assume the Nogay movement to Dobrudja was more or less part
of the massive emigration of Muslim peoples out of the North
Caucasus in the 19th century.  After the final "pacification" of the
Caucasus by Russia in the 1860's, approximately half a million
Muslim Caucasians, predominantly West Circassian speakers,
emigrated to the Ottoman Empire.  According to Rieks Smeets,
_Studies in West Circassian Phonology and Morphology_, "At first,
large groups [of Caucasian migrants] were sent to the Balkans in
order to help the Ottomans in the war they were losing to the
rebelling Balkan peoples, who were supported by Russia.
Ultimately, practically all emigrants from the Caucasus found a
place scattered throughout the Asiatic areas of the Ottoman
Empire.  Nowadays [1984] we can find their descendants in
Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and also--but only in very small
numbers--in Yugoslavia."

Jim Rader

> On a Hammond map of European ethnic groups c. 1910
> I saw Nogays in both Daghestan and also between the mouth of the Danube and
> Crimea

> [snip]
> >The Nogay are a Turkic-speaking people of
> >the North Caucasus.  If there are any in the Balkans, I don't know
> >about it--Balkanologists on the list have anything to say?

> >Jim Rader
> [snip]

> Rick Mc Callister


From edsel at glo.be  Fri Dec  1 15:34:58 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 16:34:58 +0100
Subject: Turkish
Message-ID: <FRI.1.DEC.2000.163458.0100.>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" <mcv at wxs.nl>
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2000 7:53 AM

> On Tue, 28 Nov 2000 11:07:24 +0100, "Eduard Selleslagh" <edsel at glo.be>
> wrote:

>> As opposed to Bosnia-Hercegovina (Bosna-Hersek in Turkish; Hercegovina <
>> Hersek Novi)

> Isn't it rather Herceg-ov-ina (like Vojevod-ina), with <herceg> <
> German <Herzog>?

> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
> mcv at wxs.nl

[Ed Selleslagh]

I'm not entirely sure, but you are probably right: 1) I may have confounded
matters with another related item: the city of Hercegnovi, 2) I wrote Hersek
where I should have written Herceg /xertseg/, the Slav (Serbo-Croatian, not the
Turkish) form, in 'Herceg-novi'. Whether Herceg < Ger. Herzog, I don't know.


From HSTAHLKE at gw.bsu.edu  Fri Dec  1 14:25:06 2000
From: HSTAHLKE at gw.bsu.edu (Herb Stahlke)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 09:25:06 -0500
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <FRI.1.DEC.2000.092506.0500.>

This is very much a minor note to this thread, but last summer in
my HEL course, a Saudi student who is specialized in early Islamic
scholarship mentioned that Arabic documents dealing with the 8th
c. Muslim invasions of the Iberian Peninsula mention fighting
against Goths.  I wonder what the term might have referred to at
that time.

Herb Stahlke

Someone wrote:

> On the continent, Germanic migrants into the Roman provinces were generally
> linguistically assimilated within a few generations -- beyond some loanwords,
> little trace of Gothic remains in Iberian Romance, for instance.  In fact, it
> was probably extinct or moribund by the time of the 8th-century Muslim
> invasions.  It lasted much better in the Crimea!


From edsel at glo.be  Fri Dec  1 16:20:36 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 17:20:36 +0100
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <FRI.1.DEC.2000.172036.0100.>

----- Original Message -----
From: <JoatSimeon at aol.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2000 8:14 AM

> In fact, when it emerges into the light of documentary day, Old English is a
> remarkably conservative West Germanic language still mutually comprehensible
> with the ancestors of Netherlandish, Frisian, and Low German, not to mention
> the nascent Scandinavian tongues.  Which is why English missionaries were so
> important in the conversion of the continental Germans.

[Ed Selleslagh]

I don't know that much about the conversion of the Germans, but I always
learned that in the (Frankish and Ingwaeonic) Low Countries most missionaries
were Irish, like the legendary (possibly mythical) Sint Brandaen (St. Brendan).
I wonder if they spoke some Low-Germanic language as well. There are also other
traces of Irish influence in legends, e.g. that of the Irish princess (later
declared martyr-saint) Dympna (Dumna), patron saint of the mentally ill,
treated in families in the Flemish town of Geel.

On the other hand, it is quite true that it is hard to determine whether some
texts are OE or Old Dutch (e.g. the famous pre-1100 'Hebban olla vogala nestas
bigunnan, hinase hic enda thu' text found in Oxford, I think). The main problem
here is the extreme scarcity of Old Dutch texts: the Franks and their
Flemish/Dutch descendants wrote mostly in Latin (fortunately sometimes with
glosses).

Ed.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Fri Dec  1 09:03:18 2000
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 04:03:18 EST
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <FRI.1.DEC.2000.040318.EST.>

In a message dated 11/30/00 7:33:11 PM Mountain Standard Time,
Tristan at mail.scm-rpg.com.au writes:

<< The Romano-British influence was pretty non-existant language wise, I do not
 a lot about how they affected Anglo-Saxon culture.

-- hard to say, since many of the institutions -- war-band organization, for
instance -- were in common.

One should also note that on the Continent, Christianity survived.
Anglo-Saxon England became as purely pagan as Scandinavia.

>I doubt those languages preserved as little of pervious languages than Old
>English did.

-- there's a very early strata of Dravidian loanwords in Sanskrit; even in
the Rig-Veda.  It's the strongest single indication that IE languages spread
from Central Asia/Iran into India, rather than vice-versa.  Although there
are plenty of others.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Fri Dec  1 09:06:38 2000
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 04:06:38 EST
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <FRI.1.DEC.2000.040638.EST.>

In a message dated 11/30/00 7:59:59 PM Mountain Standard Time,
rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu writes:

>Are you only including words documented in written sources before the Norman
>conquest?

-- more or less.  The written form of Old English was, as far as one can
tell, quite close to the spoken form, at least in the Wessex area.

>Scanning Buck and Partridge, I get the impression that there were many more.

-- more in some dialects at some time.  Eg., shepherd's counting vocabulary
in many parts of northern and western England is transparently Welsh... but
the form of the numerals shows that these are loans from medieval Welsh, not
survivals from Brythonic!

>BTW: what percentage of Old English and Briton vocabulary consisted of close
>cognates?

-- not many. By the 6th century CE, Celtic and Germanic were no closer than
either was to Latin, and most cognates wouldn't have been detectable to
speakers of either group.


From summers at metu.edu.tr  Fri Dec  1 05:42:12 2000
From: summers at metu.edu.tr (Geoffrey SUMMERS)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 07:42:12 +0200
Subject: [Fwd: [ArchTheoMeth] genes and languages--Kurds and Georgians]
Message-ID: <FRI.1.DEC.2000.074212.0200.>

This came from the Archaeology and Theory list. There have been several
responses on that list, including an objection to the position that
Georgian and Basque are related.

Geoff

> Subject: [ArchTheoMeth] genes and languages--Kurds and Georgians
> Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 12:37:17 +0900
> From: "Mark Hall" <hall at nbz.or.jp>
> Reply-To: ArchaeologyTheoryMethod at egroups.com
> To: <ArchaeologyTheoryMethod at egroups.com>, <EuropeanArchaeology at egroups.com>,
>     <NEAsianStudies at egroups.com>

> Since it has come up repeatedly on this list and others, the equating of
> genes, pots, peoples and languages, an interesting article that hasn't seen
> much press is:

> Comas, Calafell, et al. (2000) Georgian and Kurd mtDNA sequence analysis
> shows a lack of correlation between languages and female genetic lineages,
> AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY Vol. 112, 5-16.

> In a quick summary, using 360 base pairs from the mtDNA sequence, they
> looked at the mtDNA from 45 Georgians and 29 Kurds.  Georgians are
> Kartvelian speakers while the Kurds are Indo-Iranian speakers. The
> genetic analysis points only to minor differences between the Georgians
> and Kurds and the rest of the European populations and very different
> from the Basque population (which Georgians are often linked to).  Their
> conclusion is the linking of European mtDNA with the Indo-European
> languages is seriously questioned.

> Best, Mark Hall

--
Geoffrey SUMMERS
Dept. of Political Science & Public Administration,
Middle East Technical University,
Ankara TR-06531, TURKEY.

Office Tel: (90) 312 210 2045
Home Tel/Fax: (90) 312 210 1485
The Kerkenes Project Tel: (90) 312 210 6216
http://www.metu.edu.tr/home/wwwkerk/


From mcv at wxs.nl  Sat Dec  2 02:36:37 2000
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 03:36:37 +0100
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <SAT.2.DEC.2000.033637.0100.>

In Collinge's "The Laws of Indo-European", under "Siever's Law II"
(i.e. the development of PIE *gwh), reference is made to a work by
Seebold 1967 ("Die Vertretung idg. *gwh- in Germanischen", KZ
81.104-133).  In Collinge's summary table, it is stated that "*/gwh/"
gives /b/ in initial position (except before /u/).  What is this
about?  Pokorny doesn't seem to recognize this development, and the
only root with initial *gwh- that I found in Pokorny and that I was
able to link to initial *b- in Germanic would be *gwhedh- "bitten,
begehren".  (I thought if anybody here knows, I might spare myself the
inconvenience of getting hold of the appropiate issue of Kuhn's
Zeitschrift ...)

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl


From Tristan at MAIL.SCM-RPG.COM.AU  Sat Dec  2 04:19:10 2000
From: Tristan at MAIL.SCM-RPG.COM.AU (Tristan Jones)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 23:19:10 -0500
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <FRI.1.DEC.2000.231910.0500.>

This message was originally submitted by Tristan at MAIL.SCM-RPG.COM.AU to the
INDO-EUROPEAN list at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG.

                 ----------------- Message ------------------

>In Britain not only did the local Celtic and Romance speeches disappear,
>but the Anglo-Saxon that emerged after the conversion to Christianity was
>singularly lacking in both Romance and Celtic vocabulary.  About 14 Celtic
>loan-words in all, and no more Latin loans than the continental Germanic of
>the period.

That is it in itself is suprising, we must ask this question, Was Latin or a
dialect of it spoken by the common people (not just the elite) in Britain
around 5th century, like in Gaul, where a similar although might be smaller
mirgation of Germanic speakers arrived around fall of Roman Empire. I think
Latin was an language of elite only in Britain, would things be different if
a Brito-Romance language was spoken by the common people instead of Celtic
languages.

>Yet there's less Celtic influence on Old English than there is Algonquian
>Indian influence on the English of New England!  Indian place-names and
>loan-words are more common there, despite what we know was an extremely
>brusque dispossession of the previous population and very limited contact
>between the incomers and the indigenous people.

Same here in Australia, there are many Aboriginal words from many languages
that have influenced Australian English and many Aboriginal place names as
well.

>We also know that there was a very substantial drop in the population of
>post-Roman Britain.  Estimates for Britannia in the late Roman period --
>4th century CE -- range as high as 3.5 million or more.

>By the time of the Norman conquest (a period for which we have unusually
>good historical-demographic documentation) England had about 1.5 million
>people; and that was after several centuries of what's generally agreed
>upon to be steady expansion.

Means Britian's population in that era could have dropped from around 2.5
million people (most likely estimate) to about 1 million and possibly a very
low Celtic speaking population if we want the Anglo-Saxons to be about
30-50% the population order to compeltely wipe out the Celtic language and
replace it with West Germanic. We must ask the question how could a large
population decline that far? what were the causes of it?

I know I hate asking this sort of question, however I must ask it
Did the Anglo-Saxon arrivals slaughter and do genocide on Celtic peoples of
Britanna before settleing in new areas.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Dec  2 05:33:48 2000
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 00:33:48 EST
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <SAT.2.DEC.2000.003348.EST.>

In a message dated 12/1/00 10:01:05 PM Mountain Standard Time,
HSTAHLKE at gw.bsu.edu writes:

<< a Saudi student who is specialized in early Islamic scholarship mentioned
that Arabic documents dealing with the 8th c. Muslim invasions of the Iberian
Peninsula mention fighting against Goths.  >>

-- operating from memory, I seem to recall that a number of Gothic prisoners
of war were settled in western Anatolia around the time of Justinian, and
formed a unit in the Byzantine armed forces for some time.


From roz-frank at uiowa.edu  Sat Dec  2 15:27:11 2000
From: roz-frank at uiowa.edu (roslyn frank)
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 09:27:11 -0600
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <SAT.2.DEC.2000.092711.0600.>

At 04:06 AM 12/1/00 EST, JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

>In a message dated 11/30/00 7:59:59 PM Mountain Standard Time,
>rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu writes:

>>Are you only including words documented in written sources before the Norman
>>conquest?

>-- more or less.  The written form of Old English was, as far as one can
>tell, quite close to the spoken form, at least in the Wessex area.

>>Scanning Buck and Partridge, I get the impression that there were many more.

>-- more in some dialects at some time.  Eg., shepherd's counting vocabulary
>in many parts of northern and western England is transparently Welsh... but
>the form of the numerals shows that these are loans from medieval Welsh, not
>survivals from Brythonic!

Can anyone provide other bibliographic references concerning this
shepherd's counting vocabulary?

Thanks,
Roz Frank


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Dec  2 05:31:49 2000
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 00:31:49 EST
Subject: Celtic Germanic relationship
Message-ID: <SAT.2.DEC.2000.003149.EST.>

In a message dated 12/1/00 8:16:41 PM Mountain Standard Time, X99Lynx at aol.com
writes:

>Just a note that the fact that those words underwent a sound shift does not
mean necessarily that they were not borrowed after the sound shift.

-- it usually does.


From mcv at wxs.nl  Sat Dec  2 12:58:53 2000
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 13:58:53 +0100
Subject: Celtic Germanic relationship
In-Reply-To: <17352982877.20001201015223@stratos.net>
Message-ID: <SAT.2.DEC.2000.135853.0100.>

On Fri, 1 Dec 2000 01:52:23 -0500, "Brian M. Scott"
<BMScott at stratos.net> wrote:

>>> Eg., the PrtGrmc word for "iron" is a Celtic loan, as are several
>>> other terms (ruler and servant, for instance) and the form of these
>>> loans indicates that they were borrowed before the first Germanic
>>> sound-shift, since it underwent that change.

>BJE> Do these loans provide evidence for all three consonant grades?
>BJE> The only words that come to mind are *i:sarn- (iron) and *ri:k- (power),
>BJE> which only provide evidence for PIE *g -> PGmc *k.

>What about Goth. <andbahts>, OHG <ampahti>, ON <amba'tt> (specialized
>to 'bondswoman'), etc., from Celt. <ambactus> 'Dienstmann' (here with
>Latin ending)? Or OHG <Walh> from the Celtic tribal name <Volcae>?
>They appear to offer evidence for PIE *k -> PGmc *h.

On the other hand, a word like Celt. (*bhle:wos >) *bli:wos > Gmc.
*bli:waz "lead" (German <Blei>) offers no evidence for *b -> *p (nor
does *ambaktos -> *ambahtaz).

If we compare the probable phonological systems of (Proto-)Celtic and
Proto-Germanic at the time of (most of) the borrowings, we have, on
the one hand in Celtic, a system where PIE *d (etc.) and *dh (etc.)
have merged as [d] (maybe alternating with continuant/fricative [D]),
and PIE *t has acquired (judging by later Celtic developments)
aspiration, i.e. is realized as [th].  In Germanic there is still a
three-way contrast, with *d > [t] (unaspirated), *dh > [d]
(alternating with [D]), and *t > [th] (aspirated).  The final step of
the shift, frication of [th] to [T], and subsequently transfer of the
aspiration to [t] < *d and split of the [d] ~ [D] allophones, was
probably still to come.

In this situation, we would expect Celtic *d to be borrowed in
Germanic as either *d or *t (depending on phonological context), while
Celtic *t (=[th]) was borrowed as Germanic *th (> *T).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl


From edsel at glo.be  Sat Dec  2 12:50:15 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 13:50:15 +0100
Subject: Celtic Germanic relationship
Message-ID: <SAT.2.DEC.2000.135015.0100.>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott at stratos.net>
To: <Indo-European at xkl.com>
Sent: Friday, December 01, 2000 7:52 AM
Subject: Re[2]: Celtic Germanic relationship

> What about Goth. <andbahts>, OHG <ampahti>, ON <amba'tt> (specialized
> to 'bondswoman'), etc., from Celt. <ambactus> 'Dienstmann' (here with
> Latin ending)? Or OHG <Walh> from the Celtic tribal name <Volcae>?
> They appear to offer evidence for PIE *k -> PGmc *h.

[Ed Selleslagh]

In Dutch we still have the word <ambacht>, which in toponyms (e.g. Veurne
Ambacht in West-Flanders) means the area of authority of an 'amman'
(<ambachtman), a kind of medieval sheriff. [ch = ach-laut].

The other meaning is 'handicraft', and a modern 'ambachtsman' is an artisan, a
craftsman.

Ed.


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Dec  2 18:18:42 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 12:18:42 -0600
Subject: Pagans in AS England, etc.
Message-ID: <SAT.2.DEC.2000.121842.0600.>

> One should also note that on the Continent, Christianity survived.
> Anglo-Saxon England became as purely pagan as Scandinavia.

        This is actually a serious problem for the traditional
"Germanophilic" interpretation of the AS conquest, since though pagan
burials are common in the SE, they are rare to non-existent in most of what
later became Wessex, Mercia, and Northumbria, despite the fact that these
areas were, at least nominally, pagan.  It seems then that most of the
population of these areas consisted of Christian Britons, which would also
explain why there were no violent popular pagan relapses in these areas,
though there were in the SE.  These are precisely the areas where apparent
Celticisms (more precisely Brittonicisms), which are often very difficult to
explain as internally motivated, appear during the Middle English period.
        On a related point, it is not a problem for my views, or a surprise,
that the population of eastern England should appear to be genetically
closer to the Danes than to the Welsh (even if this is not to some extent
due to the Danes themselsves).  As I have noted before, Celticisms in ME
appear in the North and West (broadly defined so as to include a good part
of the Midands), and there is absolutely no significant linguistic evidence
for "Celtic survival" in the SE and East Anglia.  Also, it shoud be noted
that the idea that the inhabitants of England should, if I am right, show
genetic similarity to the Welsh involves a subtle circularity, since it is
only true if the modern inhabitants of Wales are descendants of "English"
Britons driven off to Wales during the AS conquest, which is precisely what
is (among other things) at issue.
        I should also make it clear that I do not regard the Anglo-Saxons as
being like the Normans in being only a land-owning aristocracy spread thinly
across the land.  It is clear that even in the North and West there were
Anglo-Saxon colonies, which is to say that the Anglos-Saxons exerted control
over the land in much the same way that the Romans did, through a
combination of land-owning aristocracy and colonizing peasantry. This does
not mean, in either case, that the original inhabitants were exterminated or
expelled, or even numerically dominated.

                                                        Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Dec  2 19:46:26 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 13:46:26 -0600
Subject: Mutual Comprehensibility of Middle West Low Germanic
Message-ID: <SAT.2.DEC.2000.134626.0600.>

        It is my vague impression that Middle English, esp. Kentish, which
is very conservative, would have been mutually comprehensible with Middle
Dutch.  Any opinions?

                                                         Dr. David L. White


From ibonewits at neopagan.net  Sun Dec  3 16:14:14 2000
From: ibonewits at neopagan.net (Isaac Bonewits)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 11:14:14 -0500
Subject: Hittite class article
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.111414.0500.>

An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education tells of a successful
Hittite teacher: http://chronicle.com/free/2000/12/2000120101t.htm

"Students in Davidson College's "Beginning Hittite" class are
learning an ancient language while alternately bent over computer
keyboards and clay tablets."

cheers,
Isaac B.
--
*******************************************************************
* Isaac Bonewits <bonewits at warwick.net> <http://www.neopagan.net> *
* Snailmail: Black Dirt PG, ADF, Box 372, Warwick, NY 10990-0372  *
*******************************************************************


From bronto at pobox.com  Sun Dec  3 23:30:43 2000
From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 15:30:43 -0800
Subject: yan tan tethera pethera pimp
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.153043.0800.>

roslyn frank wrote:
> Can anyone provide other bibliographic references concerning
> this shepherd's counting vocabulary?

Brief mention in Karl Menninger, <Zahlwort und Ziffer: eine
Kulturgeschichte der Zahlen> (1957-8), translated by Paul Broneer as
<Number Words and Number Symbols: a Cultural History of Numbers> (MIT
Press 1969, Dover 1992); see pp 124-5 of the English edition.

--
Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Mon Dec  4 15:05:08 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 10:05:08 -0500
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.20001202075153.0076bf84@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.100508.0500.>

	Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia of Mythology & Folklore [or some
similar title] has a dated but interesting entry on it with bibliography

>Can anyone provide other bibliographic references concerning this
>shepherd's counting vocabulary?

>Thanks,
>Roz Frank

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From cristim at smart.ro  Sun Dec  3 19:29:27 2000
From: cristim at smart.ro (Cristian Mocanu)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 21:29:27 +0200
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.212927.0200.>

I'd like to make a brief contribution as to the Anglo-Saxon and Irish
missionaries to the Continental Germans.
Among the Anglo-Saxon missionaries to Germany and the Lower Countries, the
most famous is, undoubtedly, St. Boniface, former Abbott of Exeter, apostle
of Thuringia and martyred by the Frisians around 754 AD. There were others,
including St.Willibrord and some whose name I cannot recall now.
    Concerning the Irish missionaries to the continent, they had an extreme
importance for the spread and maintenance of Christianity. St. Columban and
St. Gall were among the most important.
A lot of them were missionaries in the Saxon Kingdoms of England and
certainly learned their language. For the topic in discussion, the most
relevant case would be that of St. Fursey. Born in Tuam, Ireland, he spent
some years as missionary among the Saxons of East Anglia and was then
instrumental in the conversion of the Franks, being well received by Clovis
himself.
    As for St. Brendan, according to Martin Wallace's "Book of Celtic
Saints" (Appletree Press, Dublin, 1995), there is no evidence in Dutch
documents or tradition of his presence in the Lower Countries. However, the
well-known Mediaeval story known as "Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis" had,
according to the above-mentioned source, a very early version in Flemish.The
popularity enjoyed by St.Brendan and the "Navigatio" in the Lower Countries
is, by no means, separable from the presence of Irish monk-scholars at the
beginnings of the local Christianity.
Incidentally, a good website for biographies of Saints, including those in
the 2-nd half of the first millenium AD, which tend to be less known, is
that of the Catholic Encyclopaedia:
www.newadvent.com/cathen/

         Best regards,
          Cristian


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Sun Dec  3 22:11:00 2000
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 17:11:00 -0500
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.171100.0500.>

On Fri, 1 Dec 2000 04:06:38 EST, JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:
>  Eg., shepherd's counting vocabulary
> in many parts of northern and western England is transparently Welsh ...
> but the form of the numerals shows that these are loans from medieval
> Welsh, not survivals from Brythonic!

Or, Brythonic in what is now England managed to go through all or some of
the same changes as in Wales (consonant lenition, vowel shifts) as in Wales
before its speakers forgot their language and learned Anglo-Saxon. E.g. an
Anglo-Saxon record says that the Selwood forest in Wessex was called Silva
Magna in Latin and Coitmaur in "British", whereas the old Common Celtic
word for "big" was "mo:r-" (and in Gaelic still is).


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Dec  3 21:57:52 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 16:57:52 -0500
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
In-Reply-To: <b1.3f1249d.2759e3bc@aol.com>
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.165752.0500.>

	The ruling class of post-Roman pre-Islamic Hispania was Visigothic.
Their attempts to maintain their own culture and keep themselves apart from
the bottom 95% or so of the population did not endear them to the vast
majority, who appear to have sat out the Islamic invasion.

>In a message dated 12/1/00 10:01:05 PM Mountain Standard Time,
>HSTAHLKE at gw.bsu.edu writes:

><< a Saudi student who is specialized in early Islamic scholarship mentioned
>that Arabic documents dealing with the 8th c. Muslim invasions of the Iberian
>Peninsula mention fighting against Goths.  >>

>-- operating from memory, I seem to recall that a number of Gothic prisoners
>of war were settled in western Anatolia around the time of Justinian, and
>formed a unit in the Byzantine armed forces for some time.

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Mon Dec  4 01:27:43 2000
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 20:27:43 EST
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.202743.EST.>

In a message dated 12/3/00 3:01:12 PM Mountain Standard Time,
Tristan at MAIL.SCM-RPG.COM.AU writes:

>Did the Anglo-Saxon arrivals slaughter and do genocide on Celtic peoples of
>Britanna before settleing in new areas.

-- they wouldn't have to.  Simple general vandalism and terror would have
about the same effect and be a lot less work than physically killing enormous
numbers of people.  Hunger and disease are more efficient, although it _is_
possible to slaughter huge numbers with hand weapons; we've seen a recent
example of that in Rwanda.

One has to keep in mind that preindustrial subsistence-peasant economies are
inherently fragile; they're always on the verge of a demographic crash.

Losing one harvest means severe hunger; losing two or three means mass
famine, and the epidemic disease which always accompanies it; and both are
made worse if people feel compelled to flee their homes.

If the loss of a couple of harvests is accompanied by the loss of capital
assets -- working livestock, seed grain, wagons, tools, herds, farm buildings
-- you get a catastrophe which may take centuries to recover from.
Populations can crash to a small percentage of their original size.
Successful farming requires a fair degree of physical security; you may be
able to hide your cattle for a short while, but you can't move fields,
grain-stores, plows or barns.

There are numerous examples of this in European and Middle Eastern history;
eg., the enormous population lossess suffered in Central Europe during the 30
Years War, or in Ireland during the mid-17th century.  Again, it's not battle
and massacre which do the real damage; it's the aftermath of lost food
production and refugee movements.

Historical sources from the late Roman period indicate widespread
depopulation in coastal areas subject to repeated raids by Saxon pirates --
along the coast of Brittany and around the mouth of the Loire, for example,
where settlement was abandoned except for a few defended sites.

Judging from those sources, and from the extensive defensive works the Romans
put up along the "Saxon Shore" in Britain, together with archaeological
evidence from the source areas of the "Saxons" (the modern Netherlands,
Frisia, Schleiswig and southern Denmark) there must have been at least
hundreds, and possibly several thousand, war-boats operating in the area
throughout the fourth and fifth centuries.  Besides sea-born attacks on Roman
territory, raiding against other Germanic tribes was incessant.

It was a fairly close analogue of the Viking period, although the ship
technology was less advanced.  Still, the vessels recovered from the period
were quite large -- up to 60 feet and better -- and capable of carrying 40-80
people each.  They could also make it from the mainland to Britain quite
quickly, and once there travel far up the rivers.  Say 20 round trips a year,
or over a thousand people moved per vessel.

And Britannia was getting it from both directions; Irish ("Scotti") pirates
raided and laid waste all along the western shores, and Irish Gaels made
settlements in the vacated territories in the wake of the reivers.

The one in Argyle which later became the core of the Scottish kingdom of
Dalradia was the best known, but there were smaller nests all along the coast
of the Roman province southward.

So the Romano-Britons were being squeezed from both directions, and by
Pictish raiders coming overland and along the coasts from the north.  There
was a massive eruption in the late 4th century that saw devastation as far
south as London, and another shortly thereafter; and after 406 CE, the
central government structure broke down completely.

Most of the more Romanized portions of the province were utterly defenseless;
they'd been demilitarized for centuries.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Mon Dec  4 01:31:30 2000
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 20:31:30 EST
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.203130.EST.>

In a message dated 12/3/00 3:45:11 PM Mountain Standard Time,
roz-frank at uiowa.edu writes:

>Can anyone provide other bibliographic references concerning this
>shepherd's counting vocabulary?

-- article in the July edition of _British Archaeology_, to which the
following reply was made in the October issue (#48):

"The Brythonic branch of Celtic spoken in Britain at the time of the
Anglo-Saxon settlement subsequently divided into three branches - Breton,
Cornish and Welsh. Had the sheep-counting numerals been an independent
survival from the P-Celtic speech of northern Britain, they might be expected
to retain aspects of the original system. The inclusion in the sheep-counting
scores of features which, although occurring in Modern Welsh, are not found
in the cognate Celtic languages, and which can be shown in fact to have
developed only in Middle Welsh, shows that the scores must share a common
ancestor with Modern Welsh but not with Cornish and Breton.

The strongest evidence for this comes from the second decade of the scores
listed by Mr Gay. Welsh numerals of the second decade are formed by adding to
the two fixed points of `deg' (ten), and `pymtheg' (fifteen), and this is the
method also employed by the sheep-counting scores. It is not, however, the
system found in Cornish and Breton, whose only fixed point is `ten', and it
appears that this was also the case in Old Welsh. Moreover, the use in Welsh
of the preposition ar in the formation of the second-decade numeral is a
later innovation which again is echoed in the sheep-counting numerals.

Various dialects in northern England do retain hints of the British language,
but these traces are confined to a few individual words in the vocabulary,
such as the use in Yorkshire of the term `brat' for a rough working apron,
derived from the British term bratt (cloak). The sheep scores must be
attributed to more recent contacts with Celtic speakers, such as the Welsh
lead miners of Yorkshire."


From mcv at wxs.nl  Mon Dec  4 02:45:07 2000
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 03:45:07 +0100
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
In-Reply-To: <b1.3f1249d.2759e3bc@aol.com>
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.034507.0100.>

On Sat, 2 Dec 2000 00:33:48 EST, JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

>In a message dated 12/1/00 10:01:05 PM Mountain Standard Time,
>HSTAHLKE at gw.bsu.edu writes:

><< a Saudi student who is specialized in early Islamic scholarship mentioned
>that Arabic documents dealing with the 8th c. Muslim invasions of the Iberian
>Peninsula mention fighting against Goths.  >>

>-- operating from memory, I seem to recall that a number of Gothic prisoners
>of war were settled in western Anatolia around the time of Justinian, and
>formed a unit in the Byzantine armed forces for some time.

Most likely, the reference was to the conquest of the Visigothic
Kingdom of Spain by the Umayyad Caliphate (711).

(Peninsular) Spaniards are still called "Goths" (Godos) in the Canary
Is. and parts of Spanish America.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Mon Dec  4 10:53:43 2000
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 05:53:43 -0500
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.055343.0500.>

On Fri, 1 Dec 2000 23:19:10 -0500, Tristan Jones
<Tristan at MAIL.SCM-RPG.COM.AU> wrote:
> Means Britian's population in that era could have dropped from around 2.5
> million people (most likely estimate) to about 1 million and possibly a
> very
> low Celtic speaking population if we want the Anglo-Saxons to be about
> 30-50% the population order to compeltely wipe out the Celtic language and
> replace it with West Germanic. ...
> I know I hate asking this sort of question, however I must ask it
> Did the Anglo-Saxon arrivals slaughter and do genocide on Celtic peoples
> of Britanna before settleing in new areas.

Likelier the cause was natural causes. As I wrote in a recent message, there
is evidence that in AD535 something, likeliest a massive volcanic eruption
in Indonesia, darkened the sky so badly across the world that AD535 and
AD536 harvests were wiped out, causing massive famine.

I have also seen speculation about a Tunguska-type asteroid or comet
fragment impact in the English Midlands about this time. I read in a
separate source that in the 19th and early 20th century: peat diggers in
Ashton Moss and White Moss northeast of Manchester found under the peat
fallen forests of big trees all lying in the same direction, some broken off
their stumps, some showing fire damage, and some Roman pottery and coins on
the old ground surface.


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sun Dec  3 23:07:45 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 17:07:45 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.170745.0600.>

> That is it in itself is suprising, we must ask this question, Was Latin or a
> dialect of it spoken by the common people (not just the elite) in Britain
> around 5th century, like in Gaul, where a similar although might be smaller
> mirgation of Germanic speakers arrived around fall of Roman Empire. I think
> Latin was an language of elite only in Britain, would things be different if
> a Brito-Romance language was spoken by the common people instead of Celtic
> languages.

        Yes, in my view.  England would probably now be Romance territory.
But it is quite clear that, outside of the London area which was especially
hard hit by Anglo-Saxons, Latin/Romance was not established among the common
people.  This is shown among other things by the fact that the quality of
British Latin in this period is unusually good, indicating that it was
insulated from "vulgarizing" developments on the Continent, where Latin
really was established.  British Latin was a language learned in schools.

> Means Britian's population in that era could have dropped from around 2.5
> million people (most likely estimate) to about 1 million and possibly a
> very low Celtic speaking population if we want the Anglo-Saxons to be about
> 30-50% the population order to compeltely wipe out the Celtic language and
> replace it with West Germanic. We must ask the question how could a large
> population decline that far? what were the causes of it?

        It probably couldn't.  If there was a cause, it was probably the
plague of Justinian, which strangely enough seems to have somehow missed the
Anglo-Saxons (strongly indicating minimal contact across the frontier).  But
this is too late (around 550) to have had any effect on weakening the
Britons before the fisrt phase of the Conquest.  It was only after the
plague of Justinian had done its work that the AS conquest resumed.  Prior
to that, most observers would probably have guessed that the island was
likely to be partitioned indefinitely between the two sides, like Cyprus or
Hispaniola.

> I know I hate asking this sort of question, however I must ask it
> Did the Anglo-Saxon arrivals slaughter and do genocide on Celtic peoples
> of Britanna before settleing in new areas.

        Almost certainly not.  Enslavment (or enserfment) is much more
profitable than extermination/expulsion, and is the general practice of
conquerors.  People do not risk their lives so that they can spend the rest
of them looking at the back siide of an ox.

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Mon Dec  4 01:34:13 2000
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 20:34:13 EST
Subject: Mutual Comprehensibility of Middle West Low Germanic
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.203413.EST.>

In a message dated 12/3/00 5:37:12 PM Mountain Standard Time,
dlwhite at texas.net writes:

<<  It is my vague impression that Middle English, esp. Kentish, which
 is very conservative, would have been mutually comprehensible with Middle
 Dutch.  Any opinions? >>

-- with Frisian perhaps, but I wouldn't have thought with Netherlandish, at
that date. (14th century?).


From ruschep at nevada.edu  Mon Dec  4 02:14:25 2000
From: ruschep at nevada.edu (Philip Rusche)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 18:14:25 -0800
Subject: Mutual Comprehensibility of Middle West Low Germanic
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.181425.0800.>

I have never heard that Kentish was particularly conservative.  It might
have been more conservative grammatically than northern dialects, but its
vowel system went through a number of changes in the OE period and in the ME
period it tended to voice its fricatives (at least /f/ and /s/) initially.

Whether this would make it mutually intelligible with Middle Dutch or not, I
do not know, but I wouldn't think they would be and have never seen any
evidence that says they were.  Most of the Middle Dutch I have worked with
though has been from 14th- and 15th-century manuscripts and this might be
later than you are thinking of.

Philip Rusche

> It is my vague impression that Middle English, esp. Kentish, which
> is very conservative, would have been mutually comprehensible with Middle
> Dutch.  Any opinions?

>                                                          Dr. David L. White


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Mon Dec  4 05:41:50 2000
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 00:41:50 EST
Subject: Elite Dominance/Practicality
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.004150.EST.>

In a message dated 12/1/2000 11:00:14 PM, cristim at smart.ro writes:
<< Again to the best of my knowledge, apart from the Slavs, the following
language groups were represented in the Pannonian plains (roughly
post-Trianon Hungary) at some stage during the period between 300 and 1000
A.D.:
-Turkic and other Altaic languages: Avaric (see below), Bulgar, Cuman, Hunic,
Pechenegue.

-Germanic languages: Eastern Gothic, Gepidic, Baiuvaric ( questionable)

-Uralic languages: Hungarian

-Romance languages: Old (or Common) Romanian (Urrumaenisch, according to the
terminology used by Puscariu,1916).>>

Just a quick note. Add in (first millenium AD):
- Celtic inscriptions were found in Pannonia dating from the 4th century AD.
The Boii are placed in Pannonia as their new home by Ptolemy in the 2d
century AD.
- Iazyges Sarmatians held the land just east of the big bend in the Danube in
Pannonia about 250 AD and for some time afterward.
- Early "Germanic" tribes listed by Roman and Greek geographers (e.g.,
Scordisi).
- Dacian. (Many old maps of the Empire put the west border of the province
Dacia at about the river Tisza.)  I believe Thracian inscriptions have also
been found, 4th c. AD.  These may have been associated with Legion settlements.
- Classic Latin (as opposed to Old Rumanian).
- Byzantine Greek
- Frankish?

<<The actual fact of the possible co-existence of some (or most) of these
languages on a small territory should not , in my opinion, be judged by
comparison with some or another American state. Rather, we should think that
the period we are discussing is that of the great migration of peoples:some of
the above cited populations were just "passing through", others stayed for
smaller or longer periods of time, some others wandered back and forth in
search of better grazing fields etc. Furthermore there was no question yet of
a centralized state, standardized languages etc. >>

Well, really what you have is a major thoroughfare going through the region -
the Danube and a number of important river junctions - and that would have
attracted diverse people to "set up shop" simply on the basis of economics.
In such a situation, the advantage might go to those who could speak many of
the languages at any moment in time.  Or to those who adopted a more
universal language that could transcend the differences between languages.
There was a period of time when Latin would have satisfied that function.
But with its passing as the universal tongue, the region would have been ripe
for another common language and Magyar might have supplied it - without the
Magyars ever forcing anyone to speak the language.

Regards,
Steve Long


From CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU  Mon Dec  4 02:12:18 2000
From: CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU (CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 20:12:18 -0600
Subject: Celtic Germanic relationship
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.201218.0600.>

>From:	IN%"Indo-European at xkl.com"  3-DEC-2000 17:36:54.83
>Subj:	RE: Re[2]: Celtic Germanic relationship

>On Fri, 1 Dec 2000 01:52:23 -0500, "Brian M. Scott"
><BMScott at stratos.net> wrote:

>>>> Eg., the PrtGrmc word for "iron" is a Celtic loan, as are several
>>>> other terms (ruler and servant, for instance) and the form of these
>>>> loans indicates that they were borrowed before the first Germanic
>>>> sound-shift, since it underwent that change.

>>BJE> Do these loans provide evidence for all three consonant grades?
>>BJE> The only words that come to mind are *i:sarn- (iron) and *ri:k- (power),
>>BJE> which only provide evidence for PIE *g -> PGmc *k.

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal replied:

>>What about Goth. <andbahts>, OHG <ampahti>, ON <amba'tt> (specialized
>>to 'bondswoman'), etc., from Celt. <ambactus> 'Dienstmann' (here with
>>Latin ending)? Or OHG <Walh> from the Celtic tribal name <Volcae>?
>>They appear to offer evidence for PIE *k -> PGmc *h.

The former could as well be attributed to a long-standing synchronic rule of
Germanic: /-kt- -gt-/ -> [xt].

>On the other hand, a word like Celt. (*bhle:wos >) *bli:wos > Gmc.
>*bli:waz "lead" (German <Blei>) offers no evidence for *b -> *p (nor
>does *ambaktos -> *ambahtaz).

This one is thorny for several reasons: Celtic /b/ typically reflects PIE /bh/
rather than rare /b/, and it is far from clear whether (traditional) PIE voiced
stops and voiced aspirates would already have merged in (pre)-Celtic at the
time of the borrowing.  Nor is it clear that _Blei_ was actually borrowed from
Celtic: PIE _*bhleHiwo-_ (e-coloring laryngeal) would produce exactly the right
outcome and relate neatly with _Blech_ 'sheetmetal' < _*bhlHi-go-_, which
cannot be Celtic.

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


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sun Dec  3 22:50:15 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 16:50:15 -0600
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.165015.0600.>

        I believe Polome wrote his dissertation (Brussels) on this subject.
You might want to see what he said.

                                                       Dr. David L. White


From CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU  Mon Dec  4 02:23:39 2000
From: CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU (CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 20:23:39 -0600
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.202339.0600.>

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:

>In Collinge's "The Laws of Indo-European", under "Siever's Law II"
>(i.e. the development of PIE *gwh), reference is made to a work by
>Seebold 1967 ("Die Vertretung idg. *gwh- in Germanischen", KZ
>81.104-133).  In Collinge's summary table, it is stated that "*/gwh/"
>gives /b/ in initial position (except before /u/).

The idea is not original with Seebold, but was already proposed in the 19th
century, though I do not remember by whom.  I thought I could spare you by
referring you to Seebolds _Vergleichendes etymologisches Woerterbuch der
germanischen starken Verben_, but a quick survey of the entries does look as if
_bitten_ is the only strong very showing this development.  So I guess there's
no substitute for checking the original article.  Of course, it's no surprise
that Pokorny doesn't accept it, since he doeasn't accept much of anything after
1900.

Regards

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


From xavier.delamarre at free.fr  Mon Dec  4 20:45:31 2000
From: xavier.delamarre at free.fr (Xavier Delamarre)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 21:45:31 +0100
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
In-Reply-To: <m3ng2tc9uda503tvd9a3ig9723h4f29rak@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.214531.0100.>

le 2/12/00 3:36, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal ? mcv at wxs.nl a ?crit?:

> In Collinge's "The Laws of Indo-European", under "Siever's Law II"
> (i.e. the development of PIE *gwh), reference is made to a work by
> Seebold 1967 ("Die Vertretung idg. *gwh- in Germanischen", KZ
> 81.104-133).  In Collinge's summary table, it is stated that "*/gwh/"
> gives /b/ in initial position (except before /u/).  What is this
> about?  Pokorny doesn't seem to recognize this development, and the
> only root with initial *gwh- that I found in Pokorny and that I was
> able to link to initial *b- in Germanic would be *gwhedh- "bitten,
> begehren".  (I thought if anybody here knows, I might spare myself the
> inconvenience of getting hold of the appropiate issue of Kuhn's
> Zeitschrift ...)

> =======================
> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
> mcv at wxs.nl

It is Seebold's personnal invention that IE *gwh- becomes Germanic b-. His
edition of Kluge's "Etym. W?rterb. der deutschen Spr." (22. Auflage, 1989)
uses the law aboundently, e.g. _b?hen_ < *ghwre:- (p 54), _bitten_ <
*ghwedh-, OIr. guidid etc. (p. 88).

It has been rejected by some linguists (Polom?) but accepted by others like
Calvert Watkins (see his "IE Roots" : Eng. bane < OEng. bana < germ. *bano:n
< IE *gwhen- 'strike', and his "How to kill a Dragon", 423).

I find the law very convincing.

The discovery in the last decades that IE *ghw- becomes b- in Germanic and
w- in Gaulish is the best proof that IE comparative grammar is not a dead
science and can still undergo improvements.

XD


From dlwhite at texas.net  Mon Dec  4 16:50:40 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 10:50:40 -0600
Subject: Thorn and Edh in OE
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.105040.0600.>

        'Tis a minor matter, but it is not true (as was pointed out long ago
by Stockwell and Barritt in their rejoinder to Hockett), that in OE thorn
and edh are used indiscriminately.  The general pattern (which unfortunately
is not strong enough to be a rule) is that thorn is used initially and edh
is used after vowels.  (Usage vacillates even more than usual in
environments not captured by one of these formulations.)
Even Kuhn, a veritably rabid anti-Hibernicist generally, was forced to
admit, soto voce, that this distribution probably reflects influence from
Irish spelling, where a distinction between intial and post-vocalic
environments is usual (and for various obscure reasons necessary).  It
appears that the original rule was to use "th" initially and "d"
post-vocalicaly, and that when thorn and edh replaced these, they inherited
this distribution.
        The odd thing is that in Irish post-vocalic "d" should, under
ordinary circumstances, spell /dh/, not /th/.  But cases like "peccad"
versus "peccath" show that there was some confusion on this point.  It seems
that, in final position, "d" was accepted as a spelling for /th/ in Irish.
This is made more likely by the fact that the "d" spellings are younger,
which would, if taken literally, indicate that the opposite of final
devocing had occurred.  Given the example of other languages, this does not
seem likely.


From dlwhite at texas.net  Mon Dec  4 22:46:10 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 16:46:10 -0600
Subject: Coifi
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.164610.0600.>

        Before I get reaked over the coals for not knowing something that I
do know, speaking of Germanic priests, and whether or not they existed,
there is always Coifi of Bedean fame.  On this I have two questions:

        1)  Since the early Germans presumably did not have priests (except
for mixed "chieftain"-priests as in Iceland, but Coifi was clearly not one
of these), what is Coifi doing there?  (And I seem to recall, however
vaguely, that he is not the only pagan priest mentioned by Bede.)
        2) Since OE presumably did not have /oi/, what is the /oi/ in his
name doing there?  He should have been "Cafi", with long /a/.  Or perhaps
"Coefi", but even then Germanic /o/ exists only in foreign borrowings or
where restored by analogy.

        So something is not quite right here ...

                                                        Dr. David L. White


From cristim at smart.ro  Sun Dec  3 18:36:21 2000
From: cristim at smart.ro (Cristian Mocanu)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 20:36:21 +0200
Subject: Herceg
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.203621.0200.>

    A quick note on Herceg in Serbo-Croatian:
  Germ.Herzog<Hung.herceg<S.-Cr.herceg.
                                      Cristian


From bronto at pobox.com  Sun Dec  3 21:28:01 2000
From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 13:28:01 -0800
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (was: minimal pairs ex: PIE e/o
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.132801.0800.>

Robert Whiting <whiting at cc.helsinki.fi> wrote:
> . . . you may have noticed that IPA is the International PHONETIC
> Alphabet, not the *International PHONEMIC Alphabet. . . .

And yet this here booklet "The Principles of the International Phonetic
Association" (1949, reprinted 1974) contains both narrow (phonetic) and
broad (phonemic) transcriptions in IPA.

--
Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Mon Dec  4 10:44:16 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 10:44:16 +0000
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.104416.0000.>

Gabor Sandi writes:

> On the other hand, the same phoneme occurs in each member of the following
> pairs of words, despite the obvious differences in pronunciation:

> lick - fall  : both have the phoneme /l/, even though one is "clear", the
> other is "dark" (this is true for England - I believe that in the US, both
> /l/'s have a "dark" pronunciation)

Indeed.  In North America, and in much of Scotland, /l/ is always dark,
while in Wales and in Ireland it is always clear.

Phonetically intriguing, however, is the southeast of England, in which
syllable-final /l/ is entirely delateralized and realized as something
resembling [o].  So, 'field' is [fiod], 'milk' is [mIok], 'hill' is [hIo],
and 'feel' is [fio].  However, 'feeling' is still [filIN], with a clear [l],
and so I suppose we must still analyze this [o] as an allophone of /l/.

> calm - kitten        : both have /k/, even though one is velar, the other
> palatal

Agreed.  I can see no plausible alternative to regarding both sounds as
allophones of /k/.

> pet - spin   : both have  /p/, even though one is aspirated, the other not

More complicated.  The ordinary contrast between /p/ and /b/ is neutralized
in this position.  Our orthography writes <p>, and our intuitions --
at least among those of us who are literate -- is that this voiceless
unaspirated [p] is still /p/.  But there is another analysis, in which
this [p] is assigned instead to the phoneme /b/.  Hardly anybody has
ever seen this second analysis as attractive, but I don't think we can
simply dismiss it as plainly wrong.

Here is a proposal -- not too serious.  English syllable-initial /s/
can only ever be followed by a voiced consonant: /b d g v l m n w/, and
possibly one or two others, such as /y/.  But this following voiced
consonant is always partly or wholly devoiced by the preceding /s/.

As far as I can see, this analysis can only be falsified by an accent
in which the initial cluster of 'sphere' is phonetically distinguished
from the initial cluster of 'svelte', thus requiring us to set up both
/sf-/ and /sv-/.

> However, [x] and [?] are beginning to go their separate ways in German, and
> to act like separate phonemes, just as bilabial [f] and laryngeal [h] do in
> Japanese (see my argument in the previous message). If you won't take my word
> for it, read the most recent edition of Duden's German Grammar, in which
> there is a very interesting discussion of exactly this issue. The main piece
> of evidence is from recent loanwords like Chalikose [?aliko:zE] and
> Chanukka [xanuka], showing that, at least before initial /a/, there is now a
> potential contrast, and we have a nascent phonemic contrast on our hands.

This is *extremely* interesting.  Many thanks for the report.

> <RW>I'm surprised that you haven't included /x/ as an English fricative.
> Although once present and then lost, is has surely been borrowed back in
> words like 'ach', 'loch' and names like 'Bach'.

> <GS>Actually, I'd rather include the phone [x] as the allophone of /h/ in
> word-final position. Of course, if you consider channukkah and chutzpah as
> part of English, /x/ will have to be included as a new phoneme.

I'm not convinced of this.  The sound [x] is used only by a minority
of speakers, mainly well-educated speakers -- Scotland excepted -- and
I think we might more plausibly regard its presence as a sign that the
word containing it is regarded as foreign and as incompletely anglicized.
After all, educated speakers often pronounce loanwords from French in
a self-consciously more-or-less French manner: 'genre', 'croissant',
'joie de vivre', and others.  But I don't think anybody would want
to take this observation as evidence that English has acquired a few
new phonemes.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Mon Dec  4 12:36:24 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 12:36:24 +0000
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (PS)
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.123624.0000.>

This is a follow-up to my earlier posting, on foreign words and
names.

It is noteworthy that there are at least two ways of treating
foreign words and names: nativization and retention of foreign
phonological features.  These often compete.

For example, take the Spanish name 'Don Juan'.  In Britain, the
tradition is to anglicize this name, and so to pronounce the last
part as 'JOO- at n'.  This is obvious in Byron's poem 'Don Juan', in
which the name is constantly rhymed with things like 'new one' and
'true one'.  In the US, the tradition is to retain the Spanish
pronunciation as far as possible, and hence to say 'HWAHN', or,
these days, 'WAHN'.  But the second pronunciation has been steadily
gaining ground in Britain, and it is now recommended by John Wells
in his pronouncing dictionary as the preferred UK pronunciation,
though the traditional 'JOO- at n' is still listed as a permissible,
but disfavored, alternative.

Similar is 'Don Quixote', where the British tradition is 'KWIKS- at t',
while the US one is 'kee-HOH-tay'.  Astoundingly, John Wells
recommends the first not only for Brits but even for Yanks.
I think he must be wrong here.  I never, ever, heard 'KWIKS- at t'
before I came to Britain, and I didn't believe it when I did
hear it.  Even so, my US dictionary gives 'KWIKS- at t' as a second-
choice pronunciation.  Does anybody in the US really say this?
And do most Brits really still say 'KWIKS- at t'?  Not at my university,
I think.

Another example is the name 'Goethe', which is a little harder to
anglicize.  In my experience, most academics use a German-style
pronunciation.  However, John Wells recommends for Brits what I will
write as 'GUR-t@', except, of course, that the <r> there is not
pronounced.  Amazingly, he gives 'GAY-t@' -- something like 'gator' --
as the preferred US pronunciation, even though I don't think I ever
heard this in my 25 years in the States.  Can any Yanks confirm this?
My US dictionary gives *only* the German-style pronunciation, which
is what I usually heard in the States, except that my high-school
English teacher called him 'GUR-thee', a pronunciation I have never
heard from anyone else.

In the other direction, the tradition in Spain has usually been to
hispanize foreign names.  So, for example, the name 'Shakespeare'
has traditionally been pronounced 'shah-keh-speh-AH-reh', with five
syllables, stress on the fourth syllable, and completely Spanish
phonology apart from the retention of the non-native esh.  In recent
years, however, it has come to be regarded as more fashionable to
reproduce the English pronunciation as closely as possible, typically
producing something like 'SHEH-keh-speer'.  Some years ago, a
distinguished Spanish academic appeared on TV, and he used the
traditional five-syllable version.  He was widely laughed at,
even though he was merely expressing a preference for the traditional
policy over the modern one.  But I have the impression that the
traditional policy is very much on the way out in Spain, on the
whole anyway.  Yet Spaniards, in my experience, still pronounce
'Mozart' as though it were a Spanish <Mozar>, with theta, final
stress, and no /t/.  Is this still the norm in Spanish?

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Sun Dec  3 22:00:52 2000
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 17:00:52 -0500
Subject: [Fwd: [ArchTheoMeth] genes and languages--Kurds and Georgians]
Message-ID: <SUN.3.DEC.2000.170052.0500.>

Geoffrey Summers <summers at metu.edu.tr> forwarded a message about
mitochondrial DNA (= mtDNA) and how it might be related to language; a
researcher compared mtDNA in Kurds and Georgians (= Kartvelians).

I read that mtDNA is transmitted from the mother only and reflects the
maternal line. If people A has a continuous habit of taking women from
people B, then B's mtDNA will come along with it. Also, mtDNA can't change
when a people is conquered by outsiders and so gradually learns another
language. People have been moving about so much that in any area their
racial types will be thoroughly mixed by now.

Sorry about this diversion into biology, but: They say that mtDNA comes
from the mother only. But I read that a spermatozoon has a few mitochondria
strapped round the base of its tail to give it power to swim. If so, how
often at fertilization does mtDNA from those mitochondria from the father,
get into the new individual? If so, that may upset studies based on mtDNA
types.


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Mon Dec  4 10:02:24 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 10:02:24 +0000
Subject: Kurds and Georgians [and Basques]
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.100224.0000.>

Geoffrey Summers writes:

[quoting]

>> The
>> genetic analysis points only to minor differences between the Georgians
>> and Kurds and the rest of the European populations and very different
>> from the Basque population (which Georgians are often linked to).  Their
>> conclusion is the linking of European mtDNA with the Indo-European
>> languages is seriously questioned.

> This came from the Archaeology and Theory list. There have been several
> responses on that list, including an objection to the position that
> Georgian and Basque are related.

Indeed.  A possible link between Basque and Kartvelian was pursued vigorously
during the period 1930-1960, and more feebly until about 1980.  The big name
here is Karl Bouda, though Georges Dumezil, Rene Lafon and Jan Braun also did
a lot of work on the topic.  All but Braun in fact tried to relate Basque not
just to Kartvelian, but to *all* the Caucasian languages -- even though the
several Caucasian families have never been shown to be related to one
another.

All this work was a hopeless failure.  Nothing of interest ever turned
up.  We have only the odd chance resemblance, like Basque <gu> 'we' and
Old Georgian <gw->, the first-plural agreement prefix in verbs.  Beyond
this, we find only laughers, like Georgian <kordzi> 'callus' and the
17th-century Basque hapax <ikorzirin> 'calluses on the hands of
workmen'.

Even the tiny handful of people still doggedly pursuing a Basque-
Caucasian link have given up on Kartvelian, and are now confining
their attention to North Caucasian -- still with no interesting results.

So far as I know, the only people still trying to relate Kartvelian to
anything at all are the Nostraticists, or some of them, who want to
put Kartvelian -- but not Basque -- into their Nostratic super-family.
Greenberg has so far committed himself to nothing with Kartvelian,
and appears to be reserving judgement, though he does suggest that
Kartvelian might be a distant relative of his Eurasiatic grouping,
though not a member of it.

The Basque-Kartvelian comparisons are all deeply flawed.

First, all are ahistorical.  They work with the modern languages,
and not with reconstructions.  In the Basque case, this was inevitable,
since Dumezil, Bouda and Lafon all did their work before Pre-Basque
was reconstructed.  Braun worked later, but ignored the reconstruction.
As a result, the "cognates" on offer are frequently ridiculous.

Second, they are all based squarely on miscellaneous resemblances,
with no phonological rhyme or reason.  A partial exception here is
Lafon, who really did try to set up some systematic correspondences
between Basque and Georgian, but without success.

In 1950, the great Basque linguist Luis Michelena, who was in fact
deeply sympathetic to a possible Basque-Caucasian link, published
a brief but scathing dismissal of the work of Bouda, the chief
malefactor here.  Michelena, in his usual terse and dry style,
demonstrated that Bouda's "comparisons" were strictly comic-book
stuff, underpinned by no linguistics at all.  An English translation
of this article will be appearing in a volume of English translations
of Michelena's articles on Basque, probably in late 2001, from John
Benjamins.  I commend it to anyone who is interested in seeing how
real linguistics differs from the accumulation of miscellaneous
resemblances.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Dec  5 10:59:54 2000
From: richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Richard Coates)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 10:59:54 +0000
Subject: yan tan tethera pethera pimp
In-Reply-To: <3A2AD7A3.7DC8A0B4@pobox.com> from "Anton Sherwood" at Dec 03,
 2000 03:30:43 PM
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.105954.0000.>

> roslyn frank wrote:

>> Can anyone provide other bibliographic references concerning
>> this shepherd's counting vocabulary?

Skeat, [Rev] Walter W. (1910) The sheep counting score. In Adelaide L.J.
Gosset (ed.) (1911) Shepherds of Britain: scenes from shepherd life.
London: Constable, 194-200.

Ellis, Alexander J. (1878) The Anglo-Cymric score. Transactions of the
Philological Society, 316-72.

Wills, Barclay (1938) Sheep-washing, marking and counting. In his
Shepherds of Sussex. London: Skeffington, 168-175.

White, James (1937) Sheep counting. Sussex County Magazine 9, 305-7.

I think the common view is now that this is likely to have been introduced to
England by Welsh drovers no earlier than the Middle Ages.

Richard Coates

--
Richard Coates
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QH, UK

Tel.: +44 (0)1273 678030 (secretary Jackie Gains)
Fax:  +44 (0)1273 671320
Email: richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Website: www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/richardc/index.html


From cjustus at mail.utexas.edu  Tue Dec  5 18:42:33 2000
From: cjustus at mail.utexas.edu (Carol F. Justus)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 12:42:33 -0600
Subject: yan tan tethera pethera pimp
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.124233.0600.>

This North Country (Welsh) counting system is dealt with (Justus, 1999,
Pre-decimal structures in counting and metrology. In: Numeral Types and
Changes Worldwide, ed. by Jadranka Gvozdanovich, 55-79. Berlin: de
Gruter.) in the context of more recent discoveries about early counting
systems in the Ancient Near East (see website with links:
http://www.dla.utexas.edu/depts/lrc/numerals/numerals.html).

Unfortunately, de Gruyter is a copyright provision that does not allow
this article to be put on the website, but others are there, and others
still in the process of being put up.

CFJ

Anton Sherwood wrote:

> roslyn frank wrote:

>> Can anyone provide other bibliographic references concerning
>> this shepherd's counting vocabulary?

> Brief mention in Karl Menninger, <Zahlwort und Ziffer: eine
> Kulturgeschichte der Zahlen> (1957-8), translated by Paul Broneer as
> <Number Words and Number Symbols: a Cultural History of Numbers> (MIT
> Press 1969, Dover 1992); see pp 124-5 of the English edition.


From dlwhite at texas.net  Tue Dec  5 18:59:15 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 12:59:15 -0600
Subject: Welsh Counting
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.125915.0600.>

> In a message dated 12/3/00 3:45:11 PM Mountain Standard Time,
> roz-frank at uiowa.edu writes:

>> Can anyone provide other bibliographic references concerning this
>> shepherd's counting vocabulary?

        The matter is treated in Klehmola(2000) "The Origins of the Northern
Subject Rule:  A Case of Early Contact", in "Celtic Englishes II, where it
is argued that both things are indeed the result of Brittonic sub-stratatal
influence.  From this work it appears that the major work on the subject is
Barry(1969) "Traditional Enumeration in the North Country", FoL 7:  75-91.
        According to Klehmola, even Barry has to admit that "the swing
toward importation [from Welsh] may have become more dogmatic than the
available evidence can justify, and indeed this has found support
principally because of the diffculties of the survival theory rather than on
acount of any positive information which has been put forward".
        Since "the difficulties of the survival theory" are critically
dependent on the evidence of Old Welsh, we must ask what exactly this is,
and more to the point whether it is enough to exclude both of the following
possibilities:
        1) That during Old Welsh times what might be called the northern and
southern Brittonic systems of counting were in competition, with only the
southern happeneing to be attested in Old Welsh, which is so scantily
attested that it is often treated for practical purposes as close to
non-existent.
        2) That the northern system might have been imported into Wales and
Welsh with the same migration (of sorts) from northwestern England that
brought Taliesin and the Gododdin.  That there were extensive Dark Age
contacts between the two areas is not controversial.

        Futhermore it may be noted the counting system in question, though
it is called the "sheep-counting numerals", is in fact used primarily by
women and children in the home environment.  This is suspicious, and
indicative of Brittonic survival, for two reasons:
        1) Dying languages typically survive longest in the home
environment.  For a counting system often used in counting games to survive
as a fossilized relict after the dying language had died out even here would
not be surprising.
        2) For English women and children to have much contact with Welsh
miners, on the other hand, or to borrow their counting system from them,
_would_ indeed be surprising.  Both opportunity and motivation are notably
lacking.

                                                        Dr. David L. White


From BMScott at stratos.net  Tue Dec  5 04:56:44 2000
From: BMScott at stratos.net (Brian M. Scott)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 23:56:44 -0500
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.20001202075153.0076bf84@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.235644.0500.>

rf> Can anyone provide other bibliographic references concerning this
rf> shepherd's counting vocabulary?

About three years ago Carol Justus gave a paper on it (or better, on
them) at the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo;
I seem to recall that she saw in them traces of early IE schemes of
number collection.  I don't know whether she's published any of this,
but failing a better recommendation you could try her at
<cjustus at mail.utexas.edu>.

Brian M. Scott


From jrader at Merriam-Webster.com  Tue Dec  5 20:26:59 2000
From: jrader at Merriam-Webster.com (Jim Rader)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 15:26:59 -0500
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
In-Reply-To: <04331812516214@m-w.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.152659.0500.>

The record in question from which the name <Coit Maur> is drawn
is Asser's Latin life of King Alfred, composed in the late 9th
century.  Asser was a Welshman and most likely substituted
traditional Welsh names for the places he mentions in Wessex and
elsewhere in Lloegr, so he is not a reliable source for Brythonic
outside of Wales.  This point was made a long time ago by
Jackson in _Language and History in Early Britain_.

Also, the vocalism of the Common Celtic word for "big" is not
necessarily <mo:r->, though the pre-Celtic etymon has been
reconstructed as such (by Lambert and others).  The attested word
has <a> in all early forms, e.g., Gaulish <-maros> in proper
names,  Old Irish <ma:r>, Welsh <mawr>.  Old Irish also has
<mo:r>, the only form retained in later Irish and Scottish Gaelic (I
think), but this may be due to the influence of the comparative
<mo:>.  At any rate, conventional wisdom is that I-E <a:> and <o:>
fell together in Common Celtic in non-final syllables.

Jim Rader

> Or, Brythonic in what is now England managed to go through all or some of
> the same changes as in Wales (consonant lenition, vowel shifts) as in Wales
> before its speakers forgot their language and learned Anglo-Saxon. E.g. an
> Anglo-Saxon record says that the Selwood forest in Wessex was called Silva
> Magna in Latin and Coitmaur in "British", whereas the old Common Celtic
> word for "big" was "mo:r-" (and in Gaelic still is).
>[Anthony Appleyard]


From rayhendon at satx.rr.com  Tue Dec  5 13:19:12 2000
From: rayhendon at satx.rr.com (Ray Hendon)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 07:19:12 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.071912.0600.>

----- Original Message -----
From: "David L. White" <dlwhite at texas.net>

>Enslavment (or enserfment) is much more profitable than extermination/
>expulsion, and is the general practice of conquerors.  People do not risk
>their lives so that they can spend the rest of them looking at the back siide
>of an ox.

>From my limited study of Saxons, Jutes and Angles, slavery (in the Roman
sense of definition) was not practiced among these peoples.  Their "slaves"
were local people who had been such bad farmers that they could not take
care of their families and had to assign themselves to another member of the
tribal group.  Furthermore, their "slaves" were not doomed to be permanently
enslaved.  They could dig themselves out of slavery and resume their normal
life as a citizen if they prospered under the domain of their master.

Furthermore, I am not certain, but it looks to me as if the farming and
hunting conditions of England were not especially suited for slave
ownership.  Slaves were tradtionally used in enterprises where the
production of the slave was so high as to be able to support not only the
physical needs of the slave but have a substantial surplus for the owner to
enjoy.  This is the reason that farms in early New England were unsuitable
for slaves.  Large farms with highly productive soil or mines with valuable
mineral deposits might be suitable for slaves, but not small land parcels of
typical AS farms and woodlands.

One other note on the process of the AS incursion and the development of
English: It is quite apparent that the AS people brought their women with
them, so that the language of the new-born would be that of the mother.  If
they had taken local wives, then the Celtic language would have had a much
longer life and would seemingly influence the new language that would
ultimately develop from the migration.

To me these suppositions and inferences point to the Celts being either
killed or completely displaced by the invaders.  But I am open to other
possibilities.


From hwhatting at hotmail.com  Tue Dec  5 09:46:30 2000
From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 10:46:30 +0100
Subject: Polish in Turkey
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.104630.0100.>

On Thu, 16 Nov 2000 10:09:52 +0000 Larry Trask wrote:

>There are a few other
>odds and ends.  When I was living in Turkey, I was told that there
>was a single Polish-speaking village somewhere in the middle of
>the country.  I never got to see it, but anyway I doubt that Polish
>was already spoken in Anatolia before the Ottoman conquest.

I remember being told about this village when I was hearing a Summer Course
in Polish history in Krakow 1989. The teacher (I forgot his name) told us
that these people are descendants of Poles taken as prisoners of war in the
17th century, when Poland was constantly at war with the Ottoman empire.
Best regards,
Hans-Werner Hatting


From thorinn at diku.dk  Tue Dec  5 20:59:47 2000
From: thorinn at diku.dk (Lars Henrik Mathiesen)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 20:59:47 -0000
Subject: [Fwd: [ArchTheoMeth] genes and languages--Kurds and Georgians]
In-Reply-To: "anthony.appleyard@UMIST.AC.UK"'s message of Sun, 3 Dec 2000
 17:00:52 -0500
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.205947.0000.>

> Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 17:00:52 -0500
> From: "anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk" <anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK>

> Sorry about this diversion into biology, but: They say that mtDNA comes
> from the mother only. But I read that a spermatozoon has a few mitochondria
> strapped round the base of its tail to give it power to swim. If so, how
> often at fertilization does mtDNA from those mitochondria from the father,
> get into the new individual? If so, that may upset studies based on mtDNA
> types.

I just looked it up in a human biology textbook. In normal
fertilization, the sperm doesn't penetrate the egg cell as such ---
the membranes of the sperm head and the oocyte merge to let the sperm
nucleus inside, but the tail and its mitochondria are left outside.

I doubt that anything viable results if those parts of the sperm do
enter the oocyte, so the answer to the question is probably 'never.'

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)


From edsel at glo.be  Thu Dec  7 05:41:42 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 00:41:42 -0500
Subject: Herceg
In-Reply-To: <000101c05d70$d3fa7220$f902a8c0@smart.ro>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.004142.0500.>

At 20:36 3/12/00 +0200, you wrote:
>    A quick note on Herceg in Serbo-Croatian:
>  Germ.Herzog<Hung.herceg<S.-Cr.herceg.
>                                      Cristian

I suppose you meant the arrows to point the other way?

Ed. Selleslagh


From tmcfadde at babel.ling.upenn.edu  Tue Dec  5 16:48:37 2000
From: tmcfadde at babel.ling.upenn.edu (Thomas McFadden)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 11:48:37 -0500
Subject: Mutual Comprehensibility of Middle West Low Germanic
In-Reply-To: <01c501c05d97$ec7f8980$d63dd883@nevada.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.114837.0500.>

In grammatical terms, Kentish is, to my knowledge, considered
the most conservative dialect of ME.  The distinction between dative and
accusative case in particular was maintained into the 14th century in some
texts (e.g. the Ayenbite of Inwyt), i.e. about 2 centuries after it was
pretty much gone elsewhere.  Cynthia Allen wrote a book that goes into the
loss of case marking in OE and ME in quite a bit of detail, looking
through several individual texts.  There are further references there on
Kentish conservativeness.

Allen, Cynthia. 1995.  Case Marking and Reanalysis.  Oxford: Clarendon
Press.

On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, Philip Rusche wrote:

> I have never heard that Kentish was particularly conservative.  It might
> have been more conservative grammatically than northern dialects, but its
> vowel system went through a number of changes in the OE period and in the ME
> period it tended to voice its fricatives (at least /f/ and /s/) initially.


From edsel at glo.be  Thu Dec  7 06:26:10 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 01:26:10 -0500
Subject: Mutual Comprehensibility of Middle West Low Germanic
In-Reply-To: <01c501c05d97$ec7f8980$d63dd883@nevada.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.012610.0500.>

At 18:14 3/12/00 -0800, you wrote:
>I have never heard that Kentish was particularly conservative.  It might
>have been more conservative grammatically than northern dialects, but its
>vowel system went through a number of changes in the OE period and in the ME
>period it tended to voice its fricatives (at least /f/ and /s/) initially.

>Whether this would make it mutually intelligible with Middle Dutch or not, I
>do not know, but I wouldn't think they would be and have never seen any
>evidence that says they were.  Most of the Middle Dutch I have worked with
>though has been from 14th- and 15th-century manuscripts and this might be
>later than you are thinking of.

With some guesswork, far less than half of it, I suppose. Older (say
pre-1200) MD texts are pretty scarce, and OD is extremely rare. 14th
century Dutch is already sufficiently comprehensible to modern Dutch
speakers, especially to those who can speak modern West-Flemish dialects
which are the most conservative ones, and in addition, MD is based upon
Middle West-Flemish dialect (e.g. Brugge, Damme).

Ed. Selleslagh


From mcv at wxs.nl  Tue Dec  5 18:14:26 2000
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 19:14:26 +0100
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
In-Reply-To: <B651A6E1.288%xavier.delamarre@free.fr>
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.191426.0100.>

On Mon, 04 Dec 2000 21:45:31 +0100, Xavier Delamarre
<xavier.delamarre at free.fr> wrote:

>It is Seebold's personnal invention that IE *gwh- becomes Germanic b-. His
>edition of Kluge's "Etym. Wvrterb. der deutschen Spr." (22. Auflage, 1989)
>uses the law aboundently, e.g. _bdhen_ < *ghwre:- (p 54), _bitten_ <
>*ghwedh-, OIr. guidid etc. (p. 88).

>It has been rejected by some linguists (Polomi) but accepted by others like
>Calvert Watkins (see his "IE Roots" : Eng. bane < OEng. bana < germ. *bano:n
>< IE *gwhen- 'strike', and his "How to kill a Dragon", 423).

>I find the law very convincing.

>The discovery in the last decades that IE *ghw- becomes b- in Germanic and
>w- in Gaulish is the best proof that IE comparative grammar is not a dead
>science and can still undergo improvements.

Thanks.

As I may have mentioned here earlier, I have been investigating the
possible ramifications of hypothesizing that not only *k/*g/*gh had
labialized (*kw/*gw/*ghw) and palatalized (*k^/*g^/*gh^) variants, but
that this was originally the case for *all* (pre-)PIE consonants.

One interesting possibility is **pw, which would have mostly merged
with *kw (for obvious reasons, a labialized labial would have been a
highly marked phoneme), but with *p in (pre-)Germanic.  This could be
the case in the words "liver", "four", "-leven, -lve", "oven", "wolf"
and some others ("leave", "sieve", etc.).  The existence of a parallel
development *ghw (I prefer to spell it this way) > Gmc. *b would be
most interesting.  To be fully parallel with **pw -> *f, there should
be quite a number of exceptions to the "law" (that it's controversial
is therefore a good thing in principle).  I'm not too pleased with
"bane", however, being from the same root as *gunT- "Kampf, Schlacht",
which means a putative **bhwen- (for PIE *ghwen) "to kill" is out of
the question.  Not that it matters for judging the etymology by its
own merits...

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl


From petegray at btinternet.com  Tue Dec  5 20:49:15 2000
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 20:49:15 -0000
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.204915.0000.>

There seem to be so many good counter-examples, where *gwh > Germanic w,
that I confess I am surprised the alternative view exists.  Is there perhaps
a specific set of circumstances in which it is alleged that *gwh > b, or is
an idea that can be safely scrap-heaped?

In addition to snow, warm, and kidney, I find, for example:
*gwhen  Skt hanmi  Gothic winne (pain) or wunns and the probably related
English "wound" < *gwhntis

*gwhemer  "swelling"  Latin femur, OE wenn "tumour"

*gwhoksos  Greek phoksos, OHG wahs "sharp"

*gwhesl  "gall"  English weld (conjectured Gothic wizdils, based on late
Latin uisdil-)

and some others.

Why is this outcome questioned?

Peter


From petegray at btinternet.com  Tue Dec  5 20:57:17 2000
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 20:57:17 -0000
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.205717.0000.>

XD said
>I find the law very convincing... (that IE *ghw- becomes b- in Germanic and
w- in Gaulish)

Please give examples, other than the contested "bane" and the isolated
"bitten".    The semantic connection of bdhen with *gwhre: seems a little
odd - but perhaps that is a failing in my German.  I believe one means "to
toast" and the other "to sense, feel".

Peter


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Tue Dec  5 15:41:53 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 10:41:53 -0500
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes
In-Reply-To: <E142t6W-00030V-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.104153.0500.>

	I'm not so sure about both <l>'s being "dark" in American English.
They are usually very different from one another.
	Initial <l> is closer to dark /l/ but not as velar as the /l/ I've
often heard among Scots
	Final <l> is usually delateralized to the point that words such as
<caw> & <call> are pronounced the same; e.g. <sail> /seiw/, <sell> /sEw/,
<girl> /g at RO/ [O = my feeble attempt at a vowel derived from /w/]
	It's my impression that final dark /l/ is more of a Northeastern
phenomenon and more common among older speakers
	All in all, it's similar to the situation of <l> in Brazilian
Portuguese, although in Brazil, final <l> may be closer to /u/ than /w/
	There are, of course, many regional differences.
	In the South, for a lot of people final <l> is silent; e.g. <gulf>
/g at f/, call /ka:/ --although this is more common in "closed" syllables
	You also hear final <l> as something between /l/ & /r/; e.g. <call>
as "carl"

>Gabor Sandi writes:

>> On the other hand, the same phoneme occurs in each member of the following
>> pairs of words, despite the obvious differences in pronunciation:

>> lick - fall  : both have the phoneme /l/, even though one is "clear", the
>> other is "dark" (this is true for England - I believe that in the US, both
>> /l/'s have a "dark" pronunciation)

>Indeed.  In North America, and in much of Scotland, /l/ is always dark,
>while in Wales and in Ireland it is always clear.

[snip]

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From jaswhite at earthlink.net  Tue Dec  5 21:22:19 2000
From: jaswhite at earthlink.net (Jim White)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 15:22:19 -0600
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (PS)
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.152219.0600.>

Goethe Street in St. Louis is locally pronounced 'GOthE' rhyming with
'both he'.  The author is usually 'GURt@', with the 'r' very slight.

Larry Trask wrote:

> Another example is the name 'Goethe', which is a little harder to
> anglicize.  In my experience, most academics use a German-style
> pronunciation.  However, John Wells recommends for Brits what I will
> write as 'GUR-t@', except, of course, that the <r> there is not
> pronounced.  Amazingly, he gives 'GAY-t@' -- something like 'gator' --
> as the preferred US pronunciation, even though I don't think I ever
> heard this in my 25 years in the States.  Can any Yanks confirm this?
> My US dictionary gives *only* the German-style pronunciation, which
> is what I usually heard in the States, except that my high-school
> English teacher called him 'GUR-thee', a pronunciation I have never
> heard from anyone else.

--
Jim White


From mcv at wxs.nl  Wed Dec  6 07:14:48 2000
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 08:14:48 +0100
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (PS)
In-Reply-To: <E142ur2-0002fh-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <WED.6.DEC.2000.081448.0100.>

On Mon, 04 Dec 2000 12:36:24 +0000, larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry
Trask) wrote:

>In the other direction, the tradition in Spain has usually been to
>hispanize foreign names.  So, for example, the name 'Shakespeare'
>has traditionally been pronounced 'shah-keh-speh-AH-reh', with five
>syllables, stress on the fourth syllable, and completely Spanish
>phonology apart from the retention of the non-native esh.  In recent
>years, however, it has come to be regarded as more fashionable to
>reproduce the English pronunciation as closely as possible, typically
>producing something like 'SHEH-keh-speer'.

Or something like Che'spir.

>Some years ago, a
>distinguished Spanish academic appeared on TV, and he used the
>traditional five-syllable version.  He was widely laughed at,
>even though he was merely expressing a preference for the traditional
>policy over the modern one.  But I have the impression that the
>traditional policy is very much on the way out in Spain, on the
>whole anyway.  Yet Spaniards, in my experience, still pronounce
>'Mozart' as though it were a Spanish <Mozar>, with theta, final
>stress, and no /t/.  Is this still the norm in Spanish?

I think I've also heard initial stress.  On Catalan radio, I think
it's /mozart/, with /z/, stress varies.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl


From edsel at glo.be  Thu Dec  7 08:49:58 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 03:49:58 -0500
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes
In-Reply-To: <E142t6W-00030V-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.034958.0500.>

[snip]
>Phonetically intriguing, however, is the southeast of England, in which
>syllable-final /l/ is entirely delateralized and realized as something
>resembling [o].  So, 'field' is [fiod], 'milk' is [mIok], 'hill' is [hIo],
>and 'feel' is [fio].  However, 'feeling' is still [filIN], with a clear [l],
>and so I suppose we must still analyze this [o] as an allophone of /l/.

>Larry Trask

[Ed]
As a non-specialist, I thought this is a pretty general phenomenon in IE
languages, if you allow some variation (syllable-final dark l becoming -o,
u, or -w):
French: Gaule [go:-l@] from Lat. Gal-lia, and many other words and
formations (e.g. cheval/chevaux [-vo:] instead of chevals).
Brazilian Portuguese: Canaval [karnava-u or -w]
Polish and some other Slavic lgs. : l > barred l [w] (cf. Serbo-Croat
Sloboda , Czech svoboda)
Spanish: Hoz from Lat. falc-em (via Foz or Halcem?)
Dutch: Koud (Eng. cold, Ger. kalt) and many other words and names (e.g.
Boudewijn --  Baldwin)
etc.

The only difference with the 'SE English phenomenon' is that these
languages, except Br. Port. (even though very acceptable to most, albeit
regionally),  have 'legalized' it.
I must say though, that I have often observed similar pronunciations (like
in 'solder') in New England USA.

Ed. Selleslagh


From douglas at nb.net  Tue Dec  5 13:14:00 2000
From: douglas at nb.net (Douglas G. Wilson)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 08:14:00 -0500
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (PS)
In-Reply-To: <E142ur2-0002fh-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.081400.0500.>

Naive impressions of a Yankee:

>For example, take the Spanish name 'Don Juan'.  In Britain, the
>tradition is to anglicize this name, and so to pronounce the last
>part as 'JOO- at n'.  This is obvious in Byron's poem 'Don Juan', in
>which the name is constantly rhymed with things like 'new one' and
>'true one'.  In the US, the tradition is to retain the Spanish
>pronunciation as far as possible, and hence to say 'HWAHN', or,
>these days, 'WAHN'.  But the second pronunciation has been steadily
>gaining ground in Britain, and it is now recommended by John Wells
>in his pronouncing dictionary as the preferred UK pronunciation,
>though the traditional 'JOO- at n' is still listed as a permissible,
>but disfavored, alternative.

I've never heard Byron's /dZu at n/, except with respect to Byron's work or as
a joke.

>Similar is 'Don Quixote', where the British tradition is 'KWIKS- at t',
>while the US one is 'kee-HOH-tay'.  Astoundingly, John Wells
>recommends the first not only for Brits but even for Yanks.
>I think he must be wrong here.  I never, ever, heard 'KWIKS- at t'
>before I came to Britain, and I didn't believe it when I did
>hear it.  Even so, my US dictionary gives 'KWIKS- at t' as a second-
>choice pronunciation.  Does anybody in the US really say this?
>And do most Brits really still say 'KWIKS- at t'?  Not at my university,
>I think.

I've NEVER heard /kwIks at t/. I've heard /kwiksout/ as a joke only.
"Quixotism" is /kwIks at tIz@m/, however.

>Another example is the name 'Goethe', which is a little harder to
>anglicize.  In my experience, most academics use a German-style
>pronunciation.  However, John Wells recommends for Brits what I will
>write as 'GUR-t@', except, of course, that the <r> there is not
>pronounced.  Amazingly, he gives 'GAY-t@' -- something like 'gator' --
>as the preferred US pronunciation, even though I don't think I ever
>heard this in my 25 years in the States.  Can any Yanks confirm this?
>My US dictionary gives *only* the German-style pronunciation, which
>is what I usually heard in the States, except that my high-school
>English teacher called him 'GUR-thee', a pronunciation I have never
>heard from anyone else.

Those who lack umlauts use something like /g at rt@/ or else /gEt@/ in my
experience. I don't remember hearing /geit@/. I think these are more or
less reasonable attempts to approximate the German vowel, and not
grotesqueries like /kwiks at t/.

-- Doug Wilson


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Tue Dec  5 16:01:32 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 11:01:32 -0500
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (PS)
In-Reply-To: <E142ur2-0002fh-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.110132.0500.>

[snip]
>Similar is 'Don Quixote', where the British tradition is 'KWIKS- at t',
>while the US one is 'kee-HOH-tay'.  Astoundingly, John Wells
>recommends the first not only for Brits but even for Yanks.
>I think he must be wrong here.  I never, ever, heard 'KWIKS- at t'
>before I came to Britain, and I didn't believe it when I did
>hear it.  Even so, my US dictionary gives 'KWIKS- at t' as a second-
>choice pronunciation.  Does anybody in the US really say this?

	Not that I ever heard. Not even from uneducated people. You do hear
"key-oh-dee" a lot, i.e. something like /kiowDi, ki'owDi/
	There is, however, quixotic /kwIksa:DIk/

>And do most Brits really still say 'KWIKS- at t'?  Not at my university,
>I think.

>Another example is the name 'Goethe', which is a little harder to
>anglicize.  In my experience, most academics use a German-style
>pronunciation.  However, John Wells recommends for Brits what I will
>write as 'GUR-t@', except, of course, that the <r> there is not
>pronounced.  Amazingly, he gives 'GAY-t@' -- something like 'gator' --
>as the preferred US pronunciation, even though I don't think I ever
>heard this in my 25 years in the States.  Can any Yanks confirm this?
>My US dictionary gives *only* the German-style pronunciation, which
>is what I usually heard in the States, except that my high-school
>English teacher called him 'GUR-thee', a pronunciation I have never
>heard from anyone else.

	It's still "GUR-tuh" /g at Rt@/, although I have heard ignorami say
"Go-eth"
	Midwesterners DO tend to pronounce German-American names with <oe>
as /e, eh/  as in "donkey shane" (danke schoen) but Goethe is still /g at Rt@/

>In the other direction, the tradition in Spain has usually been to
>hispanize foreign names.  So, for example, the name 'Shakespeare'
>has traditionally been pronounced 'shah-keh-speh-AH-reh', with five
>syllables, stress on the fourth syllable, and completely Spanish
>phonology apart from the retention of the non-native esh.  In recent
>years, however, it has come to be regarded as more fashionable to
>reproduce the English pronunciation as closely as possible, typically
>producing something like 'SHEH-keh-speer'.

	In Latin America /chespir/ with stress on first syllable is the
most common version. "chaquespeare" is an old fart pronunciation. It's also
used ironically and sarcastically as a noun in the same way that Americans
use Einstein. My Asturian student says the same usage occurs in Spain,
where he says it's /sheikspir, sheikespir/ with accent on first syllable.
There was a popular Mexican sitcom called "Chespirito" with a buffoon as
the main character

>Some years ago, a
>distinguished Spanish academic appeared on TV, and he used the
>traditional five-syllable version.  He was widely laughed at,
>even though he was merely expressing a preference for the traditional
>policy over the modern one.  But I have the impression that the
>traditional policy is very much on the way out in Spain, on the
>whole anyway.  Yet Spaniards, in my experience, still pronounce
>'Mozart' as though it were a Spanish <Mozar>, with theta, final
>stress, and no /t/.  Is this still the norm in Spanish?

My wife, who is Costa Rican, says /mosart/ with the stress on the final
syllable; but I've often heard it without the /t/
[snip]

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From edsel at glo.be  Thu Dec  7 10:06:25 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 05:06:25 -0500
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (PS)
In-Reply-To: <E142ur2-0002fh-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.050625.0500.>

[snip]
>Similar is 'Don Quixote', where the British tradition is 'KWIKS- at t',
>while the US one is 'kee-HOH-tay'.  Astoundingly, John Wells
>recommends the first not only for Brits but even for Yanks.
>I think he must be wrong here.  I never, ever, heard 'KWIKS- at t'
>before I came to Britain, and I didn't believe it when I did
>hear it.  Even so, my US dictionary gives 'KWIKS- at t' as a second-
>choice pronunciation.  Does anybody in the US really say this?
>And do most Brits really still say 'KWIKS- at t'?  Not at my university,
>I think.

[Ed]
On the other hand, 'Quixotic' seems to be pretty universal (pronounced
kwikzotik).

[snip]
>In the other direction, the tradition in Spain has usually been to
>hispanize foreign names.  So, for example, the name 'Shakespeare'
>has traditionally been pronounced 'shah-keh-speh-AH-reh', with five
>syllables, stress on the fourth syllable, and completely Spanish
>phonology apart from the retention of the non-native esh.  In recent
>years, however, it has come to be regarded as more fashionable to
>reproduce the English pronunciation as closely as possible, typically
>producing something like 'SHEH-keh-speer'.  Some years ago, a
>distinguished Spanish academic appeared on TV, and he used the
>traditional five-syllable version.  He was widely laughed at,
>even though he was merely expressing a preference for the traditional
>policy over the modern one.

[Ed]
He still has pretty fanatic followers. I know some personally.

> But I have the impression that the
>traditional policy is very much on the way out in Spain, on the
>whole anyway.  Yet Spaniards, in my experience, still pronounce
>'Mozart' as though it were a Spanish <Mozar>, with theta, final
>stress, and no /t/.  Is this still the norm in Spanish?

>Larry Trask

[Ed]
Here in the South (Alicante, Murcia) litteral application of Spanish
pronunciation rules (plus dropping of final occlusives) to foreign words is
still the norm. Even on (national) TV they do that almost all the time.
Sarajevo (with jota and bilabial b), sometimes even Basinton (Washington),
Nueva Yor (no k), etc. They simply cannot(?) say 'sh' and say 's' or
affricated 'ch' instead, insert epenthetic e's,  and can't distinguish long
and short vowels. Final m is always a nasalized final vowel (punto-co~ =
dot-com). etc.etc.The dynamic accent follows the same Spanish rules.

Among the native Castilian speakers, younger educated people (say post-1985
education) from Madrid, certain (far from all!) younger academics and
people with a lot of contacts outside Spain are the only ones, in my
experience, who try to pronounce English words properly (mainly because
they actually know some English). Catalans do their best, and and have the
advantage of their richer native phonemic inventory; contrary to
Castilians, they use dark l, for instance, and sh, etc..
Note that the upper class tends to send its children to 'English' boarding
schools, often located in (N.) Ireland (actually some died in the Omagh
bombing, on a bus trip).

Ed. Selleslagh


From bronto at pobox.com  Tue Dec  5 17:17:21 2000
From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 09:17:21 -0800
Subject: Don Keyshot
Message-ID: <TUE.5.DEC.2000.091721.0800.>

Larry Trask wrote:
> And do most Brits really still say 'KWIKS- at t'?
> Not at my university, I think.

There's a song (using that word somewhat loosely) by Magazine 60 in
which an Englishman repeatedly asks on telephone for "Mister Don
Quichotte" /'ki SOt/, and a woman replies with growing impatience "No
seqor, Don Quixote y Sancho Panza no estan aqum."  (There's also a sung
refrain, "Don Quixote y Sancho Panza / hoy tambiin siguen luchando")

Does anyone in fact say <Quichotte> (the French form) in English?

--
Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/


From connolly at memphis.edu  Thu Dec  7 16:40:36 2000
From: connolly at memphis.edu (Leo A. Connolly)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 10:40:36 -0600
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.104036.0600.>

petegray wrote:

> There seem to be so many good counter-examples, where *gwh > Germanic w,
> that I confess I am surprised the alternative view exists.  Is there perhaps
> a specific set of circumstances in which it is alleged that *gwh > b, or is
> an idea that can be safely scrap-heaped?

> In addition to snow, warm, and kidney, I find, for example:
> *gwhen  Skt hanmi  Gothic winne (pain) or wunns and the probably related
> English "wound" < *gwhntis

Without a Gothic dictionary at hand, I can only point out that the
parallel forms in other Germanic languages, such as OHG _wunna_, OE
_wyn_ 'joy' and OHG _wini(g)a_ 'Geliebte, wife' belong to PIE *_w(e)n-_,
seen also in Latin _Venus_, the famous goddess.  _Wound_ is plausibly
connected with Gk. _phonos_ 'blood, gore' < *_gwhon-_ but would reflect
the weak grade *_gwhn-to-_ (not **_gwhn-ti-_, else OE **_wynd_), where
syllabic _n_ yields Gmc. /un/.  The words mentioned would suggest that
PIE *gwh eventually yields Gmc. /w/ medially (snow, German Niere) or
before PIE o (Gmc. a) or Gmc. u of any origin, but not before _e_.

> *gwhemer  "swelling"  Latin femur, OE wenn "tumour"

Unlikely -- nn < *mr?

> *gwhoksos  Greek phoksos, OHG wahs "sharp"

The actual OHG form is _hwas(s)_ (OE _hw?s 'sharp'. Goth. _hwassaba_) <
PIE *_kwod-to-_, cf. German _wetzen_, Eng. _whet_ < *_kwod-eje/o-_.

> *gwhesl  "gall"  English weld (conjectured Gothic wizdils, based on late
> Latin uisdil-)

Semantically unacceptable, whatever the origin of _weld_.  And then, why
_gall_ with /g/?

> and some others.

Such as...

> Why is this outcome questioned?

Have to ask Seebold, but one reason is that it explains some Germanic
forms with be- that are otherwise difficult to handle.

Leo


From xavier.delamarre at free.fr  Thu Dec  7 17:51:13 2000
From: xavier.delamarre at free.fr (Xavier Delamarre)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 18:51:13 +0100
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
In-Reply-To: <000501c05eff$1c56dce0$584f01d5@xpoxkjlf>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.185113.0100.>

le 5/12/00 21:57, petegray ? petegray at btinternet.com a ?crit?:

> XD said
>> I find the law very convincing... (that IE *ghw- becomes b- in Germanic and
>> w- in Gaulish)

> Please give examples, other than the contested "bane" and the isolated
> "bitten".    The semantic connection of bdhen with *gwhre: seems a little
> odd - but perhaps that is a failing in my German.  I believe one means "to
> toast" and the other "to sense, feel".

> Peter

I unfortunately can not help you : having moved recently all my linguistic
library (excepted celtology) is in boxes in the cellar. But I remember that
I was very convinced by his KZ article where you have to go and also to
browse his two dictionaries (Starke Verben & EWdS).

Other examples taken from Watkins' Dictionary of IE Roots :

*gwher- 'heat, warm' > *gwhr(n)- : brennen, brand

*gwhre:- 'to smell, breathe' : Germanic *bre:thaz, Eng. breathe etc.

I do not know what are the positions of Bammesberger and Meid on this
subject.

XD


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Fri Dec  8 18:35:05 2000
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2000 12:35:05 -0600
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <FRI.8.DEC.2000.123505.0600.>

Dear Miguel and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" <mcv at wxs.nl>
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 12:14 PM

> On Mon, 04 Dec 2000 21:45:31 +0100, Xavier Delamarre
> <xavier.delamarre at free.fr> wrote:

>> It is Seebold's personnal invention that IE *gwh- becomes Germanic b-.
>> His edition of Kluge's "Etym. Wvrterb. der deutschen Spr." (22. Auflage,
>> 1989) uses the law aboundently, e.g. _bdhen_ < *ghwre:- (p 54), _bitten_ <
>> *ghwedh-, OIr. guidid etc. (p. 88).

>> It has been rejected by some linguists (Polomi) but accepted by others
>> like Calvert Watkins (see his "IE Roots" : Eng. bane < OEng. bana < germ.
>> *bano:n < IE *gwhen- 'strike', and his "How to kill a Dragon", 423).

>> I find the law very convincing.

>> The discovery in the last decades that IE *ghw- becomes b- in Germanic
>> and w- in Gaulish is the best proof that IE comparative grammar is not a
>> dead science and can still undergo improvements.

> Thanks.

> As I may have mentioned here earlier, I have been investigating the
> possible ramifications of hypothesizing that not only *k/*g/*gh had
> labialized (*kw/*gw/*ghw) and palatalized (*k^/*g^/*gh^) variants, but
> that this was originally the case for *all* (pre-)PIE consonants.

<snip>

[PR]

The consonants in *gwhen-(6)-, 'beat', I believe to have originally been
early IE *gwVHVn- so that *gwh is not, as I believe Miguel would have it, a
velarization of *gh but rather the resolution of an accentually  occasioned
juxtaposition of *gw + *H.

This particular root is, I believe, found in Coptic hine, 'row', for which I
would amend the current hieroglyphic transcription of Xn(j) to *Xjn(j).

Possibly it may have a distant reflex in Arabic sha?an-un, 'disheveled hair,
a derivation of sha??a, 'scatter, disperse'.

As is well-known, there are a number of IE roots which have been assigned
the meaning 'beat'.

What I propose is that *gwhen- (*gwVHVn-) has the specific nuance of
'scattering by beating'; the application in Egyptian is the the sparying of
the water by the slapping of the oars.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ec at ec hecc, vindga meipi a netr allar nmo, geiri vnda~r . . . a ~eim
mei~i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rstom renn." (Havamal 138)


From ruschep at nevada.edu  Thu Dec  7 02:36:09 2000
From: ruschep at nevada.edu (Philip Rusche)
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 18:36:09 -0800
Subject: Coifi
Message-ID: <WED.6.DEC.2000.183609.0800.>

>         1)  Since the early Germans presumably did not have priests (except
> for mixed "chieftain"-priests as in Iceland, but Coifi was clearly not one
> of these), what is Coifi doing there?  (And I seem to recall, however
> vaguely, that he is not the only pagan priest mentioned by Bede.)
>         2) Since OE presumably did not have /oi/, what is the /oi/ in his
> name doing there?  He should have been "Cafi", with long /a/.  Or perhaps
> "Coefi", but even then Germanic /o/ exists only in foreign borrowings or
> where restored by analogy.

The spelling "Coifi" and other examples of <oi> in early OE is discussed in
Campbell's Old English Grammar, section 198.  He explains them as early
spellings of the i-mutation of long o (though he says in the case of some
personal names like Coifi the etymology is less than clear), and that they
appear mostly in early MSS of Bede.  More usual is <oe> and later <e>.

Philip Rusche


From ek at idiom.com  Thu Dec  7 05:55:35 2000
From: ek at idiom.com (ek)
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 21:55:35 -0800
Subject: [Fwd: [ArchTheoMeth] genes and languages--Kurds and Georgians]
In-Reply-To: <20001205205947.16370.qmail@tyr.diku.dk>
Message-ID: <WED.6.DEC.2000.215535.0800.>

I do recall that 'probably never' was the answer from several years ago,
although more recently (perhaps within the past 5 or 6 years) I read that
this was being questioned, and that perhaps paternal mitochondria do get in
more often than previously supposed.

Unfortunately, I do not recall the specifics of where i read this. With
luck, someone else here has read the same or something similar and can
provide a proper reference.

Eva

[ moderator snip ]

> I just looked it up in a human biology textbook. In normal
> fertilization, the sperm doesn't penetrate the egg cell as such ---
> the membranes of the sperm head and the oocyte merge to let the sperm
> nucleus inside, but the tail and its mitochondria are left outside.

> I doubt that anything viable results if those parts of the sperm do
> enter the oocyte, so the answer to the question is probably 'never.'

> Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)


From April.Mcmahon at sheffield.ac.uk  Thu Dec  7 09:32:56 2000
From: April.Mcmahon at sheffield.ac.uk (A.M.S.Mcmahon)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 09:32:56 -0000
Subject: [Fwd: [ArchTheoMeth] genes and languages--Kurds and Georgians]
In-Reply-To: <20001205205947.16370.qmail@tyr.diku.dk>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.093256.0000.>

Dear All,
             The rate of incorporation of male mitochondria into the
female cytoplasm at fertilisation is small.  What seems to happen
is that some do get in, but they are then preferentially degraded.
There is some evidence (e.g. from Maynard-Smith's group,
published 1998/99; but it's patchy so far) that a proportion of about
1:1000 times they stick around long enough to recombine.
   There's a more substantial point here, and possibly a moot one,
on the difference between a molecular history / phylogeny on the
one hand, and the history of the population(s) those molecules find
themselves in on the other.

        Best,
           April McMahon
(and Rob McMahon, my local off-list geneticist)

[ moderator snip ]

> I just looked it up in a human biology textbook. In normal
> fertilization, the sperm doesn't penetrate the egg cell as such ---
> the membranes of the sperm head and the oocyte merge to let the sperm
> nucleus inside, but the tail and its mitochondria are left outside.

> I doubt that anything viable results if those parts of the sperm do
> enter the oocyte, so the answer to the question is probably 'never.'

> Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT
> marked)

Professor April McMahon
Head of Department
Department of English Language and Linguistics
University of Sheffield
Sheffield, S10 2TN, UK

+44 (0)114 222 0238

E-mail  April.McMahon at shef.ac.uk


From cristim at smart.ro  Thu Dec  7 12:36:31 2000
From: cristim at smart.ro (Cristian Mocanu)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 14:36:31 +0200
Subject: Kurds and Georgians [and Basques]
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.143631.0200.>

    Just a brief question/comment here. Of course, I aggree any
Basque-Caucasian, or specifically Basque-Georgian connection is complete
nonsense,but shouldn't we add on the list of co-incidental similarities, the
one concerning "Ivir","Iviria", a name used by foreigners to designate the
country known to its natives as "Sakartvelo" (=Georgia) and  "Iberian (s)"?
I believe this coincidence was also used by the followers of this theory.
                                             Regards,
                                              Cristian


From allingus2 at superonline.com  Thu Dec  7 13:21:32 2000
From: allingus2 at superonline.com (Kamil Kartal, allingus Translation Services)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 15:21:32 +0200
Subject: Polish in Turkey
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.152132.0200.>

Hi friends,
The village is in Istanbul, the northwes Anatolian side, throught the
Bosphorus shore.  It is  POLONEZKOY (KOY = village),
but the story is not true.  I will try to find details for you and turn back
again soon, but before then, it is a
fantastic, unique, and very modern summer village.  People there, are
speaking Turkish as mother lang.
Regards,
Kamil Kartal - Istanbul

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hans-Werner Hatting" <hwhatting at hotmail.com>
Sent: 05 Aral}k 2000 Sal} 11:46

> On Thu, 16 Nov 2000 10:09:52 +0000 Larry Trask wrote:

>> There are a few other
>> odds and ends.  When I was living in Turkey, I was told that there
>> was a single Polish-speaking village somewhere in the middle of
>> the country.  I never got to see it, but anyway I doubt that Polish
>> was already spoken in Anatolia before the Ottoman conquest.

> I remember being told about this village when I was hearing a Summer Course
> in Polish history in Krakow 1989. The teacher (I forgot his name) told us
> that these people are descendants of Poles taken as prisoners of war in the
> 17th century, when Poland was constantly at war with the Ottoman empire.
> Best regards,
> Hans-Werner Hatting


From gordonselway at gn.apc.org  Thu Dec  7 09:24:58 2000
From: gordonselway at gn.apc.org (Gordon Selway)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 09:24:58 +0000
Subject: re Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.092458.0000.>

There have been related threads before.  I posted along the following lines to
them, and have not until now felt it worthwhile to submit the same material,
especially because I have still not unpacked relevant papers and books, and I
do not have a copy of Jackson to hand.

The Germanic/Celtic boundary on the western side of England seems to have
become fairly stable by the ninth or tenth century CE, and remained so for a
thousand years and more (apart from the Archenfield and Radnorshire).  There is
some evidence (toponyms exclusively, iirc, and based on earliest charter
records) that a Brittonic tongue was still being spoken in Worcestershire in
the eighth and ninth centuries.  One place-name is 'Walton', which might
suggest the language being Welsh, but 'Pensax' (nearer to the present
Anglo-Welsh border) [and not 'Pennersax'] suggests a Cumbric (or Cornish)
article.  There is a passing reference to some of this in a book on Hanbury
edited by Prof Christopher Dyer (arising from a class run in the village),
which amongst other things reports extensive Roman remains discovered by field
walking in an area where such things are allegedly uncommon.

Another approach (which has been brought forward in popular archaeological
programmes on TV in the UK) has to do with our skeletons (!).

One of the (now retired to Gloucestershire) local chiropodists identified
differences in bone structure among her patients.  Families which were long
established locally (she claimed) showed characteristics shared with people in
areas traditionally regarded as 'Celtic'.  More recent arrivals showed
characteristics which might be treated as 'Germanic' - there has been a large
shift in the distribution of surnames, as judged by the phone book, over the
last fifty years: even in Worcestershire 'Jones' was proportionately to 'Smith'
much more common than in most areas of England, while in Herefordshire typical
Welsh surnames are often the rule rather than the exception.

[A personal discursion: I now live in Worcestershire, but used to live in a
parish straddling the Herefordshire border, where as it happens there have been
people with a form of my surname for at least six hundred years.  The two
counties were bundled together under a single council in 1974, but separated
again for most local government purposes in 1998.

Whan an article on the bone signs appeared in the 'Hereford Times', I pointed
out at one meeting in Hereford, where the presence of a Worcestershire resident
might have been made political use of, that my own externally visible skeletal
characteristics (to do with finger and toe length) were 'local' rather than
'incomer'.  My surname is indeed one commonest in the lower Severn and Wye
valleys, and quite a bit of my recent ancestry is from that region, but as it
happens rather more of my recent forebears were from around the North Channel,
including from the areas in Galloway and north Antrim where Gaelic was most
recently spoken.

Most of this is, on my part, somewhat tongue in cheek, as no-one has so far as
I know examined my DNA (mitochondrial or otherwise).  And it may be that the
physical characteristics reflect different waves of incomers.  I mention that
because there are also apparently detectable differences between 'Germans' and
'Vikings'* (and as it happens my mother had a surname which might be of
'viking' origin, though definitely Scots).]

Back to the lower Severn, however.  Traditionally, the region became a
sub-kingdom of Wessex as a result of the battle of Deorham (north of Bath) in
577 CE, and was conquered by Penda of Mercia some two to three generations
later.  Joseph Wright's dialect investigations in the 19th century suggested
though that the boundary between south-western/western and midland forms of
English remained roughly the same as the pre-Penda boundary!

There seems to have continued to be some form of ecclesiastical organisation in
the region into the seventh century, and there is no evidence of any cultural
changes as revealed by the currently available archaeological record.  One of
the archaeological programmes already mentioned was about a 5th or 6th century
grave in Wiltshire (just outside the Severn catchment, but definitely in
Wessex), where the skeleton had 'Celtic' characteristics.  In any case, it has
been suggested that Cerdic might be Welsh (rather than Saxon), or at least hace
a Welsh mother, and that Wessex was culturally rather than genetically Saxon
(iirc).

And on the language following the mother, is there not mtDNA evidence of the
settlers of Iceland taking Irish/Scottish women with them, yet the language is
still north Germanic, and very conservatively so?

Sorry this has been much more anecdotal than I would wish.

* - skeletons from a post-battle burial at Repton (Derbyshire) can apparently
be distinguished by form, and not just by the pit they were buried in.

Gordon Selway
<gordonselway at gn.apc.org>


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Dec  7 14:25:53 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 09:25:53 -0500
Subject: Reference on Numbers of Saxons
In-Reply-To: <20103679620533@m-w.com>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.092553.0500.>

Can you give me a definition for this?
I've seen it maps accompanying Welsh folktales
Is it England, Britain, western Britain?
What is the etymology?
thanx

Lloegr

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Thu Dec  7 12:13:20 2000
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 07:13:20 -0500
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.071320.0500.>

On Tue, 5 Dec 2000 07:19:12 -0600, Ray Hendon <rayhendon at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> To me these suppositions and inferences point to the Celts being either
> killed or completely displaced by the invaders.  But I am open to other
> possibilities.

Manuscript A of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle does report these big killings:-

457: Here Hengest and AEsc fought with the British in the place which is
called Crayford and there killed 4000 men, and the British abandoned Kent
and with great fear fled to London Fort [= the Roman walled city].

491 Her AElle and Cissa besieged "Andredescester" [= Pevensey??] and slew
all who dwelt therein; no Briton was left [there] afterwards.

At 457 the victims were likely an enemy army rather than general population.
491 was likely a one-off outburst of anger agaist the inhabitants of a fort
which had resisted effectively for a while; classical literature records
similar at the fall of Troy.

Afterwards, there were likely Celtic families and Anglo-Saxon famiies in the
land, and the Anglo-Saxons held the army-type weapons and ruling positions
and taxed the Celts, and those Celts as generations passed gradually learned
Anglo-Saxon. Re survival of Romano-Celtic Christianity through the pagan
Anglo-Saxon period, see the English Anglo-Saxon type placenames containing
the element {eccles} (compare Welsh {eglwys} = "church") from Latin
{ecclesia}.

As I wrote before, the Celts may have been either killed or completely
displaced, but not at the hands of an army; see my previous messages.


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Dec  7 15:41:46 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 09:41:46 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.094146.0600.>

[ Moderator's note:
  The following material is quoted from Ray Hendon's message of 5 Dec 2000.
  --rma ]

> From my limited study of Saxons, Jutes and Angles, slavery (in the Roman
> sense of definition) was not practiced among these peoples.  Their "slaves"
> were local people who had been such bad farmers that they could not take care
> of their families and had to assign themselves to another member of the
> tribal group.  Furthermore, their "slaves" were not doomed to be permanently
> enslaved.  They could dig themselves out of slavery and resume their normal
> life as a citizen if they prospered under the domain of their master.

> Furthermore, I am not certain, but it looks to me as if the farming and
> hunting conditions of England were not especially suited for slave
> ownership.  Slaves were tradtionally used in enterprises where the
> production of the slave was so high as to be able to support not only the
> physical needs of the slave but have a substantial surplus for the owner to
> enjoy.  This is the reason that farms in early New England were unsuitable
> for slaves.  Large farms with highly productive soil or mines with valuable
> mineral deposits might be suitable for slaves, but not small land parcels
> of typical AS farms and woodlands.

        The Domesday book shows a quite high (or higher) proportion of
slaves in the SW, at a point where slavery had mostly died out in
(Christian) Europe.  East Anglia by contrast shows a high (or higher)
proportion of free farmers.  There are very real  regional differences here
that must be considered.  AS England was not monolothic after all.   The
survival of slavery in the SW can hardly represent anything other than the
survival of Late Roman social conditions in an area that was, even after the
AS Conquest, largely left as it was before.  In East Anglia the survival of
free farmers indicates what we might otherwise suspect:  that this area had
been heavily (and fairly recently, as time in history goes) colonized by
successful invaders, who took the land for themselcves and who (or whose
descendants) had not yet sunk into serfdom.

> One other note on the process of the AS incursion and the development of
> English: It is quite apparent that the AS people brought their women with
> them, so that the language of the new-born would be that of the mother.  If
> they had taken local wives, then the Celtic language would have had a much
> longer life and would seemingly influence the new language that would
> ultimately develop from the migration.

        Viereck adduces evience of "intermediate types" (between Saxon and
Briton) in early Northumbria, indicating what might have been guessed (by
the cynical) anyway:  that the Anglo-Saxons conquerors did not turn up their
noses at native women.   (Perhaps the feeling was mutual.)

> To me these suppositions and inferences point to the Celts being either
> killed or completely displaced by the invaders.  But I am open to other
> possibilities.

        Good, because the linguistic evidence (I am getting rater tired of
trying to reach an unequivocal conclusion from the non-linguistic evidence)
indicates that there must have been considerable Brittonic survival.

                                                        Dr. David L. White


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Thu Dec  7 19:56:45 2000
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 14:56:45 EST
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.145645.EST.>

In a message dated 12/6/00 9:34:33 PM Mountain Standard Time,
rayhendon at satx.rr.com writes:

<< From my limited study of Saxons, Jutes and Angles, slavery (in the Roman
 sense of definition) was not practiced among these peoples.

-- well, that's extremely odd, since the language has a word which translates
precisely as "slave", and slaves were an export from England in the
pre-conversion period, and as late as the Domesday Book about 10% of the
population are listed as slaves. (With the highest proportion in the western
shires).

In fact, slavery was a universal (but not overwhelmingly important)
institution in all the pre-Christian Germanic societies; slaves were
generally war-captives or their children.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Thu Dec  7 19:58:49 2000
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 14:58:49 EST
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.145849.EST.>

>From: "David L. White" <dlwhite at texas.net>

>Enslavment (or enserfment) is much more profitable than extermination/
>expulsion, and is the general practice of conquerors.

-- this would be news to the American Indians, the Tasmanians, the Australian
Aboriginies, the San hunters of southern Africa, and innumerable other groups.

Conquerors most of whom are farmers looking for land are an entirely
different proposition from conquerors who are a small military caste.


From maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Thu Dec  7 13:13:45 2000
From: maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Max Wheeler)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 13:13:45 +0000
Subject: Juan and Quixote [was: Don't touch my phonemes (PS)]
In-Reply-To: <5.0.0.25.0.20001205073419.009f03e0@127.0.0.1>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.131345.0000.>

--On Tuesday, December 5, 2000 8:14 -0500 "Douglas G. Wilson"
<douglas at nb.net> wrote:

> Naive impressions of a Yankee:

> I've never heard Byron's /dZu at n/, except with respect to Byron's work or
> as a joke.
>

> I've NEVER heard /kwIks at t/. I've heard /kwiksout/ as a joke only.
> "Quixotism" is /kwIks at tIz@m/, however.
>
> -- Doug Wilson

In British English, in my experience it's Don /dZu at n/ for Byron's poem, and
for Richard Strauss's tone poem (always so pronounced on BBC Radio 3); but
Don /xwan/ or /hwan/ for the archetypal figure (as originally in Tirso de
Molina's play) and metonymically for a man that behaves like him. I don't
know what they do when ENO sings Don Giovanni in English [but I don't
recall if his name actually gets sung]. BTW the Manx version of John is
<Juan>, which is pronounced /dZu at n/ in Manx English.

Similarly in British English Don /kwiks at t/ or /kwiksout/. Only those (few)
who know any Spanish would recognize /kixDte/ (or similar), and to use a
form like that in Br. English sounds pretentious. /kwiks at t/ ~ /kwiksout/
is, of course, a spelling pronunciation, but when this character became
familiar in the 17th century who was to know any better? Sancho Panza is
not surprisingly /santSou panz@/ not /..panTa/ or /..pansa/ or similar.

No normative intent in any of the above.

Max
____________________________________________________________
Max W. Wheeler
School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Falmer
BRIGHTON BN1 9QH, G.B.

Tel: +44 (0)1273 678975 Fax: +44 (0)1273 671320 Email:
maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk
____________________________________________________________


From thorinn at diku.dk  Thu Dec  7 19:23:46 2000
From: thorinn at diku.dk (Lars Henrik Mathiesen)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 19:23:46 -0000
Subject: Don Keyshot
In-Reply-To: <3A2D2321.8CECC82D@pobox.com> (message from Anton Sherwood on
 Tue, 05 Dec 2000 09:17:21 -0800)
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.192346.0000.>

> Date: Tue, 05 Dec 2000 09:17:21 -0800
> From: Anton Sherwood <bronto at pobox.com>

> There's a song (using that word somewhat loosely) by Magazine 60 in
> which an Englishman repeatedly asks on telephone for "Mister Don
> Quichotte" /'ki SOt/, and a woman replies with growing impatience "No
> seqor, Don Quixote y Sancho Panza no estan aqum."  (There's also a sung
> refrain, "Don Quixote y Sancho Panza / hoy tambiin siguen luchando")

> Does anyone in fact say <Quichotte> (the French form) in English?

I remember being very surprised when I first saw this name written,
after hearing some of the story in Danish from my grandfather --- I'd
thought it was something like Donkesjot.

As best I remember, these are the pronunciations that my grandparents'
generation used (born just after 1900):

	   Don Quixote = /%dQNke"SQt/
	   Don Juan = /%dQNSu"AN/
	   (SAMPA for Danish --- " is primary stress, % secondary)

I'm pretty sure these were originally supposed to be some sort of
French --- /-QN/ and /-AN/ are traditional Danish approximations for
French /-o~/ and /-a~/. There may even have been an /y/ in Juan, but
I'm not sure after all these years.

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)


From ek at idiom.com  Thu Dec  7 15:31:00 2000
From: ek at idiom.com (ek)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 07:31:00 -0800
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (PS)
In-Reply-To: <5.0.0.25.0.20001205073419.009f03e0@127.0.0.1>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.073100.0800.>

20 years ago, I had a British violin teacher who absolutely did say both
'JOO- at n'  and 'KWIKS- at t' , and according to her, that was common
pronumciation.

It hurt my ears, but she was not joking.
-Eva

-----Original Message-----
From: Indo-European mailing list [mailto:Indo-European at xkl.com]On Behalf
Of Douglas G. Wilson
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 5:14 AM

Naive impressions of a Yankee:

[ moderator snip ]


From jrader at Merriam-Webster.com  Thu Dec  7 15:24:08 2000
From: jrader at Merriam-Webster.com (Jim Rader)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 10:24:08 -0500
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (PS)
In-Reply-To: <3A2D5C8B.6F693ACB@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.102408.0500.>

Local pronunciations of street names and other toponyms in the
U.S. are interesting, but probably not very revelatory of general
educated pronunciation of such names in their appropriate context.
 In the working-class neighborhood where I grew up in Chicago,
Goethe in Goethe St. (or Ave.?) was pronounced GAY-thee
(voiceless <th>) and Mozart in Mozart St. with a voiced /z/--these
despite the fact that older residents, such as my grandmother, had
spoken and even read German as children--though their reading did
not extend much beyond Luther's catechism and the high culture of
classical music and poetry was quite outside their ken.

Jim Rader

> Goethe Street in St. Louis is locally pronounced 'GOthE' rhyming with
> 'both he'.  The author is usually 'GURt@', with the 'r' very slight.

[ moderator snip ]

> --
> Jim White


From ek at idiom.com  Thu Dec  7 15:25:13 2000
From: ek at idiom.com (ek)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 07:25:13 -0800
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (PS)
In-Reply-To: <3A2D5C8B.6F693ACB@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.072513.0800.>

There is also a Goethe street in chicago, pronounced as 3 syllables-
Go-E-the.

The author usually pronounced 'GURt@' as you say in St louis.

Eva

-----Original Message-----
From: Indo-European mailing list [mailto:Indo-European at xkl.com]On Behalf
Of Jim White
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 1:22 PM

Goethe Street in St. Louis is locally pronounced 'GOthE' rhyming with
'both he'.  The author is usually 'GURt@', with the 'r' very slight.

[ moderator snip ]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Dec  7 14:30:25 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 09:30:25 -0500
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes
In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.16.20000816215110.34b7d97a@online.be>
Message-ID: <THU.7.DEC.2000.093025.0500.>

/sa:d at R/ is the universal form for <solder> in US English AFAIK

>I must say though, that I have often observed similar pronunciations (like in
>'solder') in New England USA.

>Ed. Selleslagh

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From sonno3 at hotmail.com  Sat Dec  9 01:14:15 2000
From: sonno3 at hotmail.com (Christopher Gwinn)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2000 20:14:15 -0500
Subject: Lloegr
Message-ID: <FRI.8.DEC.2000.201415.0500.>

Loegr (or Loegyr)  refers generally to Lowland Britain - England in
particular. The Archaic Welsh form must have been *Loic[e]r. It denizens are
called Lloegrwys (which is from a Brittono-Latin *Loicr-enses).

I am not sure of the exact etymology [I still need to see Eric Hamp,
'Lloegr: the Welsh name for England', Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 4
(1982) 83-85 ], but if I had to take a guess, I would suppose that the name
could be analyzed as *loi-c-er- (where the -er- might be a relic of *rigia
"kingdom"), and that Loic- probably came from an Early Brittonic *log-i-c-
(perhaps related to Irish loig and Welsh llo, "calf," which are related to
Breton lu-e "idiot," allegedly from PIE *leig- / *loig-).

-Chris Gwinn


From cristim at smart.ro  Sat Dec  9 12:23:38 2000
From: cristim at smart.ro (Cristian Mocanu)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 14:23:38 +0200
Subject: Lloegr
Message-ID: <SAT.9.DEC.2000.142338.0200.>

According to both the "Travlang" Welsh-English online dictionary and
"British Phrasebook", (Lonely Planet Publications, Hawthorn, Vic.,
Australia, 1999, "Welsh" chapter by Richard Crowe), "Lloegr" is Welsh for
"England".
                                                  Regards,
                                                  Cristian


From Georg at home.ivm.de  Sat Dec  9 10:22:05 2000
From: Georg at home.ivm.de (Stefan Georg)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 11:22:05 +0100
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
In-Reply-To: <007d01c06145$b3be3a40$738d3b3f@patrickr>
Message-ID: <SAT.9.DEC.2000.112205.0100.>

>The consonants in *gwhen-(6)-, 'beat', I believe to have originally been
>early IE *gwVHVn- so that *gwh is not, as I believe Miguel would have it, a
>velarization of *gh but rather the resolution of an accentually  occasioned
>juxtaposition of *gw + *H.

>This particular root is, I believe, found in Coptic hine, 'row', for which I
>would amend the current hieroglyphic transcription of Xn(j) to *Xjn(j).

>Possibly it may have a distant reflex in Arabic sha?an-un, 'disheveled hair,
>a derivation of sha??a, 'scatter, disperse'.

Coptic and Arabic are not known to be Indo-European languages, nor is
there any evidence that Afro-Asiatic, the language family Coptic and
Arabic belong to, may be related, however distantly, to
Indo-European. It is, thus, not possible that an Indo-European root
may be "found" in Coptic.


From ruschep at nevada.edu  Sun Dec 10 02:33:51 2000
From: ruschep at nevada.edu (Philip Rusche)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 18:33:51 -0800
Subject: Historical Greek Grammar
Message-ID: <SAT.9.DEC.2000.183351.0800.>

Could someone please recommend to me a standard and up-to-date historical
grammar of Greek?  I am working with some Greek texts from the Middle Ages
and need some references for phonological changes (they are glosses, so I
don't need anything on morphology or syntax).  I have Gignac's Grammar of
Greek Papyri (1976) and Browning's Medieval and Modern Greek (1983), but
this is not my field and I do not know what the standard works are.

Please reply offline, if this is not appropriate for the IE list.  Thanks in
advance.

Philip Rusche
ruschep at nevada.edu


From Tristan at mail.scm-rpg.com.au  Sat Dec  9 02:33:56 2000
From: Tristan at mail.scm-rpg.com.au (Tristan Jones)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 13:33:56 +1100
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <SAT.9.DEC.2000.133356.1100.>

> Conquerors most of whom are farmers looking for land are an entirely
> different proposition from conquerors who are a small military caste.

Anglo-Saxons were not a small military caste, I do not know about the Gaelic
Irish in Scotland in same period. Anglo-Saxons were a mass mirgation fo both
males and females probably numbering at least 100,000 probably more. They
were fleeing a over crowded homeland more more spacious skies. Similar to
British when they invaded Australia and conqueroed the aborigines, they
sought to replace them and farm their land for themselves not to enslave
them


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Dec  9 03:53:26 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2000 21:53:26 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <FRI.8.DEC.2000.215326.0600.>

>> Enslavment (or enserfment) is much more profitable than extermination/
>> expulsion, and is the general practice of conquerors.

> -- this would be news to the American Indians, the Tasmanians, the Australian
> Aboriginies, the San hunters of southern Africa, and innumerable other
> groups.

        It makes a difference whether the conquered are farmers, are
regarded as of inferior race, have been so devastated by small-pox that they
can be pushed aside with no trouble, etc.  It would not be news to the
populations of most of the Roman Empire, Anatolia after Manzikert, the
Egyptians, northern Indians (who have repeatedly been conquered by intruders
from the NW but never exterminated or even much influenced), the Hutus in
Africa, etc.

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From rayhendon at satx.rr.com  Sat Dec  9 14:00:12 2000
From: rayhendon at satx.rr.com (Ray Hendon)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 08:00:12 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <SAT.9.DEC.2000.080012.0600.>

----- Original Message -----
From: <JoatSimeon at aol.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2000 1:56 PM

> In a message dated 12/6/00 9:34:33 PM Mountain Standard Time,
> rayhendon at satx.rr.com writes:

> << From my limited study of Saxons, Jutes and Angles, slavery (in the Roman
>  sense of definition) was not practiced among these peoples.

> -- well, that's extremely odd, since the language has a word which translates
> precisely as "slave", and slaves were an export from England in the
> pre-conversion period, and as late as the Domesday Book about 10% of the
> population are listed as slaves. (With the highest proportion in the western
> shires).

> In fact, slavery was a universal (but not overwhelmingly important)
> institution in all the pre-Christian Germanic societies; slaves were
> generally war-captives or their children.

The time period you refer to is after the Saxons, etc had become established
in England.  Before they came, however, their community groups did not have
a slave institution that was even remotely like the Roman counterpart.
First, "slaves" in Saxony were temporary--not permanent.  Recall in Rome
that once a person became a slave they, and all their children were slaves
until released by their owner, if ever.  The Saxons allowed slaverey for
their people to be wiped from the slate, so to speak, within seven
generations when full citizenship would be restored.  Personally, I think
their word for slavery would be closer to the English word for "bankrupt."
Also, the children of Saxon slaves were not necessairly slaves, whereas in
Rome they were.

Recall that the Pope who arranged to send the first Roman Catholic
missionaries to England did so when he observed the beauty of English
children for sale in a Roman slave market.  It looks to me as if the Saxons
adapted some Roman institutions, but England never became anything like Rome
in becoming completely dependent on slaves to do much of the grunt work.
The Saxons were used to doing things for themselves, like all
self-sufficient farmers, and slavery was not a viable way of working small
farms, pastures and woodlands in north-west Europe.  The Teutons were, in
general, much more egalatarian than the Romans, and they never seem to have
departed from this attitude.

You might know of another semantical oddity between Saxons and Romans: the
word "king," was not in the Saxon vocabulary, it seems,  until well after
the Roman incursions into Saxony.  I think it was Caesar who pointed out
that when he was negotiating with a Saxon "king" the Saxon objected to being
called that word.  He insisted that his position was that of "wise man."
The Saxons, it seemed, did temporarily appoint a person who had virtual
total power when war conditions came about, but a more precise definition of
this position would equate it with the Roman word "dictator," which itself,
of course, does not conform to the contemporary English word dictator.  We
use the word dictator in meaning more closely associated with the Roman word
for tyrant.  And unless conquored by another tribe, tyrants were not an
institution in pre-Roman Saxony.


From rayhendon at satx.rr.com  Sat Dec  9 14:08:13 2000
From: rayhendon at satx.rr.com (Ray Hendon)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 08:08:13 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <SAT.9.DEC.2000.080813.0600.>

----- Original Message -----
From: "David L. White" <dlwhite at texas.net>
Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2000 9:41 AM

>> To me these suppositions and inferences point to the Celts being either
>> killed or completely displaced by the invaders.  But I am open to other
>> possibilities.

>         Good, because the linguistic evidence (I am getting rater tired of
> trying to reach an unequivocal conclusion from the non-linguistic evidence)
> indicates that there must have been considerable Brittonic survival.

I think you are correct in pointing out that England was not monolithic, and
that some of the invading forces from the Continent did take local wives.
It would be hard to imagine otherwise.  But, I can't see how this was the
predominant mode of family-creation during the invasion.  If it were,
wouldn't we expect a more pronounced influence of Celt on English?  But, I
can see that things during that period do not lead to sweeping
generalizations.  As you point out, there can be no unequivocal conclusions.

Ray Hendon
San Antonio, TX


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Sat Dec  9 17:23:54 2000
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 12:23:54 -0500
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <SAT.9.DEC.2000.122354.0500.>

From: "David L. White" <dlwhite at texas.net>

> Enslavment (or enserfment) is much more profitable than extermination/
> expulsion, and is the general practice of conquerors.

On Thu, 7 Dec 2000 14:58:49 EST, JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

>-- this would be news to the American Indians, the Tasmanians, the Australian
>Aboriginies, the San hunters of southern Africa, and innumerable other groups.
>Conquerors most of whom are farmers looking for land are an entirely
>different proposition from conquerors who are a small military caste.

One job that the Anglo-Saxons would not have used Celtic or other slaves
for, was bread making. In a people without potatoes, and where metal money
was too scarce to use it to pay workmen and buy routine groceries, bread
was more important than now. A servant trusted with the job would eat his
fill of it and steal quantities of it, so the lady of the house made the
bread herself, and from that came the word "lady" fron Anglo-Saxon
{hlaefdige} = "she who kneads the bread". Thus also "lord" from Anglo-Saxon
{hlafweard} = "loaf-guard".


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Sat Dec  9 17:39:04 2000
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 12:39:04 -0500
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <SAT.9.DEC.2000.123904.0500.>

On Thu, 7 Dec 2000 14:58:49 EST, JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

> Conquerors most of whom are farmers looking for land are an entirely
> different proposition from conquerors who are a small military caste.

And both sorts bring white man's diseases, which in the Americas did much
of the genocide against the natives. The Quechua on the Peru and Bolivia
Altiplano managed to breed back from this disease loss and recover numbers
before white settlers could swamp them, because up there two miles above
sea level and only half an atmosphere of air to breathe, white settlers'
women had difficulty carrying a pregnancy through. Perhaps the same may
save the Tibetans on their high plateau from Chinese settler intrusion.


From rayhendon at satx.rr.com  Sun Dec 10 15:52:28 2000
From: rayhendon at satx.rr.com (Ray Hendon)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 09:52:28 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <SUN.10.DEC.2000.095228.0600.>

Thanks for your excellent comments.  It occurs to me now, after reading the
more recent comments about the fate of the Celts after the AS invasion, that
one thing we know was that many Celts were taken as prisoners after losing a
battle.  We also know that many of them were subsequently sold on the slave
market that enimated from Rome.

But, did the AS folk sell off a significant number of Celts as slaves?  By
exporting their booty of slaves to Rome and other large slave markets on the
continent, they could convert their invasion gains directly into gold.  This
fact would certainly have great appeal to the invaders, as gold currency was
now available to them but had not been available in any quantity in their
homeland.  Certainly this potential bonus of adventuring would make the
journey from the Germanic lands to England more appealing to those thinking
about migrating. If the incursion was successful, the members of the
invading party would not only end up with choice farmland, already
developed, but a chestful of cash from any slaves he could round up.

For economic reasons, then, I can see that there would be a great incentive
to lure potential invaders and increase the capturing and selling native
Celts.  And with the demand for slaves being robust, even after Rome fell,
the price would be high.  I just wonder if a significant number of Celts
left the British Isles in this manner and might be responsible for a large
part of the Celtic depopulation that ensued the AS invasion.

Ray Hendon
San Antonio, TX


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sun Dec 10 08:24:49 2000
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 08:24:49 -0000
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <SUN.10.DEC.2000.082449.0000.>

>> Enslavment is much more profitable than extermination

> -- this would be news to the American Indians, the Tasmanians, the Australian
> Aboriginies, the San hunters of southern Africa, and innumerable other
> groups.

Remember timing!  Enslavement, however attractive, was not an option in the
American midwest, nor in Australia.  If these countries had been invaded in the
15th century instead of when they were, things might have been different.

A better example might be Spanish America.  Did the Spanish still accept
slavery at the of the conquistadors?

Peter


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Dec  9 03:43:08 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2000 21:43:08 -0600
Subject: re Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <FRI.8.DEC.2000.214308.0600.>

> And on the language following the mother, is there not mtDNA evidence of the
> settlers of Iceland taking Irish/Scottish women with them, yet the language
> is still north Germanic, and very conservatively so?

        Not that I know of, though it is generally acknowledged, I believe,
that the Icelandic population has a "considerable" (whatever that means)
Irish element.  For now I note only that the modern Icelandic progressive,
which last I heard had never been explained, seems to be a calque on
progressives of the Irish type.  And there are things like supernatural
animals with white bodies and red ears (which scream Celtic to a Celticist)
in Icelandic sagas, I vaguely recall.
        Speaking of Celtic influences in supposedly pristine purely Germanic
societies, there is a book "Celtic Influence in Beowulf" by one Martin
Puhvel that members might want to check out.

                                                           Dr. Daivd . White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sun Dec 10 18:58:44 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 12:58:44 -0600
Subject: Northern Subject Rule
Message-ID: <SUN.10.DEC.2000.125844.0600.>

        As noted by Klehmola (and Venneman), one of the more striking
evidences for Brtittonic influence in English is the so-called "Northern
Subject Rule".  According to this, verbs with 3rd person plural subjects
show 3rd person agreement if no subject pronoun (which in English must
always by "they") is expressed.  Thus "They peel them and boils them".  This
sort of construal is very rare among languages of the world, and apart from
Hebrew and Arabic occurs, according to Klehmola) only in Welsh, Cornish, and
Breton.  In English, it occurs in the North, in more or less the same area
as the Brittonic counting systems noted, from the ME period on, though of
course (unlike most of the other features that attract attention) it has
never become incorporated into Standard English.  Since the evolution of
this rule in English cannot be convincingly motivated on internal grounds,
it is almost certainly due to Brittonic sub-stratal influence.  Whatever
non-linguistic arguments have been used to "prove" that there cannot have
been any substantial Brittonic survival in the North are therefore wrong.

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr  Sat Dec  9 00:04:46 2000
From: jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr (=?iso-8859-2?Q?Mate_Kapovi=E6?=)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 01:04:46 +0100
Subject: l > w (Don't touch my phonemes)
Message-ID: <SAT.9.DEC.2000.010446.0100.>

Ed. Selleslagh wrote:

>Polish and some other Slavic lgs. : l > barred l [w] (cf. Serbo-Croat
>Sloboda , Czech svoboda)

Actually, the "svoboda" form is the original form not the other way around.
No l > w here.


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 10 23:22:39 2000
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 23:22:39 -0000
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes
Message-ID: <SUN.10.DEC.2000.232239.0000.>

Larry Trask writes:

>> pet - spin   : both have  /p/, even though one is aspirated, the other not

>More complicated.  The ordinary contrast between /p/ and /b/ is neutralized
>in this position.  Our orthography writes <p>, and our intuitions --
>at least among those of us who are literate -- is that this voiceless
>unaspirated [p] is still /p/.  But there is another analysis, in which
>this [p] is assigned instead to the phoneme /b/.  Hardly anybody has
>ever seen this second analysis as attractive, but I don't think we can
>simply dismiss it as plainly wrong.

Okay, so we transcribe <spin> /sbIn/, <stem> /sdEm/, <skin> /sgIn/, etc.
with the /s/ devoicing the following stop. Let's see how well this scheme
works. Consistency requires us to write <pin> [phIn] as /bhIn/ where the /h/
devoices the preceding /b/. No problem, since English doesn't use *[bhIn] or
*[pIn], only [phIn] and [bIn]. Likewise we have <tin> /dhIn/, <kin> /ghIn/,
etc.

In final clusters /s/ may devoice the stop from either side: <lisp> /lIsb/,
<lips> /lIbs/. As Bob Whiting recently pointed out, final unvoiced stops are
aspirated in English. Hence they may be treated as allophones of voiced
stops here also: lip /lIbh/, bent /bEndh/, tick /dhIgh/, etc.

English doesn't consist of monosyllables, so we can't discard /p/, /t/, and
/k/ just yet. Medial position presents some complications. The glottalized
"closed" pronunciation of <button>, <rotten>, etc. has no audible
aspiration. On the other hand no dental stop is enunciated either; the stop
heard is glottal: /ra?n/ in closed, /radh at n/ [rath at n] in open pronunciation.
No problem here.

Phonetic [sb], [fd], etc. occur medially in compounds and borrowings such as
<busboy>, <wolf-dog>, <asbestos>. Our scheme gives:

   grass-bin  /grAsbIn/
   grass-pin  /grAsbhIn/
   grass-spin  /grAssbIn/

When /sb/ (for example) begins a syllable the stop is devoiced and there is
no potential contrast of the form /sbIn/ ~ */sbhIn/. When /sb/ straddles a
syllabic boundary the stop is not automatically devoiced. Any phonemic
analysis of English will run into the effect of syllabic boundaries. Also,
the traditional phonemic scheme with /p/ requires /ss/ as well, or
<grass-spin> can't be separated from <grass-pin>.

Compounds like <bedtowel> and <bet-towel> 'a towel for covering bets' must
be distinguished. In the first, the [d] is clearly prolonged (with respect
to its normal length in <headache>) before the aspiration. In <bet-towel>
silence is substituted for that [d]. This is not a "silent phoneme", of
course, but a manifestation of the glottal stop in this position. In
<bed-dowel> the [d] is prolonged as in <bedtowel> without the aspiration. In
<bet-dowel> the <t> is again silent while the [d] has its normal length.
Hence:

   bedtowel  /bEddhaw at l/
   bet-towel  /bE?dhaw at l/
   bed-dowel  /bEddaw at l/
   bet-dowel  /bE?daw at l/

In the case of <naptime> aspiration is clearly heard between the stops, so
there is no trouble with transcribing /nAbhdhaym/. Similar considerations
apply to other medial clusters of stops.

The real difficulty arises when we deal with compounds like <hothead> and
<roadhouse>. For simplicity, compounds like those above are chosen. We can
transcribe

   bed-howl  /bEdhaw at l/
   bed-owl  /bEdaw at l/

without running over previous transcriptions, but we are out of options for
their unvoiced counterparts unless we introduce a tap /t'/:

   bet-howl  /bEt'haw at l/
   bet-owl  /bEt'aw at l/

Similar taps /p'/ and /k'/ are required for <uphill>, <backhand>, etc. Hence
our scheme of writing /sbIn/ provides no net economy of phonemes. It also
complicates English morphology. The regular plural of nouns ending in
aspirated stops cannot be formed by adding /-s/ to the singular; instead
/-h/ must be replaced by /-s/:

   top  /dhabh/  ~  tops  /dhabs/
   bit  /bIdh/  ~  bits  /bIds/
   neck  /nEgh/  ~  necks  /nEgs/

Other complications are apparent in the earlier analysis. For example <bet>
in isolation is /bEdh/, but in combination it may become /bE?/ or /bEt'/. In
the traditional scheme [?] and [t'] are arguably allophones of final /t/ in
combination.

I agree that there is nothing "plainly wrong" with considering unvoiced
stops to be allophones of voiced stops in English. Phonemic analysis,
however, is not an end in itself. We construct phonemic systems in order to
do something further. For most purposes, we are probably better off
retaining unvoiced stops as English phonemes.

Doug Kilday


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sat Dec  9 15:59:33 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 10:59:33 -0500
Subject: Kurds and Georgians [and Basques]
In-Reply-To: <000101c06094$c394a960$f902a8c0@smart.ro>
Message-ID: <SAT.9.DEC.2000.105933.0500.>

[ moderator edited ]

>    Just a brief question/comment here. Of course, I aggree any
>Basque-Caucasian, or specifically Basque-Georgian connection is complete
>nonsense,but shouldn't we add on the list of co-incidental similarities, the
>one concerning "Ivir","Iviria", a name used by foreigners to designate the
>country known to its natives as "Sakartvelo" (=Georgia) and  "Iberian (s)"?
>I believe this coincidence was also used by the followers of this theory.
>                                             Regards,
>                                              Cristian

	Nonsense is a bit strong even if you disagree 100% with the
Basque-Caucasian proposal.
	The similarities could be more than coincidental even if they are
not genetic.
	One should consider the possiblility that the precursors of both
Basque and the Caucasian language families may have received loanwords from
the same sources.  It's even possible (although I imagine the odds are very
long) that the source of such loanwords may have died out in the parent
language. Although Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic automatically come to
mind, I suppose it's possible that some European pre-IE language family may
have contributed vocabulary.
	In any case, I'm sure that tracking down proposed "cognates" has
probably been one of the biggest spurs to investigating the phonology and
linguistic history of these languages.

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From edsel at glo.be  Mon Dec 11 07:21:50 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 02:21:50 -0500
Subject: Kurds and Georgians [and Basques]
In-Reply-To: <000101c06094$c394a960$f902a8c0@smart.ro>
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.022150.0500.>

At 14:36 7/12/00 +0200, you wrote:

>    Just a brief question/comment here. Of course, I aggree any
>Basque-Caucasian, or specifically Basque-Georgian connection is complete
>nonsense,but shouldn't we add on the list of co-incidental similarities, the
>one concerning "Ivir","Iviria", a name used by foreigners to designate the
>country known to its natives as "Sakartvelo" (=Georgia) and  "Iberian (s)"?
>I believe this coincidence was also used by the followers of this theory.
>                                             Regards,
>                                              Cristian

[Ed Selleslagh]

Actually, things are more subtle than has been told by several members of
this list. I don't want to elaborate too much because all this is largely
outside its scope. Let me just point out a few things:

-There are at least two periods in Basque-Caucasianism.

-During the first  period, not only lexical coincidences were considered
(and here most, except Bouda and a few others, agree that most similarities
are accidental or invalid; Dum?zil is rather careful in this respect), but
also grammatical ones, in the first place the presence of ergativism and
multipersonal verbs. The latter aspect is not a laughing matter, although
alternative explanations may be found. The most confusing fact is that the
grammatical aspects point to NE Caucasian, while other aspects point rather
to other Caucasian groups.

-During the second period, or the renaissance of Basque-Caucasianism, which
is still going on, one of the theories with some foundation is that Basque,
a Pyrenean language possibly going back to the local, isolated, late
Palaeolithic or early Neolithic population, was actually more or less
heavily influenced by the more prestigious and influential Iberian (even
Strabo seemed to admire them), the latter being possibly a language of a
migrant group with links of some kind to the Caucasus. Most authors are
very careful in their wording and about which data are conjectural, backed
up by serious indications or proven. They often 'suggest' rather than
'pretend'.
A serious hint of that can be found e.g. in H. Haarmann's article "Basque
ethnogenesis...." in Fontes Linguae Vasconum.

-In Antiquity both Georgia and Mediterranean SE Spain were already called
Iberia, puzzling the writers of the time. In Spain the name seems to be
related to 'ibar', Basque (Iberian?) for 'river (valley)'(cf. the river
Ebro, Lat. Hiberus, another example of a river 'River'?). Note that ancient
Georgia also consisted essentially of two major river valleys parallel to
the Caucasus, so it could have been called 'ibar' by non-Kartvelians.

-It is very notable that Iberian (not really understood) and Basque have
quite a bit in common, especially toponyms and their structure and
elements, but also their general aspect, phonetics etc.. Both are (insofar
Iberian can be analyzed, that is) agglutinating SOV languages. Nonetheless,
most agree that they are probably not 'genetically' related, otherwise
Iberian would not remain so relatively opaque.

-Another remarkable thing: the presence of a number of E. Mediterranean
cultural words in Basque (and in Iberian when available), like 'ili/iri'
for (fortified) city (cf. 'ur(i)', Hebr. 'ir' , Ilion, etc). Of course,
many explanations are possible.

-There is a trail of cultural remnants (e.g. underground 'temples' or
sacred sites, decorative motifs, beliefs, ...) from the Dodecanesos via the
Mediterranean islands to Spain and the Basque country and up to the
Scottish islands, pointing to a maritime migration path. The Etruscans came
from Anatolia to Italy (Tuscany) by sea via Lemnos. Why can't the Iberians
have come to SE Spain from the Black Sea (via e.g. Crete, Malta, the
Balearic Islands...)?

-There is also a 'school' of Armenian-Basque comparitivists who pretend to
have found numerous, mainly lexical, coincidences. Since the two lgs.
belong to vastly different phylla, this can only be through loans, if
actually true. But it could point to a remote Caucasian link, albeit
probably a very indirect one, e.g. direct influence on Armenian, and
indirect influence on Basque via direct influence on those who would become
later the Iberian migrants.

So, a relationship of some sort cannot be excluded, but it is likely to be
a very complex indirect one. And clarifying it will probably require a much
better understanding of the Iberian language, although genetic
investigation into the migrations from the neighborhood of the Caucasus and
further study of the propagation mechanisms of the Cycladic culture  will
also play a major role.

Ed.


From cristim at smart.ro  Fri Dec  8 09:19:31 2000
From: cristim at smart.ro (Cristian Mocanu)
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2000 11:19:31 +0200
Subject: Herceg
Message-ID: <FRI.8.DEC.2000.111931.0200.>

Ed Selleslagh wrote:

"I suppose you meant the arrows to point the other way?"

Yes, definitely. Terribly sorry for this typo.
                           Cristian


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Mon Dec 11 01:20:42 2000
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 19:20:42 -0600
Subject: Lloegr
Message-ID: <SUN.10.DEC.2000.192042.0600.>

Dear Chris and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Gwinn" <sonno3 at hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, December 08, 2000 7:14 PM

> Loegr (or Loegyr) refers generally to Lowland Britain - England in
> particular. The Archaic Welsh form must have been *Loic[e]r. It denizens
> are called Lloegrwys (which is from a Brittono-Latin *Loicr-enses).

> I am not sure of the exact etymology [I still need to see Eric Hamp,
> 'Lloegr: the Welsh name for England', Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 4
> (1982) 83-85 ], but if I had to take a guess, I would suppose that the
> name could be analyzed as *loi-c-er- (where the -er- might be a relic of
> *rigia "kingdom"), and that Loic- probably came from an Early Brittonic
> *log-i-c- (perhaps related to Irish loig and Welsh llo, "calf," which are
> related to Breton lu-e "idiot," allegedly from PIE *leig- / *loig-).

[PR]

More likely, IMHO, sources for the first (?) element might be the IE roots
for Gaelic

lugh, 'small, lynx, Lugh (sun-god)'

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ec at ec hecc, vindga meipi a netr allar nmo, geiri vnda~r . . . a ~eim
mei~i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rstom renn." (Havamal 138)


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Mon Dec 11 03:08:08 2000
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 21:08:08 -0600
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <SUN.10.DEC.2000.210808.0600.>

Dear Stefan and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Stefan Georg" <Georg at home.ivm.de>
Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2000 4:22 AM

>> The consonants in *gwhen-(6)-, 'beat', I believe to have originally been
>> early IE *gwVHVn- so that *gwh is not, as I believe Miguel would have it, a
>> velarization of *gh but rather the resolution of an accentually occasioned
>> juxtaposition of *gw + *H.

>> This particular root is, I believe, found in Coptic hine, 'row', for
>> which I would amend the current hieroglyphic transcription of Xn(j) to
>> *Xjn(j).

>> Possibly it may have a distant reflex in Arabic sha?an-un, 'disheveled
>> hair, a derivation of sha??a, 'scatter, disperse'.

[PR]
Either I inadvertently typed <?>, the glottal stop, or my 'ain (?) came out
as it. It should be 'ain.

> Coptic and Arabic are not known to be Indo-European languages,

[PR]
You jest! No one has ever suggested that Coptic and Arabic are IE languages!

> nor is there any evidence that Afro-Asiatic, the language family Coptic and
> Arabic belong to, may be related, however distantly, to Indo-European.

[PR]
In view of the existence of our sister-list, the Nostratic-List, and the
work of many researchers including Bomhard's work, this statement is purely
provocative.

Instead of a priori judgments on his (and incidentally my) work (not to
mention that of many others), why not try *showing* why Bomhard's and my
IE-AA comparisons are worthless as evidence, switching to the
Nostratic-List, of course, if you are up to it?

> It is, thus, not possible that an Indo-European root may be "found" in
> Coptic.

[PR]
So you say. And now I, and perhaps Bomhard, invite you to prove what you
say.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ec at ec hecc, vindga meipi a netr allar nmo, geiri vnda~r . . . a ~eim
mei~i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rstom renn." (Havamal 138)


From maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Mon Dec 11 14:35:48 2000
From: maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Max Wheeler)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 14:35:48 +0000
Subject: Historical Greek Grammar
In-Reply-To: <008101c06251$a212fbc0$d63dd883@nevada.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.143548.0000.>

Horrocks, Geoffrey, 1997, Greek. A history of the language and its
speakers, London/New York: Longman has relevant phonological information in
chap. 11 'Spoken Greek in the Byzantine Empire'.

Max

--On Saturday, December 9, 2000 18:33 -0800 Philip Rusche
<ruschep at nevada.edu> wrote:

> Could someone please recommend to me a standard and up-to-date historical
> grammar of Greek?  I am working with some Greek texts from the Middle Ages
> and need some references for phonological changes (they are glosses, so I

____________________________________________________________
Max W. Wheeler
School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Falmer
BRIGHTON BN1 9QH, G.B.

Tel: +44 (0)1273 678975 Fax: +44 (0)1273 671320 Email:
maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk
____________________________________________________________


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Mon Dec 11 16:08:00 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 11:08:00 -0500
Subject: Gothic/forwarded request
In-Reply-To: <f04310100b657b746ed4d@[195.247.65.175]>
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.110800.0500.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

[ Moderator's note:
  Due to the nature of this post, I have left off the usual "Reply-To:" which
  points back to the list.  If you wish your reply to include the Indo-European
  mailing list, you will have to address it so explicitly.
  --rma ]

Given that I know virtually nothing about the subject
I'm forwarding a request for information on Gothic
from Manuel Garc?a Gil <mgarciag at arrakis.es>
on behalf of his father

I have edited the request for the sake of brevity

Does Cyril Babaev have anything? If so, does anyone have his url?

From: mgarciag at arrakis.es
Date: Sat, 09 Dec 2000 23:09:14 +0100
Subject: Gothic Language

I'm looking for references on Gothic, as well as websites; particularly on
grammar and modern editions of the Silver Bible (Codex Argenteus)

Manuel Garc?a Gil

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From bronto at pobox.com  Mon Dec 11 05:24:06 2000
From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 21:24:06 -0800
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <SUN.10.DEC.2000.212406.0800.>

petegray wrote:
> A better example might be Spanish America.  Did the Spanish
> still accept slavery at the of the conquistadors?

well, Columbus reported on the potential value of the islanders as slaves.

--
Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/


From hwhatting at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 11 15:05:57 2000
From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 16:05:57 +0100
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.160557.0100.>

On Sun, 10 Dec 2000 08:24:49 -0000 Peter Gray wrote:

>A better example might be Spanish America.  Did the Spanish still accept
>slavery at the of the conquistadors?

Certainly they did. The problem (for the Conquistadores) was that the
American Indians (at least on the Caribean Islands) seem not to have made
good slaves. They died out under the combined pressures of slavery and
European induced diseases. As a substitute, slaves were imported from
Africa, whose descendants today form the majority of the inhabitants of the
Caribbean islands and a sizeable part of the population of some other
American countries.

More generally, it seems that it is difficult to turn hunter-gatherers and
people from "primitive" crop-planting cultures into slaves, which fact (and
not any scrouples about slavery, which became socially and politically
relevant only in the middle of the 19th century) seems to be the main reason
why North American Indians and Australian Aborigines were killed or driven
into reservations and not enslaved. Also, historically slaves (if they did
not become slaves because of debts or were already slaves by birth) were
enslaved in one place (by conquerors or simple bandits) and then transported
to another. People who were conquered and allowed to stay at their homes
normally became serfs - certainly dependent on their masters and forced to
work for them, but, as a rule, not sellable. This, BTW, is what happened in
big parts of Latin America - mostly in those areas which already knew
hierarchically organised agricultural societies before the arrival of the
European conquistadores.

On the other hand, in Africa wide areas were depopulated and quite complex
cultures (like the kingdom of Congo) were destroyed by the incursions of the
slave traders and their native collaborators.

As the Britons at the time of the arrival of the Saxons certainly lived in a
hierarchically organised agricultural society, the closest analogy is
probably to the population of the Aztec and Inca empires and to African
kingdoms like Congo. Of course, analogies are no substitute for facts. But
putting together these analogies and the facts discussed so far, it seems
that we have different situations in the areas on the SE coast first hit by
the Saxons (plundering, enslavement and selling of the slave to the
continent, expulsion, and killing) and further inland, where the Celts were
turned into serfs and kept their language, religion, and culture for some
time still.

One note on the "Celtic traces in the language" issue: one thing about
French which is cited in language histories over and over again is the small
number of Gaulish substrate words in the language. Normally, "alouette"
("lark") and some agricultural terms are quoted. On the other hand, French
phonology (and to a lesser degree grammar) is regularly described as heavily
influenced by the Gaulish substrate. But nobody doubts that the population
of France was basically Celtic, with only a minority of Roman settlers (and
a later smattering of Franks). So the small number of Celtic loanwords in
English cannot be used as an indicator for a massive eradication of Britons.

Best regards,
Hans-Werner Hatting


From dlwhite at texas.net  Mon Dec 11 16:48:50 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 10:48:50 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.104850.0600.>

> I think you are correct in pointing out that England was not monolithic, and
> that some of the invading forces from the Continent did take local wives.
> It would be hard to imagine otherwise.  But, I can't see how this was the
> predominant mode of family-creation during the invasion.  If it were,
> wouldn't we expect a more pronounced influence of Celt on English?

        The influences that, according to some models of possible outcomes,
would be expected are in fact there, as I am in the process of attempting to
demonstrate.

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Mon Dec 11 16:52:34 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 10:52:34 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.105234.0600.>

> Remember timing!  Enslavement, however attractive, was not an option in the
> American midwest, nor in Australia.  If these countries had been invaded in
> the 15th century instead of when they were, things might have been different.

> A better example might be Spanish America.  Did the Spanish still accept
> slavery at the of the conquistadors?

        I somehow neglected to mention Latin America in my earlier emissive.
It is one of the better examples of enserfment.
        And obviously hunter-gatherers do not lend themselves to enserfment.

                                                        Dr. David L. White


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Mon Dec 11 14:40:30 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 09:40:30 -0500
Subject: AS Conquest
In-Reply-To: <000d01c06188$7d946e60$bc00a8c0@vic.bigpond.net.au>
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.094030.0500.>

	I have read in general works that well before the Anglo-Saxon
invasion, the Romans used Saxon troops (or other Germanics) to guard the
North Sea coast against raids by their countrymen. Did they have a big
enough presence to serve as a catalyst for the invasion? Is there any
indication that they actually formed a separate Germanic-speaking community
before the Romans left?

>Anglo-Saxons were not a small military caste, I do not know about the Gaelic
>Irish in Scotland in same period. Anglo-Saxons were a mass mirgation fo both
>males and females probably numbering at least 100,000 probably more.

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From bronto at pobox.com  Mon Dec 11 05:53:15 2000
From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood)
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 21:53:15 -0800
Subject: re Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <SUN.10.DEC.2000.215315.0800.>

"David L. White" wrote:
>         . . . though it is generally acknowledged, I believe,
> that the Icelandic population has a "considerable" (whatever
> that means) Irish element. . . .

I've seen "one-seventh" bandied about.

--
Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/


From colkitto at sprint.ca  Mon Dec 11 06:33:33 2000
From: colkitto at sprint.ca (Robert Orr)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 01:33:33 -0500
Subject: Northern Subject Rule
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.013333.0500.>

> According to the "Northen Subject Rule" verbs with 3rd person plural subjects
> show 3rd person agreement if no subject pronoun (which in English must always
> by "they") is expressed.

"3rd person agreement " must mean "3rd person sg agreement "

> Thus "They peel them and boils them".  This sort of construal is very rare
> among languages of the world, and apart from Hebrew and Arabic occurs,
> according to Klehmola) only in Welsh, Cornish, and Breton

Not necessarily Brythonic.  Irish has this rule as well.

Robert Orr


From colkitto at sprint.ca  Mon Dec 11 07:15:06 2000
From: colkitto at sprint.ca (Robert Orr)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 02:15:06 -0500
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.021506.0500.>

>Larry Trask writes:

>>> pet - spin   : both have  /p/, even though one is aspirated, the other not

>>More complicated.  The ordinary contrast between /p/ and /b/ is neutralized
>>in this position.  Our orthography writes <p>, and our intuitions --
>>at least among those of us who are literate -- is that this voiceless
>>unaspirated [p] is still /p/.  But there is another analysis, in which
>>this [p] is assigned instead to the phoneme /b/.  Hardly anybody has
>>ever seen this second analysis as attractive, but I don't think we can
>>simply dismiss it as plainly wrong.

>Okay, so we transcribe <spin> /sbIn/, <stem> /sdEm/, <skin> /sgIn/, etc.
>with the /s/ devoicing the following stop. Let's see how well this scheme
>works. Consistency requires us to write <pin> [phIn] as /bhIn/ where the /h/
>devoices the preceding /b/. No problem, since English doesn't use *[bhIn] or
>*[pIn], only [phIn] and [bIn]. Likewise we have <tin> /dhIn/, <kin> /ghIn/,
>etc.

Scottish Gaelic orthography makes allowances for something similar, cf.
sgurr, sgian, taisbeanadh, eisd, gasda, iasg, etc.

cf. Irish scian, taispeain, eist, gasta, iasc, etc.

Robert Orr


From whiting at cc.helsinki.fi  Mon Dec 11 20:39:44 2000
From: whiting at cc.helsinki.fi (Robert Whiting)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 22:39:44 +0200
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (was: minimal pairs ex: PIE e/o
 Ablaut)
In-Reply-To: <000901c04fd0$02b852c0$406063d1@texas.net>
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.223944.0200.>

On Thu, 16 Nov 2000 David L. White <dlwhite at texas.net> wrote:

>        Look, either we admit that English speakers could coin
>/lith/ vs /lidh/, whereas Japanese speakers could not coin /biri/
>versus /bili/ or we (somewhat obstructionistically) do not.

I say we admit it.  The question then becomes "what does it
prove?"

>If we admit it, there must be an explanation.

I'm glad to see that you subscribe to the principle that patterns
must be accounted for by rules.

>The view of "the phonemic principle" that I and several others
>have been pushing provides this, while the view that Mr. Whiting
>has been pushing does not.  I personally prefer to construe the
>concept of "phoneme" in such a way that meaningful and accurate
>predictions, which yield an increase in understanding of
>linguistic behavior (even hypothetical), can be made.

This is fine so long as you don't try to foist logical fallacies
off on your adoring public.  To come back to my original question
of "what does this prove?", the answers are easy (even if those
not trained in logic can't see them).  The fact that Japanese
speakers could not coin /biri/ vs. /bili/ proves that [r] and [l]
are not phonemes in Japanese.  The fact that English speakers
could coin /liT/ vs. /liD/ proves that [T] and [D] either are
phonemes in English or that they could become phonemes in
English.  The problem is that "are" and "could become" seem to
mean the same thing in your idiolect.  If you are over 35 and
a native-born citizen of the U.S. then you could become President
of the U.S.  Does this mean that you are the President of the
U.S.?  I don't think so (although it is possible, after all
somebody has to be and nobody seems to know who :>).

The logical fallacy is in assuming the converse of a universal
(A-type) statement to be true.  Being distinguishable sounds is a
necessary condition for phonemes.  Therefore the statement "all
phonemes are distinguishable sounds" is valid.  But the simple
converse of this, "all distinguishable sounds are phonemes" is
not a valid inference.  If it were true, then being
distinguishable sounds would be a sufficient condition for
phonemes.  It is not.

To prove that this is not true, we could trot out the example of
German [c,] and [x] again, but there is a more direct way
involving the segments we have been discussing.  Let us go back
to the point where intervocalic voiceless fricatives were voiced
in English.  This change produced voiced allophones of the
voiceless fricatives.  Could these sounds be distinguished by the
speakers of the language?  Pretty certainly, since the Irish
monks who introduced the Latin alphabet into England heard them
and provided signs to write each of them.  Could the speakers
have coined words in which these sounds contrasted?  Pretty
certainly, since if speakers can hear the difference between two
sounds they should be able to contrast them if they had wanted
to.  Does this mean that these sounds were phonemes from the
moment of their creation?  No. Nobody (except Mr. White) disputes
that these sounds remained allophones throughout Old English.

But according to your "phonemic principle" these sounds were
phonemes from the moment they were created.  I don't believe it.
It took quite some time before these sounds began to be used as
phonemes.  Now the fact that they were distinguishable sounds
provided the potential for them to become phonemes.  But
potential is not reality and despite this potential, they aren't
phonemes until they are used as phonemes.

Psychologists tell us that everybody is capable of murder.  Since
everyone is a potential murderer, then, according to your brand of
logic, everyone is a murderer.  Don't tell the Governor of Texas
this or he will have his Rangers round up everyone and start
executing them.  Every man who does not suffer from erectile
dysfunctionality (not to be confused by speakers of Japanese with
the electile dysfunctionality in Florida :>) is a potential
rapist.  According to your brand of logic, that means that every
man is a rapist.  Potential is just not reality, and saying that
it is doesn't make it so.

Now there is nothing wrong with potential.  Bookies make a lot of
money out of it.  For the odds offered before a race or a game
simply reflect a numerical evaluation of the potential of each
entry or team to win.  But at the end of the day, it is not the
entry or the team with the highest potential that wins, but the
one that crosses the finish line first or that scores the most
points.  Potential may help sell tickets, but it is reality that
goes into the record books.

Similarly, there is nothing wrong with identifying potential
phonemes.  But potential phonemes are just potential phonemes
until they cross the finish line.

>        The sort of distributional standards that are commonly
>used to determine phonemes can fail to predict what speakers are
>sensitive to and able to control.

Intentionally so, because everything that speakers are sensitive
to and able to control is not necessarily a phoneme according to
the present definition.  This may be in the background as an
unstated (but fairly obvious) necessary condition for phonemes,
but it does not form any part of the definition of a phoneme even
if it is implied by the "contrastive" part of the definition.

>For example there is in one African language (I forget which,
>but I think it is in the Nuer Dinka area) which has predictable
>long-range nasalization that speakers are sensitive to.  The
>long-range is the key, because the nasalization, though
>abstractly predictable, is not predictable from phonetic
>implementation.  (Speakers do not really feel compelled to open
>their velums the whole way, as opposed to the way that English
>speakers feel compelled to aspirate under certain circumstances.)
>In a case like this, the question of whether nasalization is or
>is not phonemic depends on what we want the word to capture.  I
>prefer it to capture speakers abilities, enabling us to predict
>(among other things) what coinages are possible and what are not.

Ah, so you are the one who wants to change the definition of
phoneme.  I'm afraid that phoneme as it is now defined is based
on the actual usage of sounds in a particular language, not on
what sounds the speakers of the language can distinguish.
Potential use as a phoneme may, as you say, be useful linguistic
information, but it doesn't fit into the phonemic description of
a language as it is presently constituted.

>Mr. Whiting evidently prefers it to capture distributional
>truths, among other things.  As I said before, perhaps
>over-charitably, we will have to agree to differ.

Capturing truth can be a tricky business as Pontius Pilate once
pointed out.  But charity has nothing to do with agreeing to
differ.  "Superciliously" might be a more accurate term.  It is
possible for people to have honest differences of opinion over
facts (such as whether /ch/ is one phoneme or two), but the rules
of logic are not subject to different interpretations.  And I
don't need your permission to disagree with a logical fallacy.
So I will continue to disagree as long as you continue to claim
that any sounds that the speakers of a language can distinguish
are phonemes in that language.  Until you can get the definition
of phoneme changed, phonemes will continue to be the sounds that
are actually used contrastively in a language to effect
differences in meaning.

Now if you want to say that sounds that can be distinguished and
could be used contrastively by the speakers of a language are
either already phonemes or could become phonemes in that
language, then I would have no objection.  There is nothing
logically inconsistent in such a statement.  Whether there is an
inevitability about such potential phonemes eventually becoming
actual phonemes that makes this a powerful tool of prediction or
not, I don't know, but it might be interesting to investigate.

>        It should be noted that the matter of boundaries, how
>many types there are and how (other than elegance of description)
>they are to be detected, is not so clear as some would have us
>think.  For example, it is fairly common in Old English for what
>we think of as the first element of a compound to be written as a
>separate word.  Nor is it clear that the sort of boundaries we
>have been talking about are properly described as
>"morphological", as any account of phonetics and phonology
>described in their own terms would at the very least have to
>include a recognition of word boundaries.  But if we admit that
>at least there are stronger "word-like" boundaries on the one
>hand and things quite a lot weaker than that on the other, then
>the matter of "kuchen" can be handled by treating the diminutive
>as "ku-chen" or even, more radically, "ku chen", with "chen" as a
>somewhat exceptional word (given a looser definition of the word
>"word", which does not after all have a revealed meaning).  The
>pronunciation referred to does indicate the presence of a strong
>boundary of a fundamentally different type, general rather than
>merely morphological, compared to the boundary in something like
>Latin "paribus" (however we divide that).

All very interesting and it certainly has a bearing on the
gramaticalization of independent words into derivational
suffixes, but I'm not sure what its relevance is to the present
discussion.  I'm sure that everyone knows that whether a phrase
is considered one lexical item or two does not depend on whether
it is written as one word, with a hyphen, or as two words
(someone is certain to remind us that writing is allegedly
secondary to spoken language) but on whether it is considered as
one stress unit or two.  Consider for example English 'bedroom'
and 'living room'.  Although the first is written as one word and
the second as two, both are single lexical items (i.e., they are
both a single stress unit).  'Living room' as two stress units
implies something different (a room with an animus of its own).
So it is not a question of whether 'kuhchen' is written
<kuhchen>, <kuh-chen>, or <kuh chen>; it is a question of when
any putative *'kuh chen' became a single stress unit.  That is
when the juncture ceases being a word boundary and becomes a
morpheme boundary.


Bob Whiting
whiting at cc.helsinki.fi


From dlwhite at texas.net  Mon Dec 11 16:57:22 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 10:57:22 -0600
Subject: Kurds and Georgians [and Basques]
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.105722.0600.>

> -There is a trail of cultural remnants (e.g. underground 'temples' or
> sacred sites, decorative motifs, beliefs, ...) from the Dodecanesos via
> the Mediterranean islands to Spain and the Basque country and up to the
> Scottish islands, pointing to a maritime migration path.

        I believe that the Basques share with the Minoans the somewhat
strange custom of building three-story buildings.

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Mon Dec 11 12:10:43 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 12:10:43 +0000
Subject: Iberia
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.121043.0000.>

Ed Selleslagh writes:

>  -In Antiquity both Georgia and Mediterranean SE Spain were already called
>  Iberia, puzzling the writers of the time. In Spain the name seems to be
>  related to 'ibar', Basque (Iberian?) for 'river (valley)'(cf. the river
>  Ebro, Lat. Hiberus, another example of a river 'River'?). Note that ancient
>  Georgia also consisted essentially of two major river valleys parallel to
>  the Caucasus, so it could have been called 'ibar' by non-Kartvelians.

The idea of deriving the name 'Iberia' from a Basque word has long been
popular, but there are big problems with it.

The central Basque word here is <ibar>.  Today this word means 'valley',
and it is not systematically distinguished from the other 'valley' word,
<haran>.  However, there is some textual evidence pointing to an
earlier distinction.

Azkue concludes that the earlier sense of <ibar> was 'water meadow',
'piece of low-lying fertile land' (possibly next to a river), and this
is accepted by the great Vasconist Michelena.  Indeed,
Azkue translates the word as Spanish <vega>, which means exactly this,
and which itself (it is of unknown origin) has at times been suspected
of being derived from an unrecorded Basque derivative *<ibaika>.
In the mountainous Basque Country, of course, such patches of fertile
low-lying land are found nowhere but in valleys.

In contrast, Sarasola notes that <haran> sometimes sems to denote
specifically a *high* valley, a valley lying high in the mountains.

It is therefore at least possible that <ibar> and <haran> were once
distinguished along these lines, and that their modern synonymy results
from a loss of the distinction.

The most widespread Basque word for 'river' is <ibai>, or sometimes
<hibai> on the French side.  This is pretty clearly a derivative of
<ibar>, whose regular combining form is <iba->.  (Compare, for
example, <iztei> 'groin', from <izter> 'thigh'.)

But this is not the only recorded Basque word for 'river'.  In much
of the center and east we find instead <uhalde> ~ <ugalde> ~ <ubalde>.
This is a transparent compound of <ur> 'water', whose regular combining
form is <u->, and <alde> 'side'.  The original sense was therefore
'waterside', and the word is well attested in this sense, as well as
in the sense of 'river'.   We also have the northern word <ibaso>,
another derivative of <ibar>, with an opaque second element, but this
is not recorded before 1852.  In the Zuberoan dialect on the French
side, we find yet another word for 'river', <uhaitz>, obviously a
compound of <ur> 'water' with a puzzling second element.

Now, <ibai> looks very much like a reasonably ancient formation, but
perhaps not all that ancient.  The problem is that this word is
almost entirely absent from toponyms.  Basque toponyms are overwhelmingly
based on local geographical features, and <ibar> in particular is
exceedingly frequent in toponyms, and yet <ibai> is almost absent.
The only toponym I can think of which obviously contains it is
<Ibaizabal>, the name of the biggest river lying within the Basque
Country.  This is transparently <ibai> + <zabal> 'wide', and the
wholly unreduced form of the name suggests that it is of no great
antiquity.  Two other toponyms, both town-names, may possibly
contain it: <Baiona> 'Bayonne' and <Baigorri>.  But such an analysis
of the first is largely dismissed by the eminent philologist Irigoyen,
who prefers a personal name <Baio> as the first element.  For the
second, an *<ibai-gorri> 'red river' does not seem impossible but
cannot be regarded as certain.  I don't know if there is anything reddish
about its river, with the very non-Basque name <Aldude>, but I'm inclined
to doubt it, since this river comes rushing down on the town from
limestone peaks nearly 1500 meters high.

On the other hand, <ibai> is not uncommon in surnames, which were
established only in the late Middle Ages, also mostly from local
geographical features.  So, we can't conclude that words for 'river'
were systematically disfavored by the earlier Basques for coining names.
I note also that <ur> 'water' is very frequent in toponyms.

All this suggests to me that <ibai> is perhaps not especially ancient
in Basque, and therefore perhaps not available as an etymon for any
names recorded more than 2000 years ago.

This leaves the seemingly more ancient <ibar>, which, from the point
of view of <Iberus>, the Roman name for the Ebro, at least has the
advantage of containing the needed /r/.  But Basque has no long
vowels, and no long vowels can be reconstructed for the Pre-Basque
of some 2000 years ago.  And Latin <Iberus> has a long /e/ in it.
How could <ibar>, with a short /a/, be the source of <Iberus>,
with its long /e/?

I'm afraid a Basque source for the name of the Ebro does not look
especially plausible to me.

By the way, I have seen it suggested that the source might be a
supposed Celtic *<iber>, but I have no idea if any such Celtic item
can be substantiated.  However, for what it's worth, there were
certainly plenty of Celtic-speakers in the Ebro valley when the
Romans arrived, and Celtic toponyms are not rare even within the
Basque Country.  A good example is <Deba>, the name of a river in
Gipuzkoa and of the town lying at its mouth.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Mon Dec 11 18:06:04 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 18:06:04 +0000
Subject: Iberia (PS)
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.180604.0000.>

In my earlier posting, I forgot to mention one further point:
there is no evidence for Basque speech in the Ebro valley in
Roman times.

Aquitanian, the ancestral form of Basque spoken in the Roman period,
is overwhelmingly recorded only north of the Pyrenees.  We have only
three Aquitanian inscriptions from south of the Pyrenees, all of
them in eastern Navarre, and none of them very close to the Ebro.

Moreover, the western half of the historical Basque Country is full of
toponyms which are plainly not Basque and which might well be IE.
Prominent here is the big group of names in <-aka> and <-ika>,
like Mundaka, Meaka, Sondika, Muxika and the famous Gernika.  These
names are common in the west, but become rarer as we move east, until
they finally peter out altogether.  They are absent on the northern
side of the Pyrenees.

Accordingly, some specialists have concluded that Basque was very likely
not spoken in Roman times in a large part of the Spanish Basque Country,
and that Basque-speakers only moved in later -- most likely soon after
the collapse of Roman power in the west.

It is also noteworthy that clearly Basque toponyms, so numerous in
the mountains, become rarer as we move south toward the Ebro, and are
almost non-existent in the Ebro valley itself.  (I omit Basque names
whch are obviously calques on, or adaptations of, Romance names.)

Of course, this paucity of Basque toponyms in the Ebro valley might be
explained simply by the early disappearance of Basque from that region.
In the 12th century, the Basque-Romance frontier seems to have run at
least roughly along the Ebro, but three centuries later it had moved
substantially further north.  Even so, if the Ebro valley had been
inhabited by Basques for a couple of thousand years before this, we
might hope to find a few more Basque toponyms there.

True, the Romans reported that the people they called the Vascones
inhabited much of modern Navarre, down to the Ebro.  And, true, the
European names for the Basques derive from this Roman name.  So we
might reasonably conclude that the Vascones spoke Aquitanian/Basque.
But there exists no hard evidence that they did, apart perhaps from
those three inscriptions.

In sum, then, we cannot demonstrate that Basque was ever spoken
anywhere in the Ebro valley before the early medieval period.
Maybe it was, but we can't say that it was.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Mon Dec 11 05:40:46 2000
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 00:40:46 EST
Subject: "Goth"
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.004046.EST.>

[ Moderator's note:
  Two separate messages have been included into a single posting here, so that
  the correction made in the second can be read before replies begin.
  --rma ]

To the list:

The discussion of Celtic borrowed into German causes me brings this up.  I am
having trouble with the shifts in Germanic and how they relate to how the
sounds would change in early times and when borrowed.

The word "Goth" is difficult one.  It would seem that careful linguistics
could help make sense of it's history.  But the different developments that
I've read have been hard to follow.

Basically, the word "Goth" apparently clearly first appears in Greek about
250BC.  That is when it is applied to the "Goths" just north of the Danube.
It seems that in Greek at this earlier time, it is written <Guto:nes> or
<Guthoi>.

In a number of places I see the word reconstructed as from <*Gutos>, sing.,
<*Gutans> pl. (with <t> rather than <thorn>.)  I don't know when this
reconstruction would date to.

In Latin, it will appear about a hundred years after the Greek as pl <Gothi>
(the way Ulfila's biographer apparently spelled it) and at some point I've
read, <Gotthi>.

The OED mentions a form in Gothic, <Got<thorn>iuda>, (Gothic people?) but I
don't see it in either of two Gothic dictionaries and perhaps it is a
construction that is meant to account for the <tthi-> that apparently
sometimes was used in Latin.

Earlier Greek and Latin historians use similar names to refer to people in
other places who may have been "Goths":  Strabo writing in Greek uses
<Buto:nas> which is often interpreted as a mistake for "Guto:nas", Tacitus
mentions the <Gotones>, Ptolemy mentions both <Kw'gnoi> and up in Sweden
<Gau'tai> and something that has been Latinized as "Gythones."

The Goths were sometimes also referred to as the <Getae> (Greek: Getes,
Getae; Latin, Geta, Getae), a name used for an earlier group of people in the
same area (north of the Danube.)  (The <Geats> appear as another northern
Germanic peoples at some point later in time.)

Some derive the name from the <Go:eta> or <Go:te> people or section of
Sweden, Ptolemy's <Gau'tae>.  Ingemar Nordgren has suggested that the name is
derived from the Goeta River in Sweden (deriving it from Gaut's "aelv").

There is a claim that early forms of the name appear within the Roman empire
in two Greek inscriptions from Asia, one using a personal name <<gouththa>>
the other apparently refering to <<...tes romaion arches gouththton te kai
germanon ethnon>> (apparently from the late 3d cent AD in Persia.)

Now, how does this work?  Does it make sense to assume that the name would
have undergone a consonant shift some 600 or so years before and it once
began with /k-/?  (E.g., a leader of the possibly Germanic Bastarnae
mentioned in Livy in the 2d cent BC as being in this region is given the name
in Latin <Cotto>.)

And are there vowel shifts in East Germanic that happen somewhere around this
time that would yield something like /oe/> /u/ or /e/?  And doesn't Latin
favor <thorn> > /t/?  (E.g., Tacitus - "Tuista")  And how would either /u/ or
/oe/ or /o/ turn into /ou/ in Greek?  Is there any reason to think /oe/ > /o/
or /ou/ could happen at this time between Greek or Celtic and Germanic in
transcribing this word?  Is there a conventional comparative solution for any
of this?

How did <*Gutans> ever get to <Gouththton> in Greek?

The entries where I see <gout-> in Greek are called Phrygian borrowings in
Lidell-Scott.  There is a whole set of words in Greek like <goe:ta> and
<getheo> and <gounatos> that would appear to collide with a straight-up use
of the <goeta> form in Greek, if the sounds are in fact the same.

Is there some regular path by which something like "Goeta" or "Geta" or
"Gutan" would be expected to be borrowed into Greek or Latin, so that it
comes out "Goth" in Latin?  Or "Gouththton" in Greek?

Any sense as to how these sounds moved around would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Steve Long

        -------------------- Begin second message --------------------

From: X99Lynx at aol.com
Message-ID: <57.eb1f110.27668ebc at aol.com>
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 15:10:36 EST
Subject: "Goth"- correction
To: Indo-European at xkl.com

Thanks to some bad cutting and pasting I wrote (along with some typos):

<< Now, how does this work?  Does it make sense to assume that the name would
have undergone a consonant shift some 600 or so years before and it once
began with/k-/?  (E.g., a leader of the possibly Germanic Bastarnae mentioned
in Livy in the 2d cent BC as being in this region is given the name in Latin
<Cotto>.) >>

What I actually was asking was whether it makes sense to assume that some of
the original preshift *Gutans/Go:te? words may have shifted to an initial /k/
in some dialectics?  (Ergo the 2d centBC Bastarnae name <Cotto> mentioned
above.) Or that the initial /gau/ or /gu/ or /gou/ actually represented an
earlier /gh/ or /ghw/, with the result > /g(o)/?  (Which might not make any
of this clearer, but at least is more of what I meant.)

Regards,
Steve Long


From whiting at cc.helsinki.fi  Mon Dec 11 20:27:34 2000
From: whiting at cc.helsinki.fi (Robert Whiting)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 22:27:34 +0200
Subject: minimal pairs (was: PIE e/o Ablaut)
In-Reply-To: <CF348645E7951B43B95272FADF5E6D2D15FCAF@foaex01.auckland.ac.nz>
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.222734.0200.>

[Sorry that I have been so long getting back to this, but I have had
to make two trips to the States in the interim and between being
jet-lagged and having to catch up on work, I just haven't had the
time  -- RMW]

On Tue, 7 Nov 2000 "Ross Clark (FOA LING)"
<r.clark at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:

<snip>

>On Sat, 21 Oct 2000 "Ross Clark (FOA LING)"
><r.clark at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:

<snip>

>RW>By "historical grammar" I mean the changes in grammar through
>RW>time, studied systematically.  By grammar I mean those features
>RW>of language that one will usually find in a standard grammar
>RW>book:  phonology, morphology, and syntax, but generally not
>RW>including pragmatics and lexicon.

<snip>

>  speakers     +     rules      -->      Old English
>                                               |
>  speakers     +     rules      -->      Middle English
>                                               |
>  speakers     +     rules      -->      Modern English

>RW>Synchronic (generative) grammar is concerned with the horizontal
>RW>rows.  Historical grammar is concerned only with the final
>RW>column.  Since we don't know what goes on in speaker's minds,
>RW>everything to the left of the arrows is an assumption.  We assume
>RW>that speakers start from a certain point and apply a certain set
>RW>of rules to arrive at the corpus on the right of the arrows.  But
>RW>everything to the right of the arrows is data.  When we move from
>RW>one set of data to another we also formulate rules to account for
>RW>the changes.  The difference is that that the historical rules
>RW>are not based on assumptions about how speakers produce language,
>RW>but on observed differences in the language that speakers have
>RW>produced.  Synchronic grammar is simply cut out of the loop in
>RW>historical grammar.

>I doubt that this description fits anything that we are familiar
>with under the name of historical grammar. A corpus is not a
>language, and I find it hard to imagine, say, historical syntax
>couched in terms of differences between a sentence found in an OE
>corpus and another one found in a ME corpus. (I don't mean
>examples, I mean the statements of historical grammar.) As soon
>as you even begin to talk about, say, cases, constituents or
>constructions, you are already moving left of the arrows.

I don't say we can't go to the left of the arrows.  All I say is
that as soon as we go to the left of the arrows everything is an
assumption -- constrained only by what is to the right of the
arrows (the data) and some vague notion of "universal grammar"
that we have generalized from trips across the arrows in many
different languages.  Unlike what is in the right hand column we
don't know (i.e., don't have any data) about what is on the other
side.

But although a corpus is not a language, it is an important tool
for linguistic work and an indispensable one for historical
linguistic work.  In most cases, there is simply no other record
of languages, particularly dead languages, on which to base
linguistic analysis.  For modern languages, a field linguist can
collect tapes or phonetic transcriptions of actual spoken
languages, but these are corpora too.  Field linguists can use
these to extract a lexicon and a grammar, and if native
informants are readily available can (relatively) easily develop
a tool that can be used by other researchers.  But if there are
no records of earlier stages of the language, then the only
possibility for historical work is through internal
reconstruction.

Without such corpora historical linguistics would get about as
far as paleontology would without fossils.

As for whether this looks like anything that you are familiar
with under the name of historical grammar, you might want to go
back and look at de Saussure again.  What I have presented is
simply a modification of his basic principles of historic
(diachronic) grammar as a constantly changing medium through time
and synchronic grammar as a cross section through this medium at
some particular point -- a "snapshot", as it were, of this
changing medium at some particular point in time.  Thus:

                      H G                      TIME
                       |                         |
                       |                         |
                       |                        \ /
                       |                         v
                       |
                       |
          S G -------------------- S G
                       |
                       |
                       |
                       |
                       |
                       |
                      H G


I am sure you will find this diagram or one similar to it in any
basic text on linguistics.  All I have done is present 3 cross
sections instead of one and broken down synchronic grammar into
its components.  What is to the left of the arrows corresponds to
what de Saussure termed "langue" (the language system) and what
is to the right of the arrows is what he called "parole" (the
speech act).  These two components correspond generally to what
Chomsky called "competence" and "performance."  The current
theory is that native speakers have internalized a set of rules
through something called a "language acquisition device" (de
Saussure's "langage") that allows them to produce their language.

Generative grammar is an attempt to determine these rules through
the linguistic analysis of patterns of grammatically correct
usage.  It is necessary to do this through linguistic analysis
because native speakers have not memorized these rules the way
they have memorized the multiplication tables or the formula for
the volume of a sphere, and so they cannot just reel off a list of
the rules.  They have acquired them at a time before they are
capable of serious memorization.  Native speakers have not
memorized the grammar of their language, they have just learned
it -- it is hardwired into their brains by the LAD.  Native
speakers are often taught prescriptive grammar in school, but
comprehensive education is a fairly recent thing.  Before
everyone was required to go to school, everyone still grew up
learning to speak the language.  Even today, those who for one
reason or another do not go to school will still learn to speak
their native language.  They may not learn to read or write, but
they will still be able to speak the language.

I suspect that the thing that you disagree with is my statement
that historical grammar is concerned only with the final column,
that is, with the data, and you are right to disagree, because
a synchronic grammar of Old English has to go to the left of the
arrows to produce an explanation of what is on the right of the
arrows.  My point was not that what is on the right of the arrows
exists in splendid isolation, but that without it, it is very
difficult to venture to the left of the arrows.  If, for example,
case endings have completely disappeared from a language, it is
very difficult to reconstruct them without examples from an
earlier stage of the language.  So I will agree that the data is
not the sole concern of historical grammar, but I will maintain
that you won't get very far in historical grammar without it, and
even with it, you can't be certain of what is on the other side
of the arrows.

<snip>

>RW>Realistic means based on realia -- things that actually exist
>RW>as opposed to mental constructs.

>This is not sufficient to make any discrimination among
>linguistic descriptions. Any linguist of any theoretical
>persuasion will claim that their description is "based on"
>"things that actually exist".

Any theorist will tell you that his theories are based on things
that actually exist.  The problem is that for any given set of
data there are virtually an infinite number of hypotheses that
will account for it.  Some will just be more plausible than
others.  However, it is usually not too difficult to see how far
beyond the data any particular theory has gone, and, more
important, whether it is falsifiable or not.

>However, I guess it might distinguish you from a radical
>Hocuspocusian.

No comment.

>RW>When you start talking about "mental reality" you are getting
>RW>into a murky area of philosophy. Is there such a thing as "mental
>RW>reality"?  This is something that can be discussed endlessly and
>RW>inevitably inconclusively.

>Well, that's what philosophers are paid to do.

Philosophers get paid to do that?  Maybe I should become a
professional philosopher. :)

>As linguists, I think we should simply admit that insofar as our
>synchronic descriptions are any more than mere transcription,
>they are attempts to capture some aspect of mental reality.

I don't say that we shouldn't; in fact, I think we pretty much
have to.  What I say is that such a thing is presently beyond our
reach.  Until we can get inside the human mind, there is no way
to verify whether what we have captured is "mental reality" or
not.  It may be a useful model to explain certain things (like
Niels Bohr's planetary model of the atom) but it also may have
nothing to do with reality (like Niels Bohr's planetary model of
the atom).  I don't say that we shouldn't try to get there, only
that there is no direct road there presently available.  So
whether all our rules of synchronic grammar actually reflect
something that actually goes on in the mind (which is what I
assume you mean by "mental reality") is something that remains to
be seen.

[snip]

>RC>> The rest of your post is entirely dependent on the further
>RC>> assumption that native speakers of modern English (in general,
>RC>> not just linguists) distinguish "foreign" from "native" words,
>RC>> and that the words I listed with /th/ in voiced environments are
>RC>> marked as "foreign". Since I don't share this assumption, I would
>RC>> like to know what evidence leads you to it. Do you have any such
>RC>> evidence, other than the fact that by excluding these hundreds of
>RC>> words you can arrive at a nice phonological generalization?

>RW> Let me answer this from back to front.

>RW> You ask what evidence I have that native speakers
>RW> distinguish by rule the [th] of loan words from the [dh] of
>RW> native words other than hundreds of examples and the fact that it
>RW> produces a nice phonological generalization.

RC>This is not quite what I said. I said that in order to arrive at
RC>your nice generalization you need to *exclude* hundreds of
RC>English words, and I asked what independent evidence you had that
RC>these words are somehow marginal to the structure of English?

RW>I don't remember saying that these words were marginal to the
RW>structure of English and I don't remember your saying it
RW>previously.  I didn't say these words were marginal to the
RW>structure of English.  I said that these words follow a different
RW>rule from native English words and that foreign words don't
RW>necessarily follow the same rules as native words.  So these
RW>words aren't marginal to English -- there are too many of them --
RW>they just follow different rules.

RW>But I can see that I shouldn't expect connections to be made when
RW>these connections have not been expressly stated.  So let's start
RW>again.  Grimm's Law says that certain PIE consonants shift in a
RW>certain way in Germanic.  But there are a large number of
RW>exceptions.  One exception is that unvoiced stops don't shift
RW>when the stop is the second part of a voiceless cluster (thus
RW>/sp/, /st/, and /sk/ remain unshifted).  However, even with this,
RW>there are still a large number of exceptions to Grimm's Law.
RW>Verner's Law says that when the PIE stress fell after the
RW>consonant then the consonant shifted in a different way.  So
RW>Verner's Law in effect *excludes* hundreds of Germanic words from
RW>the effects of Grimm's Law thereby producing a nice phonological
RW>generalization.

>This is the most peculiar interpretation of Verner's Law I have
>ever seen. The fact is that Verner made it possible to *include*
>many words which had previously simply been sidelined as
>"exceptions".

To include in what?  Certainly not Grimm's Law.  Verner's Law
justifies certain exceptions to Grimm's Law.  The consensus is
that Verner's Law operated after Grimm's Law (thus Grimm's Law
feeds Verner's Law by providing voiceless fricatives for it to
operate on).  The words "in effect" above indicate that what I
said is not what actually happened, but rather that this is the
result that it produced.

So once again:  Grimm's Law says (inter alia) that PIE voiceless
stops become Germanic voiceless fricatives:

            PIE           Germ.

            *p             f
            *t             T
            *k             x

But considering the dental, PIE *t results in Germanic T, d, and
t.  Now T is the normal outcome of Grimm's Law; t is the result
of Grimm's Law not acting on the second member of a voiceless
cluster (Latin 'sto:', Goth. 'standan' "stand"; this sound is
"in actuality" excluded from the effect of Grimm's Law rather
than "in effect" excluded).  Until Verner discovered his law, d
was just an unexplained exception to Grimm's Law.  Verner's Law
is:

   [+fric., -voice] > [+voice, (?stop)] / [+voice, -accent] ___
   {+voice, #}
   (the notation (?stop) is included because this rule apparently
   also voiced PIE *s in this environment; for those who may not
   be able to read the 8-bit character, this is a "plus or minus"
   sign)

This rule explains the shift of PIE *t to Germanic d (Latin
'pater', Goth. 'fadar').  Although the actual rule has shifted
T to d (where T was the result of Grimm's Law), the effect is to
exclude this word from having to have the expected outcome
(*faTar) if only Grimm's Law had operated.  This is why I said
that *in effect* Verner's Law excludes this word from the effects
of Grimm's Law.  It doesn't actually exclude it from the
operation of Grimm's Law (otherwise the fricative wouldn't have
been there for Verner's Law to convert).

>RW>What independent evidence is there that Verner's Law
>RW>correctly excludes these words?  Only the fact that when it can
>RW>be checked, the PIE stress does fall after the consonant in those
>RW>cases where the consonant does not shift according to Grimm's
>RW>Law.  Of course this might just be coincidence, and some people
>RW>might not accept Verner's Law and ask what independent evidence
>RW>there is for it other than that when you exclude these words
>RW>using this rule you get the nice phonological generalization
>RW>known as Grimm's Law.

>If someone asked this I would have to conclude that they had not
>understood either.

Seems to be a lot of that going around. :)

>RW> This seems rather like asking what evidence I have for
>RW> Grimm's Law or Verner's Law other than hundreds of examples and
>RW> the fact that they provide a nice phonological generalization.

>RC>No, because you are not presenting this as a historical law. As
>RC>a historical explanation of why /th/ occurs in certain places and
>RC>/dh/ in others, it is not in dispute.

>RW>Historical law - historical explanation -- What's the difference
>RW>in your mind?

>You misunderstood me. I was not proposing an antithesis.

I'm sorry.  It rather sounded like you were.  But if there is no
antithesis, why is it a valid historical explanation but not a
valid historical law?

RW>What happened happened.  If the explanation can be
RW>stated as a rule and is not in dispute, what is the problem?

>What I said was that the *historical* explanation of the
>distribution of [th] and [dh] in native English words was not in
>dispute. What we are arguing about is a *synchronic* account of
>[th] and [dh] in Modern English. This is why the comparison with
>Grimm/Verner was not appropriate.

The point is that sound laws (changes) are historical events that
occur at a certain time in a certain language under certain
conditions.  Once the change goes to completion, that's it.  If a
word got missed by the change, it stays.  If new words that would
have undergone the change if they had been in the language when
it took place come into the language after the change, they
stay.  These words don't have to be loans; they could be new
coinings.  So if you know of any new coinings in English that
have intervocalic [T] (and aren't neologisms based on Greek or
Latin), I'd be happy to know.  Otherwise, if you find an English
word with intervocalic [T] there is about a 98% chance that it
is a loanword borrowed after the change.  And all loanwords that
came into the language after the change with intervocalic [T]
still have it.

So the further point is that sound laws (changes) that took place
long, long ago are still present (and significant) in the
language until some other change eliminates their effects.
Therefore, you can't disqualify the sound patterns of the modern
language from being significant simply because they are based on
*historical* events that happened in the distant past.  The sound
law (change) that voiced intervocalic [T] in Old English is
qualitatively no different from Grimm's Law that operated in
Pre-Germanic to produce the [T] in the first place.

So the *synchronic* pattern is the same as the historical
explanation.  Native English words have intervocalic [D] (with a
few exceptions) and borrowed English words have intervocalic [T]
(if that's what they were borrowed with).

It seems to be very difficult for people to grasp the concept
that synchronic grammar and historical grammar have to have the
same result because they both describe the same entity (the
modern language as it is produced by its speakers).  The modern
language is not produced by historical events, it is produced by
its modern speakers.  A knowledge of history is only useful to
help explain *why* modern speakers produce the language that they
do rather than some other or some previous version.  The modern
speakers tell us *what* they produce.  What modern speakers
produce and what historical explanations tell us to expect them
to produce must be the same thing, or else our historical
reconstruction must be wrong (because the native speakers of the
language can't be).  But neither the native speakers nor
historical explanations can tell us *how* they produce their
language.

[snip]

>RW> But ultimately, it is unimportant whether speakers can still
>RW> recognize foreign words after several centuries or not. The
>RW> pronunciation rules are marked in the lexicon.  The native
>RW> speaker learns these rules and follows them.  It is these rules
>RW> that produce the pattern, not the speaker's perception of the
>RW> words as native or non-native.

>RW> For other evidence that native speakers distinguish by rule
>RW> the [th] of loan words from the [dh] of native words I offer the
>RW> pattern created by the presence of intervocalic [th] and [dh] in
>RW> English words.

RC>This is not "other evidence". This *is* your evidence.

RW>Then my position is unassailable.

>I think you should be worried about this. "Self-validating"
>might be another way of putting it.

Are you now denying the existence of the pattern?  Or are you
still just saying that this pattern can't have any significance?
Because if the pattern is there, then this is not self-validation;
it is validation through evidence.

>RW>As with Verner's Law, the fact that the rule by which the
>RW>exclusions are made is valid and leads to a valid generalization
>RW>is sufficient.

>Not in the slightest like Verner's Law, as I've pointed out.
>Consider: For any pair of English phonemes (say /p/ and /b/) it
>is possible to extract a subset of the words in which they occur
>where the two are in "complementary distribution". (Say [p]
>initially and [b] medially, so we include pig, nibble and rubber,
>but exclude big, nipple and supper.) We then state that there is
>only one phoneme, but that the excluded words "follow a different
>rule". What principle would exclude such a ridiculous analysis?

Surely the principle that the "different rule" would have to be
in direct conflict with (the opposite of) the first rule would
reveal that this analysis is self-contradictory.  But why make
your ridiculous analysis so complicated?  Why not just extract a
subset of English words that begin with /b/ and say that all
English words begin with /b/ and that all the excluded English
words "follow different rules"?  The fact that the different
rules must be in conflict with the original rule makes such an
analysis impossible because P and ~P ("a proposition and its
opposite" or "P and not-P") cannot both be true.  The principle
is known as contradiction or mutual exclusivity.

But are you trying to say that you consider this to be in any way
parallel to saying that native English words have intervocalic
[D] and borrowed words have intervocalic [T]?  If so, then you
are clearly not even close to grasping what I have been talking
about.  It is one thing to present analyses that violate the
cherished rules of phonology (such as "no non-phonetic conditions
can affect phonology" or "rules that have to do with how words
are pronounced aren't necessarily phonological"), but it is quite
another to make up analyses that violate the rules of logic.

[snip]

RC>As I understand your position, you are claiming that there is a
RC>single phoneme, say /th/, with a realization rule that says
RC>(among other things) that /th/ is realized as [dh]
RC>intervocalically, except in certain exceptional words.

RW>Close.  I claim that there was once a single phoneme /th/ in
RW>English.  Then that this phoneme became voiced to [dh]
RW>intervocalically without creating any new contrasts (/th/ now
RW>has allophones [th, dh]).  Then that any words that came into the
RW>language with intervocalic [th] after this sound change operated
RW>retain [th] intervocalically (this is not necessarily restricted
RW>to loanwords; it could also include new coinings -- there just
RW>don't seem to be any with intervocalic [th]).  There is nothing
RW>particularly exceptional about words with intervocalic [th]
RW>except that the vast majority of them came into the language
RW>after the sound change.  There are a few native words with
RW>intervocalic [th] (for reasons that can be accounted for), but
RW>there are no loanwords that originally had intervocalic [th] that
RW>now have [dh].  This is exceptional, at least to the extent that
RW>there are no exceptions.

[snip]

RC>Meanwhile, how do we know that children and the less educated
RC>actually formulate the rule this way? If they did, one would
RC>expect that errors consisting of pronouncing [dh]
RC>intervocalically in words which should have [th] would be common.
RC>I don't recall any such tendency from my experience as a native
RC>speaker of English, but surely it's you that should be looking
RC>for such evidence.

RW>My point is that we don't know how any speaker actually
RW>formulates the rule.  What goes on on the left side of the arrows
RW>is a mystery.  All we know is that there is a pattern, the
RW>historical reason for the pattern, and that, synchronically,
RW>patterns must be accounted for by rules.  My further point is
RW>that it doesn't matter that we can't formulate the synchronic
RW>rule.  There must be one, or the pattern wouldn't be there.

>Since you are sure there is a rule, and are even willing to state
>it, I don't see why you claim it is such a mystery.

This is just your same philosophical question in a different
guise.  As I said earlier this is something that can be discussed
indefinitely (in both senses of the word), and I don't have time
to go into it here, nor do I consider it appropriate to this list
(it belongs on a list devoted to the philosophy of science).  A
good (philosophical) discussion on hypothesis confirmation will
be found in S. F. Barker, _Induction and Hypothesis_,
Contemporary Philosophy (Ithaca, 1957).  An extensive discussion
of Linguistic applications (including a bibliography of more
recent general studies) will be found in D. Wunderlich,
_Foundations of Linguistics_, Cambridge Studies in Linguistics
(Cambridge, 1979) [translation of the German version, _Grundlage
der Linguistik_, published in 1974].

But in brief, theories do not eliminate mysteries, they provide a
plausible explanation for them.  A theory is just an explanation
put forward to account for some observation or set of
observations (the evidence).  A theory can account for all the
observations (evidence) in a plausible manner and still be wrong.
Until direct observation and objective verification of cause and
effect are possible, a theory remains a theory.  Now there are
those, apparently including you, who believe that once we have a
theory to account for something, there is no longer any mystery.
But a theory is just a plausible story.  It is not evidence.
Plausible stories are what we use to bridge the gaps where there
is no evidence.  Innocent people have been executed on the basis
of plausible stories well told.  But once the plausible story
breaks down, the mystery reappears, implying that it never really
went away.  So plausible stories (theories) don't really
eliminate mysteries, they just give them something to hide behind
so that people who don't look beyond the explanations can't see
them.

<snip>

>We may be working from fundamentally different conceptions of how
>languages are organized here. I repeat your schema from the
>discussion of historical grammar:

> speakers     +     rules      -->      Old English

>>From this it would appear that, for you, "rules" includes all
>the information commonly thought of as being part of the lexicon.

No, rules are generally marked in the lexicon only if they are
not the productive rule.  That is what a markedness rule means:
the word has to be marked for the rule in the lexicon.  Thus
nouns that have a regular plural in (some form of) /s/ will not
have the plural marked in the lexicon and verbs that have regular
principal parts in (some form of) /d/ will generally not have the
principal parts marked in the lexicon (unless there is some other
peculiarity like 'sleep' / 'slept' that makes the form
unpredictable from the productive rule).  The lexicon will (or
should) tell you things like whether nouns are plurale tantum or
collectives or plural in form but singular in construct and
whether verbs are transitive or intransitive or are state verbs
or action verbs or if the verb requires an animate subject or if
it takes a dative object rather than an accusative.  For
languages that have such things, the lexicon will tell you which
declension a noun belongs to (and its gender if this is not
correlated with declensions) or which conjugation a verb follows.

But to find out what such things mean and how they are applied in
a particular language you will have to look at a grammar of the
language.  Rules (both productive and markedness rules, as well as
paradigms) are found in grammar books, generally not in lexicons.
The lexicon usually just marks which rules particular words
follow.  That is why when you attack a language that you are not
familiar with you need both a grammar and a lexicon (dictionary).
One without the other won't do you much good because language is
an integrated system.  The individual subsystems don't give you
enough information to use or comprehend the system adequately.

"Speakers + rules" is just my way of characterizing what de
Saussure called "langue" and Chomsky called "competence."  The
rules are the rules of generative grammar which is the current
theory of how speakers produce language ("parole" or
"performance").  Needless to say, there are a number of competing
theories on how this is actually accomplished.

>Just above, you stated that "The pronunciation rules are marked
>in the lexicon", which makes me wonder whether you share an
>assumption that I had been taking as given, namely that there are
>two different types of information/knowledge relevant here:

>   (i) information about the phonological shape of particular
>lexical items -- for example, the fact that the English word for
>"fish" has an /f/ in initial position.

>   (ii) general information about the realization of particular
>segments and configurations (such as allophonic and
>morphophonemic rules).

>In my experience, most people would use the term "rules" of the
>latter type of information, but not the former.

Yes, rules are generalized statements of repeated (and
repeatable) observations.  What you give in (i) above is a single
instantiation of a more general rule (graphically, initial <f> in
English represents /f/ or, as a phonotactical rule, /f/ is a
permissible initial segment in English).  Now this single
instantiation would not be sufficient to formulate the general
rule (there is even an aphorism about this: "one swallow does not
a summer make"; or, as my professor always said: "testis unus,
testis nullus").

Basically, information about the phonological shape of lexemes
needs to be given in the lexicon only if it is not transparent
from the orthography.  Finnish, for example, usually does not
mark pronunciation separately in the lexicon; there is no need.
If you see a Finnish word spelled you know how to pronounce it.
If you hear a Finnish word pronounced you know how to spell it.
Finnish children learn to write from dictation at about the age
of 7.  By contrast, English speaking children never do.  English
orthography is far from transparent.  For this reason, there must
be rules to relate English orthography to English pronunciation.
In addition it is important to mark the position of the stress
(and sometimes the position of syllable boundaries) in English
because this information is not predictable and is sometimes
lexically significant (per'-fect [adj.] vs. per-fect' [v.],
reb'-el [n., adj.] vs. re-bel' [v.], etc.).  Finnish on the other
hand does not need to mark either stress or syllable boundaries
because both are fixed and never lexically significant.

So the rules of pronunciation that I spoke of are the rules for
relating the orthography of English words to their pronunciation.
English has words that are spelled differently but pronounced the
same as well as words that are spelled the same but pronounced
differently.  Now many parts of English orthography are
transparent.  Transparent (and even semi-transparent)
relationships could be given as general rules in a separate
section of the dictionary.  In your example (i), a general
statement that "initial <f> (and <ph>) represents /f/" would make
a pronunciation rule for <fish> unnecessary.  Similarly, anyone
who can generalize the transparent rules of English orthography
would know that <phlox> and <flocks> were pronounced the same.

But some English orthographies are completely opaque.  One such
is the graphic sequence <ough>.  If one sees <cough>, one has no
idea whether is should be pronounced as if it were <coo>, <cow>,
<cuff>, or <coe>.  And this does not even include the correct
pronunciation.  Therefore every word with <ough> requires a
pronunciation rule.  Essentially such a rule simply says "this is
how you pronounce this graphic sequence in this particular word."
Now this is only true for people who can read.  This rule relates
the graphic sequence to a pronunciation.  Those who can't read
(or whose native language is not written), have no need for such
rules.  For them each word is simply pronounced the way it is
pronounced and there is no way for graphic sequences to interfere
with this.  They must have each word stored in their memory or
they must create it by analogy when they need it because there is
nowhere else for them to store it.  This creates less of a problem
because the only source of unfamiliar words for these people is
from hearing them, and presumably when they hear them they learn
them with the correct (received) pronunciation.

Another opaque graphic sequence is <th>.  Nothing about the
graphic environment of this symbol tells you whether is to be
read as [T], [D], or even [t].  Although final <the> is usually
realized as [D], it is not invariably so (e.g. some
pronunciations of 'blithe', 'lithe') and final <th> is not always
realized as [T] but often also as [D] ('smooth', 'mouth' [v.],
Brit. 'booth', some pronunciations of 'with').  Therefore, <th>,
like <ough>, should need a pronunciation rule for every occurrence
of this symbol.

Now there are those who say that they have no rules for the
pronunciation of <th>.  Presumably, when they encounter in print
an unfamiliar word with <th> in it they have to go to the
dictionary to find out how to pronounce it.  I happen to have
generalized rules for the pronunciation of <th> so I can usually
make a guess that will be right about 98 times out of 100 about
how <th> should be pronounced in an unfamiliar word.  I came
across one the other day:  'poikilothermic'.  Without going to
the dictionary I knew two things just by looking at it:  a) it is
not a native English word, and therefore, b) the <th> is
pronounced [T].

[snip]

>RW> The best evidence that the pattern is created by rule by the
>RW> speakers of the language is the fact that the pattern exists.
>RW> For if there is a pattern in a language, synchronically it must
>RW> be created by its speakers because that is the only place that
>RW> language comes from.  If the pattern is not created by rule, then
>RW> it is simple coincidence.

>RC>No, this is where you go wrong.

>RW>I presume that "this is where you go wrong" is your way of saying
>RW>that your opinion is different from mine. :)

>Isn't that what "wrong" usually means? :)

In linguistics, almost invariably. :)

RC>The pattern has been created by historical changes in the
RC>language. That is what creates the distribution of [dh] and [th]
RC>that is the input to each speaker's language-learning task. There
RC>is no general principle that speakers must recognize (consciously
RC>or unconsciously) any such pattern, or make use of it in their
RC>rule-governed language behaviour.

RW>No, the modern language is not created by the historical events
RW>that brought it about.

>There is obviously a distinction in your mind between "create"
>and "bring about" which I am not picking up. Otherwise you have
>contradicted yourself. Or is it the tense distinction between "is
>created" (by speakers,now) and "brought it about" (in the past).
>In either case, I am happy to re-state my claim above as:

>The historical changes *brought about* the present distribution
>of [dh] and [th].

My point about "create" is that history doesn't create things.
History is just a record of what happened -- a record of people
and events.  People and events create things (sometimes people
create events as well), but the record of people and events
doesn't create things.  The modern language (in the form of
modern speech and modern writing) is "created" by its modern
speakers.  And at any point in time the "modern" language is the
one currently in use.  So this "historical" change was "created"
by the speakers of the language at that time, not by history.
The fact that it is still present in the language of modern
speakers just shows that it has been successfully passed on from
generation to generation.  If it hadn't, it wouldn't still be in
the language.

The fact that these are historical changes just means that they
happened in the past.  But that doesn't necessarily mean anything
to the modern speakers of the language because for the most part
they don't know anything about the history of the language they
speak.  And this doesn't make any difference because the pattern
is present in the language *synchronically*.  You claim that
there is no dispute about this and have even suggested that my
demonstration of the existence of this pattern in the modern
language was unnecessary.  But now you seem to be claiming that
the fact that these are "historical" changes means that this
pattern has no significance for the modern language.  It may not
be significant in the "why" sense, but it must be in the "what"
sense.  But this doesn't matter because, by and large, speakers
don't know the "why" of their language, only the "what."

RW>The modern language is created by what
RW>goes on on the left side of the arrows in the diagram above.
RW>This is the assumption of generative grammar.  And it is a basic
RW>premise of generative grammar that patterns must be accounted for
RW>by rules.  If you have evidence, rather than just an intuition,
RW>that linguistic patterns are not created by rules, then please
RW>share it.  It will revolutionize synchronic grammar.

>No, I don't think it will. My view is one you have probably heard
>before: That there are two distinct phonemes /th/ and /dh/, which
>occur in various words in various positions. A subset of the
>English vocabulary shows a pattern of complementary distribution
>between these phonemes. The pattern is there in the vocabularies
>of English speakers because it is there in the corpus of
>presently spoken English on which they have based their
>internalized knowledge of English. And it is in the corpus as a
>consequence of changes which took place long ago in the history
>of the language.

Well, I can't say that I've heard the idea that changes that took
place long ago in the history of a language have no significance
for the modern language before.  If the results of changes are
still part of the language, it doesn't matter when they happened.
Speakers of the modern language don't know and don't care when
they happened.  They just learn them as part of the language.

>Your analysis (again, correct me if I'm wrong) postulates a
>single phoneme /th/ with two different "pronunciation rules".
>Some words follow a rule that says intervocalic /th/ is
>pronounced [th], and others a rule that says it is pronounced
>[dh]. Which words follow which rule presumably has to be marked
>on individual lexical items.

Well, the first thing to correct is that "my analysis" does not
say that there is only a single phoneme /T/.  I have no basis
for saying this.  My analysis is only about the validity of the
evidence that is used to "prove" that there are two phonemes /T/
and /D/.  The fact that I consider this evidence inconclusive is
not proof that there is only one phoneme, nor does "my analysis"
require that there be only one phoneme.

My analysis is based on a number of observations.  These are
based on data, and, I think, are not questioned.  The first is
that there was originally a single phoneme /T/ in English.  This
phoneme is the normal reflex of PIE *t in Germanic.  At some
point there was a change that voiced intervocalic [T] to [D] (and
voiced intervocalic /s/ and /f/ as well).  This change did not
initially create any new contrasts but only a voiced allophone of
/T/ in intervocalic position.  This event obviously took place
before the introduction of the Latin alphabet into England in the
late 6th - early 7th century.  But probably not long before,
because the voiced fricatives were clearly considered allophones
of the voiceless ones through Old English.

The next set of observations is about the distribution of these
two sounds ([T] and [D]) in modern English.  The original
allophonic status of [D] as an intervocalic variant of [T] has
obviously changed.  Both [T] and [D] now appear in initial,
intervocalic, and final position.  However, the distribution of
these sounds in these positions is generally not arbitrary but is
determined by word classes.

In initial position, [D] is found in function words
(specifically, pronouns and deictics) while [T] is found in all
other words (whether native or borrowed). There are two minimal
contrasts that arise from this distribution:  'thigh' [Tai] and
'thy' [Dai], and 'thistle' [Tis at l] and 'this'll' [Dis at l]
(contraction of 'this' and 'will').

In intervocalic position, [D] appears in native English words
that were in the language and considered native when the voicing
rule operated.  There are a few instances of intervocalic [T] in
native words that did not voice for various reasons.  There are
no minimal contrasts between [T] and [D] in these two groups.
A much larger group of words with intervocalic [T] is made up of
loanwords that have come into the language with intervocalic [T]
after the voicing rule operated.  Although there are hundreds (if
not thousands) of such words, there is exactly one minimal
contrast between [T] and [D] between these two groups:  'ether'
[i:T at r] and 'either' [i:Der] (the latter also realized as
[aiD at r] in some dialects or by some speakers and hence not a
minimal contrast).

In final position, both [T] and [D] can occur.  There are,
however, two major groups where [T] and [D] are distributed by
meaning class:  a) nouns in final [T] often have a corresponding
verb in final [D],  b) nouns in final [T] often have a plural in
[Dz].  These groups are relics of the earlier voicing rule that
voiced intervocalic [T] but have since lost the conditioning
environment that triggered the initial change.  The conditioning
environment that preserves these distinctions is now grammatical
rather than phonological.  There are several minimal contrasts
between [T] and [D] in these groups:  'teeth' [ti:T] (plural of
'tooth') and 'teethe' [ti:D] (verb derived from 'tooth'),
'wreath' [ri:T] and 'wreathe' [ri:D] (verb based partly on
'wreath' and partly on a by-form of 'writhe'), and 'sooth' [suT]
("truth") and 'soothe' [suD] (originally meaning "verify"; the
modern meaning "calm, placate" is a semantic shift).  Outside of
these two groups, final [T] and [D] do not contrast, and, in
fact, are often found in free variation in the same word (this
also occurs within the groups, particularly among plurals).

This then, is the basis for my analysis.  As I said, I think that
there is nothing here that can be questioned.  If anyone sees
something that is not an empirically verifiable observation based
on data, please let me know.

Now my analysis says that you can't be certain that a contrast is
caused by different phonemes when there may be some other basis
for establishing the contrast.  My analysis says that you can
prove phonemicity using minimal pairs only through arbitrary
contrasts, contrasts where the presence of one phoneme or the
other doesn't tell you anything about the words involved except
that they are different words.  Thus if the presence of one sound
always tells you that the word is a pronoun or a deictic and the
presence of the other always tells you that the word is not a
pronoun or a deictic, then the contrast of these two sounds is
not necessarily the basis for the contrast between the words and
this contrast should not be considered evidence of the
phonemicity of the two sounds.  Please note, however, that this
is not the same as proving or even claiming that the two sounds
are not phonemes.

Similarly, if the presence of one sound tells you that the word
is a substantive and the presence of the other tells you that the
word is a verb, then the contrast predicts meaning (or function)
class.  This is not a phonemic contrast but a morphophonemic
alternation. While morphophonemic alternations do not preclude
the sounds involved from being phonemes as well, using
morphophonemic alternations to prove phonemicity is not
acceptable in my analysis.

When we come to the difference between intervocalic [T] and [D],
the division of the words into classes is admittedly on less firm
ground.  While I don't have many qualms about using grammatical
information that is based on meaning as a means of distinguishing
words (because as Stefan Georg pointed out, words that can't
appear in the same context don't have to be otherwise
distinguished), using lexico-historical information is going
outside of the grammatical structure of the language.  Using such
distinctions does not involve meaning in any specific way.  But
I still say that when a certain sound is required in one clearly
defined set of words and another sound is required in another
clearly defined set of words then contrasts between those sounds
when they appear as required in members of those sets should not
be allowed as evidence of phonemic contrast.  Again, however,
this is not the same as saying that the two sounds can't be
phonemes.

But on the subject of phonological nativization of loan words, I
have a few questions about New Zealand English (NZE) that I
expect that you can answer.  I presume that NZE has a number of
Maori loan words, and that many of these loans have been in the
language for a couple of centuries (but none before 1740).  Now
based on what you have said about Greek and Latin loans
(neologisms) in English, I would expect that New Zealanders
consider loans from Maori to be just good English words, and that
they would see nothing unusual about Maori segments in contexts
in which they would not appear in English.  I realize that
initial /ng/ in words of Maori origin is not a realistic parallel
to intervocalic [T] in words of Greek or Latin origin because the
prohibition against initial /ng/ in English is a phonotactic one
while there is no such prohibition against intervocalic [T].  But
here are my questions:  Do native speakers of NZE recognize Maori
loanwords as Maori words or do they just consider them English?
If they do recognize them, on what basis do they do it?  Do
native speakers of NZE Anglicize the pronunciation of initial
/ng/ in any way or do they pronounce it as it would be in Maori?
Would native speakers of NZE be able to coin new words with
initial /ng/?  Have they actually done so?

>In the broad sense implicit in your schema, both analyses
>produce the [th]/[dh] pattern by "rules". (In the narrower sense,
>however, your analysis has "rules" that mine doesn't.)

>Now that we have two analyses to compare, perhaps you can
>explain why you think yours is superior.

Well, as far as I am concerned, both analyses have the same
linguistic rules.  Your analysis just ignores some of them.  It
excludes them by saying that they happened too long ago to have
any effect on the modern language, or it excludes them by saying
that modern speakers can't possibly be aware of the rules that
linguistic analysis uncovers, or it excludes them by saying that
some rules about how words are pronounced can't have any bearing
on phonology.

But again, my analysis is not about the distribution of [T]/[D]
in English, it is about what is acceptable evidence for the
distribution (and collaterally about such distributions in
general).  So if my analysis has rules that yours doesn't, one of
them is that evidence that is offered as unequivocal proof of
some condition should not have any other possible explanation.
If there is more than one possible interpretation of the
evidence, then that evidence should be discarded (or at least
weighted) in favor of more conclusive evidence (ideally, evidence
that can only result from the condition that the evidence offers
to prove).

Another concept that my analysis has that yours lacks is the
principle that patterns are created by rules, even if we don't
understand or can't formulate the rules.  This I think is a
general principle of science.  It is a specific assumption of
generative grammar that alternations must be accounted for by
rules (free variation is also a rule).

Another rule that my analysis has that yours apparently doesn't
is that evidence should be analyzed independently of whether it
confirms or conflicts with our expectations.  Regardless of
whether the evidence conflicts with or confirms our expectations,
we should always question both the evidence and our expectations.

Now I would expect [T] and [D] to be phonemes in English, if for
no other reason, because of the parallel with /z/ and /v/, which
were created at the same time and by the same process that
created [D] and which are clearly used as phonemes by native
speakers of English.  But my analysis says that I shouldn't
uncritically accept 'thy' and 'thigh' as proof of this just
because it confirms my expectation when there may be some other
basis for this contrast.  When I see that all words in English
with initial [D] belong to a clearly defined group of words
(pronouns and deictic words [or demonstratives]) and that all
words in English with initial [T] belong to the complementary
group, then I feel justified in questioning the validity of 'thy'
and 'thigh' as a minimal pair.  Now if there were some words with
initial [D] in the complementary group (even if there were no
contrasts) I would not feel justified in saying that 'thy' and
'thigh' should not be considered a minimal pair since the
contrast would not be completely predictable at the word-class
level.

As for which analysis is superior, that is not my call because I
am not an impartial observer.  However, were I called upon to
evaluate two analyses in which I was not involved, I would tend
to prefer the one that was more rigorous in its standards of
evidence, the one that accounted for more of the available
evidence and excluded evidence only on valid and objective
grounds, and the one that did all of this in the most consistent
and concise manner.

I would not accept any analysis that distorted the evidence to
fit a particular model, that used evidence that could as easily
or better be explained by some other model, or that accepted only
evidence that supported a particular model while ignoring any
other evidence of equal quality.

In short, the superior analysis is the one that accounts for the
greatest amount of evidence in the most consistent, coherent, and
concise manner.

<snip>

Bob Whiting
whiting at cc.helsinki.fi


From whiting at cc.helsinki.fi  Mon Dec 11 20:35:26 2000
From: whiting at cc.helsinki.fi (Robert Whiting)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 22:35:26 +0200
Subject: minimal pairs are not always there
In-Reply-To: <4.3.1.2.20001107074738.00a75f00@getmail.friesen.net>
Message-ID: <MON.11.DEC.2000.223526.0200.>

On Tue, 07 Nov 2000 Stanley Friesen <sarima at friesen.net> wrote:

>At 05:40 PM 11/6/00 +0200, Robert Whiting wrote:

>>On Wed, 26 Apr 2000 G?bor S?ndi <g_sandi at hotmail.com> wrote:

[RW]
>>yourself a question:  If the phoneme /b/ occurs in an English
>>word, what does that tell you about the meaning of that word?
>>The answer should be:  "absolutely nothing."

>Seems reasonable, though perhaps a bit overstated.  There are
>plenty of words with some sort of sound-symbolism involving
>perfectly good phonemes to make this too strong a statement.
>(And I do not just mean onomatopoeia).

Yes, I grant you the point about sound-symbolism.  I always try
to allow for this, but it is a very tenuous thing (at the present
state of research).  To be convincing, there needs to be evidence
of fundamental links between sound and meaning that are
consistent over a large number of languages.  There would have to
be the same pattern of sound and meaning in languages of diverse
types, and finally, these patterns would have to be confirmed by
experiments linking these sounds and meanings to speakers'
intuitions about relationships between sounds and meanings.  In
the meantime, we can't just say that there is nothing to it,
because the data to establish it has not yet been collected and
analyzed in detail.  But there are patterns of sound symbolism, so
I suspect that there must be rules about such patterns.

But what kind of sound symbolism are you proposing that accounts
for the fact that pronouns and deictic words in English have [D]
while other words have [T]?  You can't just make the original
point go away by some vague reference to sound symbolism without
showing some connection to the present discussion.  For, if, as
you agree, when sound symbolism isn't involved, the presence of a
particular phoneme in a particular word shouldn't tell you
anything about the meaning of that word, then how is it
possible that the phoneme /D/ in initial position belongs
exclusively to pronouns and deictic words?  When you can provide
a convincing answer for this, then you will have made your point.
Until then, I will continue to maintain that the presence of a
particular phoneme in a particular word should tell you nothing
about the meaning of that word (leaving aside the possibility of
sound symbolism).

>>In the pair ether/either, 'ether' belongs to a class of words
>>where the pronunciation of <th> as [th] is required (by rule
>>based on a clearly established pattern [Greek loans originally
>>containing theta]);

>I disagree. I do not respond to any such rule in my own
>listening.  No such rule governs any pattern in my speech
>production.  As far as I am aware, I just memorized the word
>'ether' as such.

Well I can't argue with your perceptions, because they are in
your head, not mine.  But this means that you have memorized
the pronunciation of all other English words with <th> as well
and when you see a new word with <th> you don't have a clue how
to pronounce it.

>>  'either' belongs to a class of words where
>>the pronunciation of <th> as [dh] is required (by rule based on a
>>clearly established pattern [native words with an intervocalic
>>spirant where the original voiceless spirant was voiced by
>>rule]).

>Ditto.

Ditto.

>>   Since the respective pronunciations of these words are
>>required by rule, this cannot be a phonemic distinction because
>>the choice of these sounds is not arbitrary.

>It is in MY speech.  And I doubt many other English speakers
>could be shown to have even a subliminal awareness of any such
>rules.

You still seem to be operating on the assumption that it is
necessary to know how a system works in order to be able to use
it.  By and large, native speakers do not know what the rules are
in any conscious way.  They just know what sounds right.  And it
is fully automatic.  The "rules" that we talk about are for the
most part simply a model that linguists use to account for the
patterns of grammatically acceptable usages that they find in a
language.

>>Greek word with theta doesn't make any difference.  There must be
>>some synchronic rule that forces this [th] pronunciation or else
>>the pattern wouldn't be there in the language synchronically.

>Not at all - there is such a thing as a *relictual* pattern. one
>that is left over from prior history, but which has no *current*
>linguistic significance.

The entire language is a relictual pattern left over from prior
history.  Otherwise you have a creole.  There are only relictual
patterns that are no longer fully productive and ones that are.
The latter are used to create new forms in the language by its
speakers; the former are not.  Here is a good example of a
relictual pattern that is no longer productive:  the English
personal pronoun system.  Now tell me that this pattern has no
significance for the *current* language or that native speakers
aren't aware of it because it is a "relictual pattern left over
from prior history."

Native speakers aren't born with their language already in their
brains.  They are born with a language acquisition device that
makes it possible to acquire the language that they hear spoken
around them in a manner that we don't fully understand.  They do
this before they are capable of memorization, and indeed, before
significant long-term memory capabilities are developed.  So
language is passed from generation to generation.  Native
speakers learn the language of their parents (or care-givers) as
a historical relic, which as far as they are concerned has just
been invented.  So each generation reinvents the language.
Sometimes they get things wrong and introduce change (or at least
alternation) into the language.  But anything that gets passed on
is part of the language.  And it is part of the language
*synchronically* because it is known by the new batch of native
speakers and they don't care when it came into the language.  As
far as they are concerned, it came into the language when they
learned it because they have no prior knowledge of the language.
If it does not get passed on, then it becomes part of history and
disappears from the currently spoken language.  But anything that
new native speakers learn is part of the language
*synchronically* and has *current* linguistic significance.

>The only evidence I would accept for a synchronic rule is
>evidence from the speech behavior of native speakers.

Okay, so you won't accept the list of words and pronunciations
that I provided based on a contemporary corpus and dictionary.
Fine.  Take the same list and ask a couple of hundred native
speakers how they pronounce these words.  If you find significant
differences from what I have provided, then you will have made
your point.  But I think that you will find that this is the way
that these words are pronounced by native speakers today.  We're
not talking about words that were pronounced one way in the 15th
century and are pronounced differently now.  We're talking about
the way these words are pronounced at this very moment as we sit
here in front of our computers.

>The mere existence of a pattern is not, by itself, sufficient to
>establish a rule.

The existence of patterns is the only basis for establishing
rules.  That is what science is all about.  Grammatical analysis
is virtually entirely devoted to trying to deduce rules that
explain the patterns of grammatically acceptable forms.  That is
why linguists spend so much time looking at languages trying to
find patterns.  Now when you have a pattern that you can't
account for, you are justified in saying that you can't account
for the pattern, but you aren't justified in saying that the
pattern has no significance because you can't account for it.
But above a certain level of coincidence or randomness, patterns
not created by rules are ruled out by the second law of
thermodynamics.

>The very fact that having characters names Lith and
>Lihthe(/lidh/) is *comprehensible* in English shows that English
>speakers *perceive* the two sounds as being semantically
>arbitrary.  If they did not, then someone hearing such a pair of
>names would necessarily attempt to interpret them according to
>the supposed rules, and thus have a difficult time hearing them
>as a pair of names.  Instead they would hear two words in
>different categories, as required by the rules.

This seems to be a cart/horse problem to me.  If you present your
audience with two words that differ in only one segment and tell
them (or let them figure out for themselves) that the two words
are arbitrarily semantically different, then you have a phonemic
contrast.  That's what a phonemic contrast is.  But when you say
that if you created such words (in the absence of such words
already existing) and speakers could tell them apart that means
the sounds are already phonemes, that is a logical fallacy.

You are trying to convert a necessary condition into a sufficient
condition.  "Distinguishable sounds" is necessary condition for
phonemes.  Therefore "all phonemes are distinguishable sounds" is
a valid statement.  But "distinguishable sounds" is not a
sufficient condition for phonemes.  Therefore "all
distinguishable sounds are phonemes" is not a valid a priori
statement.

The simple converse of a universal statement is not a valid
inference.  Thus "all S are P" does not imply "all P are S".
Your argument is based on the fact that all phonemes must be
distinguishable sounds.  This is an a priori valid statement.  In
this formulation, S is "phonemes" and P is "distinguishable
sounds."  When you then say all distinguishable sounds must be
phonemes, you are trying to tell me that "all P are S" because
"all S are P."  It is exactly the same as telling me "all birds
have wings, therefore anything that has wings is a bird."  Or if
you have a mathematical bent it is like saying that "all prime
numbers greater than 2 are odd numbers" (a valid statement) and
then claiming that "21 is an odd number greater than 2, therefore
21 is a prime number."  The simple converse of a universal
statement is valid if and only if S and P are an identity (i.e.,
S and P are identical sets).  If there is a member of P that is
not also a member of S then the simple converse of "all S are P"
is not a valid inference.

Therefore the fact that there exist two distinguishable sounds in
a language (e.g., [c,] and [x] in German) that are not phonemes
in that language proves that "phonemes" and "distinguishable
sounds" are not an identity and therefore the converse of "all
phonemes must be distinguishable sounds" (i.e., "all
distinguishable sounds must be phonemes") is not a valid
inference as you claim it is.

The fact that two sounds are not distinguishable by the speakers
of a language will prove that the sounds are not phonemes in that
language.  But the fact that two sounds are distinguishable by the
speakers of a language does not prove that they are phonemes.  It
shows that they could be phonemes if they were used as phonemes,
but "could be" and "are" are not the same thing.  It is like
proving paternity with blood groups.  If the blood groups don't
match that proves that there is no paternity.  If the blood
groups do match, it shows that paternity is possible, but it
doesn't prove paternity between two individuals.

This entire discussion grew out of a stated belief that "minimal
pairs" were a sine qua non for determining phonemes.  Many people
pointed out that this was not true.  I pointed out that even
apparent "minimal pairs" don't necessarily guarantee the presence
of different phonemes.  Now you and Mr. White are trying to tell
us that you don't even need minimal pairs at all in a language to
determine phonemes.  You can make up your own and if you judge
that the speakers of a language would be able to recognize these
as different words then the sounds in question are phonemes (and
have been for a long time).  I say that this is not true.  Native
speakers of English could probably hear the difference between
French 'beau' and French 'bon'.  Does this mean that nasal vowels
are phonemes in English?  No, it does not.  But you (and Mr.
White) are trying to tell us that it does.  And I for one, do not
believe it.

>>to be pronounced with [dh].  There is nothing arbitrary about the
>>choice of [th] and [dh]; these pronunciations are required by
>>rule, therefore the contrast is not phonemic.

>The pronunciations are "required" by *historical* rules that are
>no longer active.

The rules are active because the words are pronounced according
to them.  If the rules were no longer active (i.e., had been
replaced by a rule that was active) the words wouldn't be
pronounced that way.

Here is an example:  At the time of Chaucer 'bite' was pronounced
with [i:].  By the late 18th century it was pronounced with [ai].
The pronunciation with [i:] is a *historical* rule that is no
longer active.  The pronunciation with [ai] is a *historical*
rule that is still active.

>In my speech I have merely learned the two words by rote.  I
>apply no rules to determine their pronunciation.

And this is precisely why naive native speakers are not a
reliable source of grammatical information.  Such speakers can
tell you infallibly whether something is grammatically correct
(acceptable usage) or not, but if asked why it is correct or why
some other form is incorrect can usually only say "I don't know,
it just is."  In exactly the same way you can say "I know of no
rules about the way these words are pronounced, that's just the
way they are pronounced."  Consider for example the use of the
suffix '-ist' meaning "one who does ...".  Why is a person who
does physics called a 'physicist' and not a '*physicsist' or why
is a person who does science called a 'scientist' and not a
'*scienceist'?  Are there rules that determine this?  Well, yes.
Is a naive native speaker likely to know these rules?  Well, no.
Is a naive native speaker likely to know the correct forms?
Well, yes.  If you ask a naive native speaker why 'scientist' is
correct and '*scienceist' is incorrect, what answer are you likely
to get? --  "I don't know, it just is," or perhaps "I don't know
of any rules, that's just the way I learned it."

>smuggled into phonology.  So it is not a matter of "no
>nonphonetic conditioning factors," it is a matter of how much
>morphological conditioning you are willing to allow into
>phonology.

>As little as possible to still produce a coherent theory of a
>given language.

A sound rule, but who gets to decide what is a coherent theory?
And what happens to the evidence that isn't included and who gets
to decide what evidence can be safely excluded from the theory.
This sounds awfully like the way Ruhlen goes about creating
Proto-World.  Take as little phonological and grammatical
information as possible to produce a coherent theory and don't be
specific about how much or what kind of evidence is excluded.

>I.e., apply Occam's Razor here.  Do not postulate an entity - in
>this case a particular type of morphological conditioning -
>unless it is *necessary* to explain the facts. You might also
>call this the KISS principle.

Call it whatever you like, but Occam's Razor doesn't tell you
what evidence to exclude.  Occam's Razor just tells you that the
simplest solution *that accounts for all the facts* is to be
preferred.  Occam's Razor does NOT tell you that if you can get a
simpler solution by ignoring some of the evidence then that is
what you should do.

>>My own answer to this tends to be "as much as you can."

>Then here is the fundamental disagreement.  I prefer to minimize
>special handling, not maximize it.

Again, a sound rule.  I could better express my position as "as
much as you need, but don't arbitrarily exclude rules that tell
you how words are pronounced from phonology."  Or if you do
exclude them from phonology, then at least account for them
somewhere.

>>> Take two of your examples above:

>>> /ng/ - not a phoneme. We can analyze it as the allophone of /n/
>>> before /k/ and /g/. /g/ is then dropped ("zero allophone" - why
>>> not?)

>Because it is *simpler* to treat it as a phoneme?

Well, this is what I said (see below).  You are arguing against
what G?bor S?ndi said here (although he obviously presented it as
a straw man argument that he didn't really believe in), not
against what I said.  You are in fact agreeing with what I said.

>[Though in this case there is actually a reasonable argument for
>allophonic status, given its *very* limited distribution - and
>the fact that trying to use /ng/ to coin arbitrary new words
>results in words that do not sound like English].

I don't know that words like 'zing' or 'humdinger' sound
particularly un-English.  Expressive or imitative, yes; obviously
not ancient, yes -- but un-English, not particularly.  The
limited distribution is more of a problem.  English also has what
could be considered a palatal allophone of n [ny] whose
distribution is even more limited (doesn't occur in final
position).  It could be said to be present initially in 'nyah'
(usually reduplicated 'nyah nyah'; a cry of derision, not to be
confused with the Indian school of philosophy 'Nyaya'), but
otherwise only in loans (e.g, 'gnocchi', usually with Anglicized
pronunciation [n], but pronounced [ny] by the cognoscenti).  In
medial position it is still not common ('opinion', 'pinion'
'senior', etc.; also in more recent loans from French [<gn>],
Italian [<gn>], Spanish [written with enye, n with tilde] and
Portuguese [<nh>]), but it does contrast with /n/ ('cannon' or
'canon' vs. 'canyon').  Despite this contrast, I have never heard
anyone suggest that [ny] is an English phoneme and usually it is
not even treated as an allophone of /n/.  The palatal is simply
analyzed as a separate phoneme /Y/.

>>before the agentive suffix '-er'.  Stem-final /g/ goes to zero
>>immediately and (nearly) all derivative suffixes (agentive '-er',
>>'-ing', '-ish', '-ly', '-y', etc.) are added to this base.  All
>>that is needed then is a rule that triggers the restoration of
>>/g/ before the comparative '-er' (and for completeness, ...

>I would prefer to reorder the rules so that the comparative
>suffix is added prior to the application of the rule that deletes
>the /g/.  I do not like rules that restore.

But you only need the rule if you treat /ng/ as an allophone.
Otherwise, it is easier to write the /g/ into the rule for the
comparative and superlative as an allomorph (i.e., add -er, -est
[-ger, -gest after /ng/] to the adjective stem).  Another reason
for treating /ng/ as a phoneme.

>>All things considered then, it is probably simpler to operate
>>with /n/ and /ng/ as different phonemes because this does not
>>require the zero allophone of /g/ to maintain their allophonic
>>status *and* there is no indication of a morphophonemic
>>alternation between [n] and [ng]

>The main problem with that is that this supposed phoneme cannot
>be used arbitrarily.  A made-up 'ngib' is NOT a possible English
>word contrasting with 'nib'.

Now you are arguing against what I said as well as what you said
just above.  But this is a phonotactic rule that excludes /ng/
from initial position and has nothing to do with the
contrastiveness of /n/ and /ng/.  English just doesn't allow /ng/
in initial position.  Of course, phontactical rules are relaxed
for foreign loans.  Thus there are loans from languages like
Maori with initial /ng/ (such as the name of the famous mystery
writer, Ngaio Marsh) (there are probably a number from Vietnamese
as well now, but I don't know any; Ross Clark could probably
explain this in detail).  So a foreign borrowing 'ngib' could
contrast with initial /n/.  But limited distribution doesn't
disqualify a sound from being a phoneme.  Many languages strongly
restrict the allowable final consonants (Finnish for example
allows only /n/, /s/, and /t/ as final consonants).  This does
not affect the phonemic status of the disallowed consonants.  You
couldn't have a made-up '*sfit' to contrast with made-up 'snit'
in English either (although you have a borrowed 'sphere' to
contrast with 'sneer') but this doesn't show that /f/ and /n/
aren't phonemes.  It just shows that phonotactic rules have
higher precedence.

>[Interestingly, when playing with this "word" I tended to "hear"
>it as 'gib' (hard 'g') - which supports a 'silent g'
>interpretation].

I can't see why.  If there is a [g] sound that has come from a
zero allophone of /g/, that means that the silent g is restored
when [ng] is in initial position and that can't be right because
you don't like rules that restore.  More likely, you simply are
unpracticed at using initial [ng] and are getting some voicing
of the velar from the following vowel.

Bob Whiting
whiting at cc.helsinki.fi


From Tristan at mail.scm-rpg.com.au  Tue Dec 12 05:24:42 2000
From: Tristan at mail.scm-rpg.com.au (Tristan Jones)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 16:24:42 +1100
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.162442.1100.>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Anton Sherwood" <bronto at pobox.com>
Sent: Monday, December 11, 2000 4:24 PM

> petegray wrote:

>> A better example might be Spanish America.  Did the Spanish
>> still accept slavery at the of the conquistadors?

> well, Columbus reported on the potential value of the islanders as slaves.

If European germs did not kill so many of islanders, they would be used as
slaves. They intally used them, however they were not resitant enough to the
diseases, so they used African slaves and rest is history.


From dlwhite at texas.net  Tue Dec 12 14:52:36 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 08:52:36 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.085236.0600.>

> I have read in general works that well before the Anglo-Saxon
> invasion, the Romans used Saxon troops (or other Germanics) to guard the
> North Sea coast against raids by their countrymen. Did they have a big
> enough presence to serve as a catalyst for the invasion? Is there any
> indication that they actually formed a separate Germanic-speaking community
> before the Romans left?

        My impression is that the AS conquest was as much a reinforced
revolt of federates as anything else.  There is no reason to think that
Germans in Britain would not have spoken German, and though I do not
specifcally recall any direct evidence of it, I would not be surprised if
there is some.

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Tue Dec 12 14:56:58 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 08:56:58 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.085658.0600.>

> As the Britons at the time of the arrival of the Saxons certainly lived in a
> hierarchically organised agricultural society, the closest analogy is
> probably to the population of the Aztec and Inca empires and to African
> kingdoms like Congo. Of course, analogies are no substitute for facts. But
> putting together these analogies and the facts discussed so far, it seems
> that we have different situations in the areas on the SE coast first hit by
> the Saxons (plundering, enslavement and selling of the slave to the
> continent, expulsion, and killing) and further inland, where the Celts were
> turned into serfs and kept their language, religion, and culture for some
> time still.

        Yes, this is exactly right, except that the Britons (or most of
them) were already de facto serfs.  They just got new masters.

> One note on the "Celtic traces in the language" issue: one thing about
> French which is cited in language histories over and over again is the small
> number of Gaulish substrate words in the language. Normally, "alouette"
> ("lark") and some agricultural terms are quoted. On the other hand, French
> phonology (and to a lesser degree grammar) is regularly described as heavily
> influenced by the Gaulish substrate. But nobody doubts that the population
> of France was basically Celtic, with only a minority of Roman settlers (and
> a later smattering of Franks). So the small number of Celtic loanwords in
> English cannot be used as an indicator for a massive eradication of Britons.

        Yes, again this is right.  As I noted before, it is simply not true
that grammatical and lexical influences march in lock-step, or anything
close to it.

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From maxdashu at LanMinds.Com  Wed Dec 13 03:12:32 2000
From: maxdashu at LanMinds.Com (Max Dashu)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 19:12:32 -0800
Subject: AS Conquest
In-Reply-To: <3A3464F6.EE04B16C@pobox.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.191232.0800.>

>well, Columbus reported on the potential value of the islanders as slaves.

He did more than that: he enslaved some of them and shipped them back to
Spain.

And the encomenderos followed up with enslavement of entire villages, while
Nicaragua was called the Land of War in De Las Casas' time, because of the
constant slave raids visited on that country. And then there were the
enslaved silver miners at Potosi, in Peru and Mexico both... Plus a bunch
of Wampanoags and assorted other Algonquin peoples got shipped off to the
West Indies for sale to the plantations.

Max Dashu


From gordonselway at gn.apc.org  Tue Dec 12 08:21:04 2000
From: gordonselway at gn.apc.org (Gordon Selway)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 08:21:04 +0000
Subject: re Northern Subject Rule
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.082104.0000.>

What about one of the basic rules of classical Greek - neuter plural nouns take
a singular verb, which I think was presented to us in my first lesson in the
early '60s (well 'before the Beatles first LP')?

The construction is similar (but not entirely so) in Gaelic - it could be
formulated as plural nouns take singular verbs - but the synthetic forms are
not common in Scots, and may be relatively rare in some Irish dialects.

How much are the similarities (between English and Insular Celtic) areal?  And
how far apart were Brittonic and Gadelic before moving into Old Welsh and Old
Irish respectively - if they were quite close, and the influences which are
supposed to be substrates were common to both islands, why should there be a
difference between the two?  [Thurneysen seems not to include this construction
explicitly in his Grammar of Old Irish, and I've not been able to unearth any
other Gadelic, or any Welsh, grammars.]

Gordon Selway
<gordonselway at gn.apc.org>

At 12:58 pm 10/12/00, David L. White wrote:
>        As noted by Klehmola (and Venneman), one of the more striking
>evidences for Brtittonic influence in English is the so-called "Northern
>Subject Rule".

[ moderator snip]


From dlwhite at texas.net  Tue Dec 12 14:46:01 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 08:46:01 -0600
Subject: Northern Subject Rule
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.084601.0600.>

>> Thus "They peel them and boils them".  This sort of construal is very rare
>> among languages of the world, and apart from Hebrew and Arabic occurs,
>> according to Klehmola) only in Welsh, Cornish, and Breton

> Not necessarily Brythonic.  Irish has this rule as well.

           Forgive me if I have repeated the errors of my source in this,
but fearing just such a possibility, I checked the facts of Irish and Scots
Gaelic and found that ... we can't tell, because (in modern times anyway)
these languages do not distinguish number in 3rd person verbs anyway.   I
have been unable to determine, from my sources here at home, what Old Irish
did.
        Nonetheless, I would not be surprised (and it would not matter much)
if at some point languages on the Irish side of the family had this rule,
because the rule is clearly related to verb-initiality: in verb-initial
languages, the personal ending and personal pronoun (if used) are
consecutive, creating at times rather obvious redundancy.  Dropping the
ending is one way to avoid this.

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Dec 12 09:26:31 2000
From: richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Richard Coates)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 09:26:31 +0000
Subject: Iberia
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.092631.0000.>

Further to Larry Trask's posting about this name: it should not be
ignored that it very closely resembles (at least the nominative form
of) the native name for Ireland, reconstructable as *_i:werjo:_, and latinized
as _(h)ibernia_ with /n/ imported from oblique case-forms.

Richard Coates

--
Richard Coates
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QH, UK

Tel.: +44 (0)1273 678030 (secretary Jackie Gains)
Fax:  +44 (0)1273 671320
Email: richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Website: www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/richardc/index.html


From maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Dec 12 18:00:19 2000
From: maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Max Wheeler)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 18:00:19 +0000
Subject: Iberia
In-Reply-To: <E145Rn1-00065P-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.180019.0000.>

--On Monday, December 11, 2000 12:10 +0000 Larry Trask
<larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk> wrote:

> The most widespread Basque word for 'river' is <ibai>, or sometimes
> <hibai> on the French side.  This is pretty clearly a derivative of
> <ibar>, whose regular combining form is <iba->.

Some further curiosities w.r.t. Latin Iberia:

1. The preferred form for this root in Latin seems to be Hib?r-; Greek
texts seem to have /ib?r-/ (with smooth breathing) though Greek may well
have lost the phomeme /h/ by the time this word came to be recorded.

2. The range of Latin forms is very similar whether Spain or Georgia is
meant; in particular the morphologically somewhat unusual Hib?r (3rd
declension consonant stem) is used for 'an Iberian' in both senses.

3. There's a problem with the derivation  of the river-name Lat. (H)ib?rum
> Sp. Ebro, Cat. Ebre. In Latin the stress was on the second syllable (it
being heavy), but the Spanish and Catalan forms must go back to a form
stressed on the first syllable (with syncope of the posttonic vowel in an
open syllable). The Greek name of the river was Nom. *?b?r, Acc. ?b?ra
(Polybius 3.35.2) Gen. ?b?ros (Strabo III, 3.8) [The refs are those given
by Coromines Onomasticon Cataloniae s.v. Ebre.] I.e. the Greek form of the
name has the right stress to give Ebro/Ebre but the wrong inflection class.
(There's a problem too with the /b/ in Cat. Ebre; regular sound change
would give WCat. */ewre/; thus Catalan borrowing from some other
Hispano-Romance variety such as Mozarabic?). One must assume that the
proto-Romance form was distinct from that represented in Classical Latin or
Greek texts, viz. */'ibero/ or similar [NB it could be */?pero/, which
would give both Sp. Ebro and Cat. Ebre regularly]. It would be nice to
think that this is, or is a direct phonological/morphological adaptation
of, the form in some indigenous language, such as Iberian or
Hispano-Celtic. But the proto-form cannot be */?baro/ since posttonic /a/
is not subject to Romance syncope.

4. It is possible that Greek ?b?r means (1) an East (Georgian) Iberian, (2)
the river Ebro; while Latin Hib?r means either an East (Georgian) Iberian or
a West (Hispanic) Iberian, but not the river Ebro, which was named with the
adjective Hib?rus.

Max
____________________________________________________________
Max W. Wheeler
School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Falmer
BRIGHTON BN1 9QH, G.B.

Tel: +44 (0)1273 678975 Fax: +44 (0)1273 671320 Email:
maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk
____________________________________________________________


From edsel at glo.be  Thu Dec 14 07:21:45 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 02:21:45 -0500
Subject: Iberia
In-Reply-To: <E145Rn1-00065P-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.022145.0500.>

At 12:10 11/12/00 +0000 (and the follow-up message), you wrote:
>Ed Selleslagh writes:

>>  -In Antiquity both Georgia and Mediterranean SE Spain were already called
>>  Iberia, puzzling the writers of the time. In Spain the name seems to be
>>  related to 'ibar', Basque (Iberian?) for 'river (valley)'(cf. the river
>>  Ebro, Lat. Hiberus, another example of a river 'River'?). Note that ancient
>>  Georgia also consisted essentially of two major river valleys parallel to
>>  the Caucasus, so it could have been called 'ibar' by non-Kartvelians.

>The idea of deriving the name 'Iberia' from a Basque word has long been
>popular, but there are big problems with it.

>The central Basque word here is <ibar>.  Today this word means 'valley',
>and it is not systematically distinguished from the other 'valley' word,
><haran>.  However, there is some textual evidence pointing to an
>earlier distinction.

[total snip]

As you must know by now, I am fully aware of all the things you wrote. But
I didn't envisage tracing the word back to the Basques themselves: I was
implicitly suggesting that the word (if it is the basis of Hiberus and
Iberia) might be of (non-attested) Iberian origin, and had popped up in
later times as the  Basque word 'ibar' (Remember, this was in the framework
of a possible influence of Iberian on a possibly much older Basque/Pyrenean
language). Anyway, I never intended to start a new thread on this ( that
has been done before on the Basque list) but to explain some things about
the actual history of Basque-Caucasianism (and the 'Vasco-Iberismo') and
the ideas that float or floated around in that environment, to some
interested people on the list, and to point out that not everything in that
context is pure fantasy or nonsense, even though unfortunately, there is
quite a bit of that around..

Ed.


From W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de  Wed Dec 13 11:36:43 2000
From: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Wolfgang Schulze)
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 12:36:43 +0100
Subject: Kurds and Georgians [and Basques]
Message-ID: <WED.13.DEC.2000.123643.0100.>

Remember that the term 'Iveria' etc. for the Georgians stems from
Armenian iver-k` (Plural) 'Georgians'. As far as I know there are
several proposals to relate the Armenian word to an IE source or to
derive it from another Armenian source such as 'i ver' 'above' etc..
This would give us 'iverk`' = 'those who live/are above (=north) of us'.

Wolfgang

********************
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze
Institut f?r Allgemeine und Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft
Universit?t M?nchen - Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1 - D-80539 M?nchen
Tel.: ++49-(0)89-2180 2486 (secretary) // ++49-(0)89-2180 5343 (office)
Fax:  ++49-(0)89-2180 5345
Email: 	W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Web:   	http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wschulze/
********************


From mcv at wxs.nl  Tue Dec 12 15:03:25 2000
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 16:03:25 +0100
Subject: "Goth"
In-Reply-To: <a2.d49d06b.2765c2de@aol.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.160325.0100.>

On Mon, 11 Dec 2000 00:40:46 EST, X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

>Basically, the word "Goth" apparently clearly first appears in Greek about
>250BC.  That is when it is applied to the "Goths" just north of the Danube.
>It seems that in Greek at this earlier time, it is written <Guto:nes> or
><Guthoi>.

>In a number of places I see the word reconstructed as from <*Gutos>, sing.,
><*Gutans> pl. (with <t> rather than <thorn>.)  I don't know when this
>reconstruction would date to.

Essentially to Gothic as we know it (Ulfila's Gothic).  Both forms are
plurals, the first in case we had an o-stem sg. *<Gut>, pl. *<Gutos>,
the second for an n-stem sg. *<Guta>, pl. *<Gutans>.  The only
attested Gothic form is <Gut-Tiuda> "Gothia".  I would favour the
n-stem variant.

>In Latin, it will appear about a hundred years after the Greek as pl <Gothi>
>(the way Ulfila's biographer apparently spelled it) and at some point I've
>read, <Gotthi>.

Unlike Latin or Greek /t/, Germanic /t/ was (and is) aspirated.

>Earlier Greek and Latin historians use similar names to refer to people in
>other places who may have been "Goths":  Strabo writing in Greek uses
><Buto:nas> which is often interpreted as a mistake for "Guto:nas", Tacitus
>mentions the <Gotones>, Ptolemy mentions both <Kw'gnoi> and up in Sweden
><Gau'tai> and something that has been Latinized as "Gythones."

<y>=<u>, so that would be Guthones.  The Swedish <Gautai> should be
kept separate.

>The Goths were sometimes also referred to as the <Getae> (Greek: Getes,
>Getae; Latin, Geta, Getae), a name used for an earlier group of people in the
>same area (north of the Danube.)  (The <Geats> appear as another northern
>Germanic peoples at some point later in time.)

The Getae were most likely a Thracian (or Daco-Thracian) people.
There is no likely connection between Germanic *Gut- "Goth", and the
Getae.  The <Ge:ats> of the Beowulf are the Swedish Gautai (OE *au >
e:a).

>Some derive the name from the <Go:eta> or <Go:te> people or section of
>Sweden, Ptolemy's <Gau'tae>.  Ingemar Nordgren has suggested that the name is
>derived from the Goeta River in Sweden (deriving it from Gaut's "aelv").

>There is a claim that early forms of the name appear within the Roman empire
>in two Greek inscriptions from Asia, one using a personal name <<gouththa>>
>the other apparently refering to <<...tes romaion arches gouththton te kai
>germanon ethnon>> (apparently from the late 3d cent AD in Persia.)

>[...]

>And are there vowel shifts in East Germanic that happen somewhere around this
>time that would yield something like /oe/> /u/ or /e/?  And doesn't Latin
>favor <thorn> > /t/?  (E.g., Tacitus - "Tuista")  And how would either /u/ or
>/oe/ or /o/ turn into /ou/ in Greek?  Is there any reason to think /oe/ > /o/
>or /ou/ could happen at this time between Greek or Celtic and Germanic in
>transcribing this word?  Is there a conventional comparative solution for any
>of this?

In Germanic, we have to tribes: the Goths (*Gut-) and the Ge:ats/Go"ts
(*Gaut-).  In Greek, their names would at first have been transcribed
as <Gut(h)ones>/<Gut(h)oi> and <Gaut(h)ones>/<Gaut(h)ai>, then, after
Greek /u/ > /u"/ and /th/ > /T/, more likely as
<Gout(t)ones>/<Gout(t)oi> and <Gaut(t)ones>/<Gaut(t)ai>.

The <o> that we find in Latin <Go(t)thi> can be due to either Gothic
or Latin phonetics: in Gothic manuscripts, short <u> sometimes
alternates with <o> (long /o:/).  In late Latin, short /u/ merged with
long /o:/ as short closed /o/ (/U/) (as opposed to /u:/ > /u/ and /o/
> /O/).  Both processes would have led to Goth. *Guta -> Lat. Gothus,
with close ("long") /o/.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Tue Dec 12 17:58:56 2000
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 12:58:56 EST
Subject: "Goth"
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.125856.EST.>

In a message dated 12/12/00 2:19:08 AM Mountain Standard Time,
X99Lynx at aol.com writes:

>Basically, the word "Goth" apparently clearly first appears in Greek about
250BC.  That is when it is applied to the "Goths" just north of the Danube.
It seems that in Greek at this earlier time, it is written <Guto:nes> or
<Guthoi>.

-- there were no Goths just north of the Danube in 250 BCE.  At that time the
ancestors of the Goths were in eastern Germany and Poland.  The first
historical attestation of the Goths has them in the Vistula valley in the
first few centuries CE, after which they moved into the Ukraine and the
Danube valley.


From dlwhite at texas.net  Tue Dec 12 18:54:40 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 12:54:40 -0600
Subject: "Goth"
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.125440.0600.>

        I don't have much of a contribution to make here, but since when has
that ever stopped me?  Besides, my adoring public (the hithertofore
unsuspected existence of which Mr. Whting was kind enough to point out to
me) demands it, no doubt.
        Latin does not of course in any meaningful sense have /th/ (thorn),
so the appearance of "th" in Latin must be, if all is in order, from
transliteration from Greek.  The Greeks, for their part, might well have
heard an aspirated /t/ in Gothic as equivalent to their /th/.  Our modern
English pronunciation is of course a spelling pronunciation. Thus the
illusion of a shifted /t/ might be created.  But the Lithuanian borrowed
form has /d/, indicating that only a /d/ to /t/ shift is real.
        As for the vowel, pre-Gothic /au/ might well have changed to some
sort of /o/ in Gothic, depending on what sort of interpretation we take of
Gothic spelling and how it reached its somewhat strange state, but as far as
I know /u/ is out.  (And Greek "ou" is of course a spelling of /u/.)
Gothic /u/ is often from pre-Gothic short /o/, but as far as I know there is
no way that /au/ can be expected to have changed to this.  So this /u/ is
probably some sort of mangling in trans-language transmission.  (I vaguely
recall that the Lithuanian form has /u/.)
        I am one of those who thinks that the "Geats" of Beowulf are Goths,
since Germanic /au/ regularly appears as "ea" (whatever that meant, probably
/aeu/) in Old English.

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From sonno3 at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 12 23:07:22 2000
From: sonno3 at hotmail.com (Christopher Gwinn)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 18:07:22 -0500
Subject: Lloegr
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.180722.0500.>

> More likely, IMHO, sources for the first (?) element might be the IE roots
> for Gaelic

> lugh, 'small, lynx, Lugh (sun-god)'
>

Perhaps we have instead an o-grade from of PIE *legh- "lay," the same root
which gives English "low," especially since the name Loegyr refers to
"Lowland England."

Lug definitely comes from a -u-stem Lugus [likely related to luige "oath"],
lug "lynx" is likely represented by the o-stem lugos on the Tommerby
[Denmark] inscription that features a picture of a feline (there is also the
alleged Gaulish lugos "raven," which might simply have meant "black"), and
l(a)ugu "small" [=Welsh llaw] comes from a Celtic root *lag-[u].
*Lagi- (Irish laugu) would give a Welsh *Llai-, *Lago- would give Welsh
*Llaw-
*Lugo- (Irish lug "lynx") would give Welsh *Lau-
*Lugu- (Irish Lug) would give Welsh *Lleu

I have recently come upon some evidence which might suggest that Lloegyr
could come from a Brythonic *Logi-cori[i] "*Logi-troops," with Loegrwys =
*Logi-cor[i]-enses "People of the *Logi-troops."

-Chris Gwinn


From g_sandi at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 12 10:52:49 2000
From: g_sandi at hotmail.com (Gabor Sandi)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 10:52:49 -0000
Subject: Celtic Germanic relationship
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.105249.0000.>

>From: X99Lynx at aol.com
>Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 00:49:14 EST

[ moderator snip ]

<Gabor Sandi's reflections on this:>

I think that the evidence is fairly clear as to the direction of the
borrowing for these words.

In the case of the "iron" words, the Scandinavian words have no sign of the
intervocalic -s- (eg Swedish jarn). As intervocalic *-s- does not get lost
in Germanic languages (as opposed to turning into -z- > -r- under Verner's
Law under certain conditions), the best explanation is that the northern
prehistoric Germanic dialects/languages borrowed the word for 'iron' from a
language where the intervocalic *-s- had disappeared. Since a similar change
indeed affected the ancestors of the known insular Celtic languages (in
Irish, *-s- was "lenited" into -h-, then nothing, whereas in Welsh and
Breton all *s > *h, with eventual loss in many cases), it is reasonable to
posit an *-s- > *-h- > nothing for some continental Celtic languages as well
for the 1st millennium BC. Other Celtic dialects/languages would have kept
intervocalic -s- (I believe Gaulish did), and it is from such a source that
the ancestors of English iron and German Eisen would have been borrowed. It
is noteworthy that English has an /r/ where German has a /z/, suggesting
(using Verner's Law) that the reconstructed Celtic source had variable
stress: */'i:sarnos/ or */i:'sarnos/, with the further suggestion that
borrowing predated the action of Verner's Law, and therefore the PGermanic
shift of stress to the initial syllable.

On *ri:k-, the key to the direction of borrowing is not so much the
consonant /k/ but the vowel /i:/. If we assume an IE etymology for the word
in question, we are more likely to find a PIE */e:/ than a PIE */i:/
(evidence: Latin rjx, rjgnna; Sanskrit rbj-). Now, PIE */e:/ either remains
*/e:/ in the Germanic languages or opens up to a long low vowel /ae:/ or
even /a:/. The conditions for these alternative developments go well beyond
what we are discussing, but the point is that PIE */e:/ never becomes */i:/
in Germanic. This is, however, the normal development in the Celtic
languages, so that IF we posit an IE origin for the Germanic word family
*ri:k-, the best explanation is again borrowing from Celtic, with the
borrowing taking place before the Grimm's Law change *g > *k.

As a subsidiary question: if the borrowing went the other way, how could a
Germanic voiceless stop *k have been borrowed with a voiced stop *g into
Celtic? Whatever funny stuff Irish did to its consonants through its complex
history, it always kept *k and *g well apart, with voicing occurring (at a
later period) after nasals only (this is called convection, I believe - any
Celtic scholars out there to confirm this?). If the proposed borrowing
predates the action of Grimm's Law, the Germanic */i:/ would still remain
unexplained, of course...

With best regards,

Gabor Sandi


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Dec 12 10:56:24 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 10:56:24 +0000
Subject: Ngaio Marsh
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.105624.0000.>

Robert Whiting writes:

> English just doesn't allow /ng/
> in initial position.  Of course, phontactical rules are relaxed
> for foreign loans.  Thus there are loans from languages like
> Maori with initial /ng/ (such as the name of the famous mystery
> writer, Ngaio Marsh) ...  So a foreign borrowing 'ngib' could
> contrast with initial /n/.

I'm interested in this.

I don't know how Ngaio Marsh herself pronounces her name.  But
John Wells, in his pronouncing dictionary, gives what I will write
as 'Naio' as the *only* English possibility.  Since he is usually
quite careful about checking names with their owners, it is possible
that Marsh herself pronounces her name this way.

I, of course, being a linguist and therefore a smart alec, pronounce
the name with eng, but I don't think many other people do, except
perhaps other linguists and phoneticians, and of course Maori-speakers.
I would have expected people to anglicize the name as 'Naio', as
Wells recommends, but, when I present the name to my British students,
they almost always respond with 'Nagaio' instead.  This is also the
pronunciation I heard on the sole occasion I heard the name uttered
on the radio.

Even after they have completed their phonetics course, few of my
students seem happy about pronouncing 'Ngaio' with eng.  And most
English-speakers seem to find initial eng impossible.  I wonder,
therefore: is it really possible for English to accept a foreign
word with initial eng?  I suspect it isn't.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)

[ Moderator's comment:
  A (semi-)authoritative source for the pronunciation [najo] is Dame Diana Rigg
  in her role as host for the U. S. PBS series "Mystery", which consists almost
  entirely of BBC programs.  I would assume that Dame Diana uses the late
  Dame Ngaio's preferred pronunciation.
  --rma ]


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Dec 12 10:23:37 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 10:23:37 +0000
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.102337.0000.>

Robert Whiting writes:

> Now there are those who say that they have no rules for the
> pronunciation of <th>.  Presumably, when they encounter in print
> an unfamiliar word with <th> in it they have to go to the
> dictionary to find out how to pronounce it.  I happen to have
> generalized rules for the pronunciation of <th> so I can usually
> make a guess that will be right about 98 times out of 100 about
> how <th> should be pronounced in an unfamiliar word.  I came
> across one the other day:  'poikilothermic'.  Without going to
> the dictionary I knew two things just by looking at it:  a) it is
> not a native English word, and therefore, b) the <th> is
> pronounced [T].

This is usually a good rule, but there are a few exceptions.  I can
think of 'rhythm', 'logarithm' and 'algorithm', and their derivatives,
all of which have eth in spite of their Greek origin.  There must be a
subrule here, though 'arithmetic' has theta.

There are also a couple of miscellaneous nasties, like 'asthma'
and 'thyme', and, in Britain, 'Anthony'. These, in spite of their
spelling and in spite of their classical origin, fail to contain
any dental fricatives at all.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From dlwhite at texas.net  Tue Dec 12 14:48:26 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 08:48:26 -0600
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.084826.0600.>

> Scottish Gaelic orthography makes allowances for something similar, cf.
> sgurr, sgian, taisbeanadh, eisd, gasda, iasg, etc.

> cf. Irish scian, taispeain, eist, gasta, iasc, etc.

        So does Danish.  But when we as English-speakers see this sort of
thing, our (or at least my) natural reaction tends to be "violation of
voicing constraint, unpronounceable".

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Tue Dec 12 15:08:29 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 09:08:29 -0600
Subject: Don't touch my phonemes (was: minimal pairs ex: PIE e/o
 Ablaut)
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.090829.0600.>

> On Thu, 16 Nov 2000 David L. White <dlwhite at texas.net> wrote:

>>        Look, either we admit that English speakers could coin
>>/lith/ vs /lidh/, whereas Japanese speakers could not coin /biri/
>>versus /bili/ or we (somewhat obstructionistically) do not.

> I say we admit it.  The question then becomes "what does it
> prove?"

        That they are different phonemes, according to my definition of that
concept, which I regard, for reasons which have been indicated and will not
be re-indicated, as more useful than yours, and which is hardly original
with or unique to me.
        And if I have an adoring public, could you point them in my
direction?

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Wed Dec 13 13:54:38 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 07:54:38 -0600
Subject: Cry Foul
Message-ID: <WED.13.DEC.2000.075438.0600.>

[ snip of private note to moderator ]

        Despite the fact that I have on at least two occasions clearly
indicated that my  usage or definition of the phonemic principle differs
from Mr. Whiting's, he uses the assumption that my usage is the same as his
to accuse me of logical fallacy, despite recognizing himself later on in the
same e-missive that my usage differs from his.  This is hardly kosher.  The
proper thing to do, both in terms of logic and decency,  would have been to
excise all references to my supposed logical fallacies once it was realized
that these were not justified, instead of wasting people's time having them
slog through reams of verbiage about how everyone could be a murderer and
what not that have no conceivable application to the issue at hand.

                                                            Dr. David L. White

[ Moderator's response:
  Presumably David White means that Robert Whiting should have done these
  things.  I will use this opportunity to remind all readers that the welcome
  message for this list calls upon those who feel themselves injured by the
  statements of another first to take the matter up with the person concerned,
  and not with me.
  --rma ]


From Georg at home.ivm.de  Tue Dec 12 10:24:27 2000
From: Georg at home.ivm.de (Stefan Georg)
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 11:24:27 +0100
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
In-Reply-To: <001601c0631f$adc9e680$4f903b3f@patrickr>
Message-ID: <TUE.12.DEC.2000.112427.0100.>

>[PR]
>In view of the existence of our sister-list, the Nostratic-List, and the
>work of many researchers including Bomhard's work, this statement is purely
>provocative.

It worked ;-)

>Instead of a priori judgments on his (and incidentally my) work (not to
>mention that of many others), why not try *showing* why Bomhard's and my
>IE-AA comparisons are worthless as evidence, switching to the
>Nostratic-List, of course, if you are up to it?

No, Pat, not again. Of course I acknowledge the fact that Nostratic
and other such proposals are being investigated by reasonable
linguists, and sometimes even defended by them. We've been through
this a thousand times on different fora.
However, and that's why I couldn't resist this little provocation, as
much as I'm willing to concede that the subject *may* be discussed
within the framework of reasonable linguistics, you should be willing
to accept that ay and others' negative attitude to N. is equally a
defendable position.

No, I won't go over all those "examples" again. As you know, but are
unlikely to admit in public, it usually amounts to wasting my time
showing that this, and that, and of course that "etymology" is
founded on faulty semantics, bad or non-existent attestation,
improper morphological analysis, sound-correspondences which are said
to hold on the basis of two examples (but ignored in 15 others),
clear (but never admitted) late inter-family loans aso. aso. aso. We
will fight over, say, ten etymologies, I will win (as always ;-), and
when I finally bring you to admit that they were not good, you'll say
that there are thousands, or zillions of others.

No way.

And, of course, not on this list (but also not on the other one, no,
not again ;-)..

You'll have to live with the fact that some people, like me, *know*
that N. is unfounded, but I'm tired of trying to convince the
believers. Look and see yourself, as hundreds of others who started
out as believers have seen before you ...

Stefan

--
Dr. Stefan Georg
Heerstra?e 7
D-53111 Bonn
FRG
Tel./Fax +49-228-691332


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Thu Dec 14 06:06:04 2000
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 01:06:04 EST
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.010604.EST.>

In a message dated 12/13/2000 11:16:43 PM, dlwhite at texas.net replied to the
following:

<< Did they have a big enough presence to serve as a catalyst for the
invasion? Is there any indication that they actually formed a separate
Germanic-speaking community before the Romans left?>>

<<My impression is that the AS conquest was as much a reinforced revolt of
federates as anything else.  There is no reason to think that Germans in
Britain would not have spoken German, and though I do not specifically recall
any direct evidence of it, I would not be surprised if there is some. >>

Part of the "foederati system" entailed moving group of peoples into buffer
zones along Roman borders.  I believe that two groups from "Germania" called
"Votadini" and "Damnoni" were actually moved as such to north Wales just
around the time of Magus Maximus.  Saxons were also deployed about the same
time along the northern border against attacks by Picts.  On a number of
occasions of course the Roman Army in Britain just off and left to try to put
someone in the Emperor's Chair.  During those periods it would seem that
these Germanic troops were in fact Britain's main defense.  One of the later
chroniclers mentions that the Saxons claimed that they had once lived in
Britain and were simply returning.  After Constantine was declared emperor by
his legions and left with them for Rome in 407AD, the only "Roman" garrisons
that remained may have been foederati.  The legions never came back and it
took about another 100 years for this situation to deteriorate into a genuine
"invasion."

Although the Germanic language would be difficult to detect in Latin
inscriptions, there is some evidence of German presence in religious
inscriptions.  See,e.g., M. Henig, Religion in Roman Britain (1984)

Regards,
Steve Long


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Thu Dec 14 06:22:26 2000
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 01:22:26 EST
Subject: AS Conquest the result of a Plague
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.012226.EST.>

In a message dated 12/13/2000 11:16:43 PM, dlwhite at texas.net writes:

<< My impression is that the AS conquest was as much a reinforced
revolt of federates as anything else. >>

There is a new theory going around based on evidence of a sixth century
global event and consequent plague.  This is an excerpt from a public post
w/o signature on the EuroArch list:

"A more recent and more measured presentation and hypothesis is
provided by Elizabeth Jones of the University of North Carolina. She
has published an article titled "Climate, Archeology, History,
and the Arthurian Tradition: A Multiple-Source Study of Two Dark-Age
Puzzles" in "The Years Without Summer: Tracing A.D. 536 and
Its Aftermath", Edited by Joel D. Gunn, also of UNC.  (British
Archaeological Reports, www.archaeopress.com
http://www.archaeopress.com , ISBN 1 84171 0741 and
http://www.mindspring.com/~multisci/ad536.htm.)

Jones' hypothesis is that disease attributable to the climate
shift selectively decimated the Celtic British population in the mid
6th century, thereby facilitating the Anglo-Saxon conquest of most of
Britain between 550 and 600 AD.  Roughly summarized, her starting
points are the statements that "It is well-established that
drastic, relatively sudden changes in average global temperature -
whether warmer or colder - cause imbalances in populations of
bacteria, viruses, insects, rodents, and other animals that result in
plagues and other epidemics, which are then spread to human
populations (1: Linden 1996:56)", and "There is general
agreement that the plagues struck the Britons hard without affecting
the Anglo-Saxon populations to any extent." (2: Davis, 1982, and
others.) Among additional points, Jones argues that:

1)  It appears unlikely that the conquering Anglo-Saxons
assimilated the British because there is little evidence of
linguistic or cultural borrowing in the archaeological record of
Anglo-Saxon settlements.  At the same time, extermination of the
British seems unlikely because there is no evidence of violent
destruction of British towns, which appear to have been abandoned.

2)  There is archaeological evidence for disease of some type at
British Cirencester in the form of "unburied bodies lying in the
streets of an abandoned town".

3)  Before 550 AD, the Anglo-Saxon settlements in England were
dispersed family farms tied exclusively to a North Sea economy, which
did not even include Frankish areas in Gaul.  In sharp contrast, the
more urban Celtic Britains were still tied into the eastern
Mediterranean trade network, making them more likely to be affected
by the Justinian plague than the Anglo-Saxons.

4)  The disease hypothesis helps to explain the massive
migrations of Britains to Wales and Brittany at this time.   Jones
reports that there are records of British refugees who came to
Brittany expressly to escape contagion.

5)  The majority of invaders of late 6th century Britain "came
from more northerly areas than in the fifth century - from Denmark
and even from Sweden".  This could well be caused by the cold
produced by the 5th century climate change, "which was more
pronounced and longer-lasting in Scandinavia than in the British
Isles".

Although this was an academic response, I know it doesn't prove
anything. And Jones herself readily admits that the climate/plague
factor was probably only one factor among many driving the change in
Britain. However, Jones maintains that it provide a parsimonious
explanation for the sudden success of the Anglo-Saxons after 550A.D.,
when their previous expansion in England had been halted and even
driven back over the previous century by Celtic British resistance.
Jones' arguments are supported by another article in the same
collection by Bailey Young of the Department of History, Eastern
Illinois University, titled "Climate and Crisis in Sixth-Century
Italy and Gaul".  In that article, Young cites the multiple
instances of plague in Gaul mentioned by Gregory of Tours."

S. Long


From Tristan at MAIL.SCM-RPG.COM.AU  Sat Dec 16 11:38:37 2000
From: Tristan at MAIL.SCM-RPG.COM.AU (Tristan Jones)
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2000 06:38:37 -0500
Subject: re Reference on Numbers of Saxons
Message-ID: <SAT.16.DEC.2000.063837.0500.>

Well this is going to be a radical view on Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain.
However considering the minimal Celtic or Romance influence in Old English.
Even less than Aboriginal influence in Australian English, Aboriginals
currently make up 2% of Australian population , however Australia has a huge
amount of Aboriginal place names and more aboriginal loan words than Celtic
or Romance loan words in Old English. Given the attuides of early
Anglo-Saxon and Celtic relations, they lived in seperate settlements, rather
than together in same settlements and bulding of Offa's dyke between English
and Welsh. Suggests a big cultural and some psycial differences between the
Romano-British and Anglo-Saxons, I am suggesting that the aAnglo-Saxons
pretty much looked like people in Eastern part of England today and
Romano-British looked like the Welsh and British in Western part of England
today and a huge replacement of Romano-British people with Anglo-Saxon
immigrants from Germany. It is also shown in genetic record that the Eastern
part of England is more related genetically to Danes than their neighbours
in western bit of Britain.


From W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de  Thu Dec 14 09:47:01 2000
From: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Wolfgang Schulze)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 10:47:01 +0100
Subject: Iberia
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.104701.0100.>

Richard Coates wrote:

> Further to Larry Trask's posting about this name: it should not be ignored
> that it very closely resembles (at least the nominative form of) the native
> name for Ireland, reconstructable as *_i:werjo:_, and latinized as
> _(h)ibernia_ with /n/ imported from oblique case-forms.

Let me just add another aspect to the discussion: When I browse through
all the Iberia/Hibernia/Ebro etc. terms I'm left with the impression
that the Ancient world used Iberia etc. to denote all kind of places in
the outer periphery of the then known world (Spain, Caucasus). In other
words: Anything was 'Iberia' as long as there existed a local motivation
to apply this term. A local motiovation could have been any place name,
river name (Ebro for the Spanish regions ?), ethnonym (Armenian iver-k
(asp. k) for the Georgians) or what so ever as long as it 'sounded'
alike or resembled 'Iberia' in its phonetics (the same happened to the
European term 'Georgia' (in the Caucasus) which shows assimilation of
Persian Gurji etc. to 'Georgia' - here, the Christian connotation of St.
Georg plays an important role as well as the name of Gregor in terms of
the early Georgian orthodoxy). Note that we can observe the same 'folk
semantics' or 'folk constructions' for the term Albania: Because the
Ancient World knew lots of place names (esp. associated with high
mountains) that contained something like alb- (Alpes, Albion (celtic),
Alba etc.) a more general term 'albania' emerged that was used for
regions with high mountains. When the Alwan people (Classical Armenian
aluan-k (velar l, asp. k (plural)) in now Northern Azerbaijan came into
the horizon of the Ancient World (4th c. BC) their name was
reinterpreted on the basis of this general term, which gives us the
Classical name 'Albania', then used for both the Balkan und Caucasus
regions. The pity is that some people belief in the reality of such
correpondences which are - in fact - nothing but folk constructions in
the dimension of the geographic knowledge of the Ancient World.

Wolfgang
--
********************
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze
Institut f?r Allgemeine und Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft
Universit?t M?nchen - Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1 - D-80539 M?nchen
Tel.: ++49-(0)89-2180 2486 (secretary) // ++49-(0)89-2180 5343 (office)
Fax:  ++49-(0)89-2180 5345
Email: 	W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Web:   	http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wschulze/
********************


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Thu Dec 14 13:50:28 2000
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 07:50:28 -0600
Subject: Iberia
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.075028.0600.>

Dear Richard and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Coates" <richardc at cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2000 3:26 AM

> Further to Larry Trask's posting about this name: it should not be
> ignored that it very closely resembles (at least the nominative form
> of) the native name for Ireland, reconstructable as *_i:werjo:_, and
> latinized as _(h)ibernia_ with /n/ imported from oblique case-forms.

[PR]
To me, this is utterly fascinating.

Could you give the source and more of the argument for this reconstruction?

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ec at ec hecc, vindga meipi a netr allar nmo, geiri vnda~r . . . a ~eim
mei~i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rstom renn." (Havamal 138)


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Dec 14 15:08:15 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 10:08:15 -0500
Subject: Iberia
In-Reply-To: <27010750.3185632819@maxw.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.100815.0500.>

>(There's a problem too with the /b/ in Cat. Ebre; regular sound change
>would give WCat. */ewre/; thus Catalan borrowing from some other
>Hispano-Romance variety such as Mozarabic?). One must assume that the
>proto-Romance form was distinct from that represented in Classical Latin or
>Greek texts, viz. */'ibero/ or similar [NB it could be */?pero/, which
>would give both Sp. Ebro and Cat. Ebre regularly].

	A /-b-/ < /-p-/ looks like a big problem, since my understanding is
that neither Iberian nor Celtiberian had a /p/.
	Borrowing from Mozarabic does seem to be a valid solution, though.
	Aren't there also some forms of Aragonese that also unvoiced
intervocalic stops? If so [and relevant], could this have been a wider
phenomenon in the past?
	Another solution could be that the /-b-/ was retained as a "learned
pronunciation". Would that work?

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Dec 14 15:29:24 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 10:29:24 -0500
Subject: Kurds and Georgians [and Basques]
In-Reply-To: <3A375F4B.30002@lrz.uni-muenchen.de>
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.102924.0500.>

>Remember that the term 'Iveria' etc. for the Georgians stems from
>Armenian iver-k` (Plural) 'Georgians'. As far as I know there are
>several proposals to relate the Armenian word to an IE source or to
>derive it from another Armenian source such as 'i ver' 'above' etc..
>This would give us 'iverk`' = 'those who live/are above (=north) of us'.

	So, could one postulate a Lusitanian form *uper-, *iper- for Ebro?
ie. the "super river", the "river from the heights", etc.?

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Thu Dec 14 12:12:10 2000
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 07:12:10 -0500
Subject: "Goth"
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.071210.0500.>

On Tue, 12 Dec 2000 16:03:25 +0100, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <mcv at wxs.nl>
wrote:

>, so that would be Guthones.  The Swedish <Gautai> should be
>kept separate.
>>The Goths were sometimes also referred to as the <Getae> (Greek: Getes,
>>Getae; Latin, Geta, Getae), a name used for an earlier group of people in
the
>>same area (north of the Danube.)  (The <Geats> appear as another northern
>>Germanic peoples at some point later in time.)
>The Getae were most likely a Thracian (or Daco-Thracian) people. ...

If the Got- and the Gautar were different peoples, how much do we know about
the Gautar / Geats as distinct from the Goths?

Re the Getae, a more recent example of a writer using an anachronistic name
for a people, is a tomb inscription in York Minster (a cathedral in England)
that referred to modern Yorkshire or Lincolnshire people as "Trinobantes"!


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Dec 15 03:55:11 2000
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 22:55:11 EST
Subject: "Goth" (Dates)
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.225511.EST.>

In a message dated 12/14/2000 3:48:07 AM, JoatSimeon at aol.com writes:

<< -- there were no Goths just north of the Danube in 250 BCE.  At that time
the ancestors of the Goths were in eastern Germany and Poland.

My mistake.  And sorry for the confusion.  I should have written 250AD.  It
is not at all clear where the Goths were or if they were at all in 250BC.

It is Ptolemy who places the Gythones east of the Vistula circa 100AD.
Archaeologist have associated these "Goths/Gythones" with the Wielbark
culture in this area in that time.  Wielbark which arises between 100BC and
1AD shares characteristics with the somewhat later Cernjachov culture, found
in a wide area in the Ukraine and south of the Carpathians, and generally
associated with the historical Goths.

The theory that the Goths migrated from the area of the Go:te in Scandinavia,
not accepted by all, would probably have them moving about 100BC.

But less than 150 years between Wielbark and Cernjachov (they actually
overlap) does seem like a short time in which such a large migration and
transformation to have occurred.

<<The first historical attestation of the Goths has them in the Vistula valley
in the first few centuries CE, after which they moved into the Ukraine and the
Danube valley. >>

It seems general historical consensus that people called "Goths" first come
definitively into history when they make major incursions by land and sea
into the eastern Roman Empire starting in 238AD, sacking the city of Histria
at the mouth of the Danube. (Dexippus).   Peter Heather in "The Goths" (1996)
documents the extensive raiding and warfare attributed to the Goths during
the following years, including raids on Attica and Asia Minor and the burning
of the Temple to Diana in Ephesus, all culminating at the important battle of
Naissus in the northern Balkans in 272AD, at which Claudius reputedly earned
the honorary appelate, "Gothicus".

Regards,
Steve Long


From edsel at glo.be  Tue Dec 19 03:58:47 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 22:58:47 -0500
Subject: "Goth"
In-Reply-To: <cddc3tg5o0can43a2ka15gd6r4119l2fa2@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <MON.18.DEC.2000.225847.0500.>

At 16:03 12/12/00 +0100, you wrote:

>On Mon, 11 Dec 2000 00:40:46 EST, X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

[snip]

>>In Latin, it will appear about a hundred years after the Greek as pl <Gothi>
>>(the way Ulfila's biographer apparently spelled it) and at some point I've
>>read, <Gotthi>.

>Unlike Latin or Greek /t/, Germanic /t/ was (and is) aspirated.

[Ed]

Not in modern Dutch any more.

[snip]
>Miguel Carrasquer Vidal

Ed. Selleslagh


From edsel at glo.be  Tue Dec 19 04:22:46 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 23:22:46 -0500
Subject: "Goth"
In-Reply-To: <000901c0646d$0bbfb5a0$126063d1@texas.net>
Message-ID: <MON.18.DEC.2000.232246.0500.>

At 12:54 12/12/00 -0600, you wrote:

>        I don't have much of a contribution to make here, but since when has
>that ever stopped me?  Besides, my adoring public (the hithertofore
>unsuspected existence of which Mr. Whting was kind enough to point out to
>me) demands it, no doubt.
>        Latin does not of course in any meaningful sense have /th/ (thorn),
>so the appearance of "th" in Latin must be, if all is in order, from
>transliteration from Greek.  The Greeks, for their part, might well have
>heard an aspirated /t/ in Gothic as equivalent to their /th/.  Our modern
>English pronunciation is of course a spelling pronunciation. Thus the
>illusion of a shifted /t/ might be created.  But the Lithuanian borrowed
>form has /d/, indicating that only a /d/ to /t/ shift is real.

[Ed]

But in Spanish they are called 'Godos', which seems to be a voicing of the t.
This is not unusual in Spanish: Latin -atus > -ado, for instance.

[snip]

>                                                            Dr. David L. White

Ed. Selleslagh


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Dec 14 20:59:59 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 14:59:59 -0600
Subject: Further Thoughts On "Goth-"
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.145959.0600.>

        The word is sometimes connected with a word meaning 'flood' or
something of that sort (sometimes given as 'pour').  It occurs to me that
from an original /gout/ (ancestral to Germanic /gaut/), /gut/ might be a
zero-grade, such as would (since this is a strong verb) occur in past
participles (like "flooded").   A zero-grade version is, by the way,
generally taken to be the ancestor of modern English "gut", though the
semantics are unclear (to me).  The full o-grade might have meant "flood",
so that the two variants might go back to a difference of opinion as to
whether the Goths were being called in effect "the flood people" or "the
flooded people".   As for why they would be called anything of the sort, I
vaguely recall that sea-levels in the general vicinity were rising at about
the time in question.  But all this is rather speculative, and I stand ready
to be set straight.

Dr. David L. White


From sonno3 at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 14 15:02:11 2000
From: sonno3 at hotmail.com (Christopher Gwinn)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 10:02:11 -0500
Subject: Celtic Germanic relationship
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.100211.0500.>

> Since a similar change indeed affected the ancestors of the known insular
> Celtic languages (in Irish, *-s- was "lenited" into -h-, then nothing,
> whereas in Welsh and Breton all *s > *h, with eventual loss in many cases),
> it is reasonable to posit an *-s- > *-h- > nothing for some continental
> Celtic languages as well for the 1st millennium BC. Other Celtic
> dialects/languages would have kept intervocalic -s- (I believe Gaulish did)

Early (attested) Gaulish retains the intervocalic -s-, but later Gaulish
tends to lose it (especially vefore -s-). Note Isarno "iron" as compared to
late Gaulish suior "sister" (from Common Celtic *swesor)

> On *ri:k-, the key to the direction of borrowing is not so much the consonant
> /k/ but the vowel /i:/. If we assume an IE etymology for the word in
> question, we are more likely to find a PIE */e:/ than a PIE */i:/ (evidence:
> Latin rjx, rjgnna; Sanskrit rbj-). Now, PIE */e:/ either remains */e:/ in the
> Germanic languages or opens up to a long low vowel /ae:/ or even /a:/. The
> conditions for these alternative developments go well beyond what we are
> discussing, but the point is that PIE */e:/ never becomes */i:/ in Germanic.
> This is, however, the normal development in the Celtic languages, so that IF
> we posit an IE origin for the Germanic word family *ri:k-, the best
> explanation is again borrowing from Celtic, with the borrowing taking place
> before the Grimm's Law change *g > *k.

I might add that Greek and Latin speaker soften had trouble distinguishing
between the Celtic -g- and -c- (the Gauls themselves often seemed unsure
whether to use a -c- or a -g- when writing their  own language); perhaps the
Germanic tribes suffered from the same problem.

-Chris Gwinn


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 18 03:30:12 2000
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 03:30:12 -0000
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <MON.18.DEC.2000.033012.0000.>

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal (5 Dec 2000) wrote:

>As I may have mentioned here earlier, I have been investigating the
>possible ramifications of hypothesizing that not only *k/*g/*gh had
>labialized (*kw/*gw/*ghw) and palatalized (*k^/*g^/*gh^) variants, but
>that this was originally the case for *all* (pre-)PIE consonants.

>One interesting possibility is **pw, which would have mostly merged
>with *kw (for obvious reasons, a labialized labial would have been a
>highly marked phoneme), but with *p in (pre-)Germanic.

I'm not comfortable with double stars, but *pw in Early PIE which merged
with *p in Pre-Germanic and with *kw in most other dialects  makes sense.

>This could be the case in the words "liver", "four", "-leven, -lve",
> >"oven", "wolf" and some others ("leave", "sieve", etc.).

I would add the tail-end of "five"; Goth. <fimf> suggests Early PIE *pempwe.
On the other hand I would remove "wolf"; Lat. <lupus> argues against a
labialized stop. Gk. <lukos> probably results from taboo-substitution by an
epithet 'bright-eyed', 'shining-eyed' or the like. I would refer "wolf" to
PIE *wlpos. Making all attested forms into taboo-variants, as Mr. Watkins
does, is an unnecessary shell-game.

>The existence of a parallel development *ghw (I prefer to spell it >this
>way) > Gmc. *b would be most interesting.  To be fully parallel >with **pw
>-> *f, there should be quite a number of exceptions to the >"law" (that
>it's controversial is therefore a good thing in principle).

Sadly we don't have a whole lot of PIE roots with labialized aspirates, and
some of the alleged cognate-sets are dubious, particularly in regard to the
Greek members.

>I'm not too pleased with "bane", however, being from the same root as
> >*gunT- "Kampf, Schlacht", which means a putative **bhwen- (for PIE
> >*ghwen) "to kill" is out of the question.  Not that it matters for
> >judging the etymology by its own merits...

I don't follow this. OE <bana> 'slayer' and <gu:th> 'battle' hardly look
like cognates. I would refer <bana>, OHG <bano> 'death', and probably Gk.
<phonos>, <pephamai>, etc. to PIE *bhen- 'to slay'. <Gu:th> etc., Gk.
<theino:>, and Lat. <defendo> belong with PIE *ghwen- 'to strike, fight,
defend, etc.' Ger. <Guenther> 'warrior' probably represents the zero-grade
agent *ghwntr-. I'm aware that some persons link <phonos> and <theino:>, and
I can't rule this out on strictly phonologic grounds. However, there's a big
difference between merely 'slaying' and 'being a soldier, defender'. If
correct, this analysis suggests *ghw -> Gmc. *g(u) initially. We also have:

  Lat. <frendo>, Gk. <khondros>, OE <grindan> <- *ghwren-
  OL <dingua>, OE <tunge>, OHG <zunga> <- *dnghw-
  Lat. <ungula>, Gk. <onukhos>, OE <naegl>, OHG <nagal> <- *Hnoghw-
  Lat. <levis>, Gk. <elaphros>, OE <le:oht>, OHG <li:hti> <- *Hleghw-

The last three suggest *ghw -> Gmc. *g medially unless the latter is
assimilated into *h (i.e. [x]) before *t.

In my opinion, PIE roots containing a labialized aspirate (traditional *gwh)
which becomes Gmc. *w are most easily explained by assuming that the Early
PIE root had *bhw. The phonetic realization in Early Gmc. was probably close
to [vw], and this could plausibly have been reduced to [w]. In "mainstream"
PIE, *bhw merged with *ghw. I hypothesize:

  Lat. <formus>, Gk. <thermos>, Skt. <gharmas>, OE <wearm> <- *bhwermos
  Lat. <nivis>, <ninguit>, Gk. <niphei>, OE <sni:wan> <- *sneibhw-
  Lat. <nefrendes>, Gk. <nephroi>, ME <nere>, Ger. <Niere> <- *nebhwr-

Early PIE *dhw may be represented in "deer", OE <de:or>, assuming this is
connected with Lat. <ferus>, Gk. <the:r>. The latter has the Aeolic form
<phe:r> which suggests a PIE labialized aspirate, just as Aeol. <pisures>
'four', <pempe> 'five' have <p> for Attic <t> where PIE had a labialized
stop. I would refer "deer" to *dhwer- which became *ghwer- in "mainstream"
PIE.

Doug Kilday


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Dec 14 18:59:41 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 12:59:41 -0600
Subject: re Northern Subject Rule
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.125941.0600.>

> What about one of the basic rules of classical Greek - neuter plural nouns
> take a singular verb, which I think was presented to us in my first lesson in
> the early '60s (well 'before the Beatles first LP')?

> The construction is similar (but not entirely so) in Gaelic - it could be
> formulated as plural nouns take singular verbs - but the synthetic forms
> are not common in Scots, and may be relatively rare in some Irish dialects.

            Thinking that (the last bit) is precisely the error I made,
which Dr. Orr will no doubt point out to us all very soon.   In Irish, as
defined by O'Siadhail, the rule does occur in the habitual present, among
other places.  So Klehmola was wrong on this (and I was wrong to take his
word for it, when I should have known better.)
        Hamp has an article on all this, "Miscellanea Celtica ..." in Studia
Celtica10-1: 54-73, that interested members may wish to consult (and perhaps
refresh my memory on: it's been nearly 13 years).

> How much are the similarities (between English and Insular Celtic) areal?
> And how far apart were Brittonic and Gadelic before moving into Old Welsh and
> Old Irish respectively -

        The rule occurs in Breton (p.108 of Hardie's grammar, for those of
you who are beginning to suspect, quite rightly, that my grasp of facts
cannot necessarily be trusted), so it could be quite old in Brittonic.  Or
it could conceivably be a common innovation impelled by similar causes, like
umlaut in Germanic, though as far as I know there is no partcular reason to
believe this.  Does anybody out there know whether the rule occurs in Middle
Breton, or what a good grammar of Middle Breton might  be?  Having to rely
on Modern Breton alone is risky business.

> if they were quite close, and the influences which are supposed to be
> substrates were common to both islands, why should there be a difference
> between the two?

           If the origin, whatever it is, of this rule (or set of related
rules) is remote, there is no particular reason to think that the languages
in question might not have drifted apart in detail over the intervening
years.   Furthermore, the rule is not necessarily directly due to external
influences (though it probably is), but might have been an independent, or
semi-independent, reaction to verb-initiality.

                                                            Dr. David L. White


From sarima at friesen.net  Fri Dec 15 02:23:28 2000
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 18:23:28 -0800
Subject: re Northern Subject Rule
In-Reply-To: <v01540b00b65a5e914141@[62.188.15.56]>
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.182328.0800.>

At 08:21 AM 12/12/00 +0000, you wrote:

>What about one of the basic rules of classical Greek - neuter plural nouns
>take a singular verb, which I think was presented to us in my first lesson in
>the early '60s (well 'before the Beatles first LP')?

>The construction is similar (but not entirely so) in Gaelic - ...

On this basis some have reconstructed this construction to PIE.

Is this a viable explanation still?

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Dec 14 19:14:43 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 13:14:43 -0600
Subject: Danish Spelling
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.131443.0600.>

     Heavens to Betsy, I appear to have suffered a major neurological
malfunction, one of two recently (the other one regards Irish, as will be
seen shortly, no doubt).  Danish does not use the sort of spellings I said
it does.  The source of my error, upon examination, is a "phonetic"
transcription of Danish (which can hardly be right), not actual Danish
spelling.

                                                       Dr. David L. White


From thorinn at diku.dk  Thu Dec 14 13:19:10 2000
From: thorinn at diku.dk (Lars Henrik Mathiesen)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 13:19:10 -0000
Subject: Ngaio Marsh
In-Reply-To: <E145n6d-00067r-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
 (larryt@cogs.susx.ac.uk)
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.131910.0000.>

> Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 10:56:24 +0000
> From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)

> Even after they have completed their phonetics course, few of my
> students seem happy about pronouncing 'Ngaio' with eng.  And most
> English-speakers seem to find initial eng impossible.  I wonder,
> therefore: is it really possible for English to accept a foreign
> word with initial eng?  I suspect it isn't.

If anecdotes about surname pronunciation are really on topic here, I'd
like to know what happens to the (Korean?) family name Ng in the
mouths of English-speaking non-linguists.

(I'm guessing that the native pronunciation is a vocalic eng, but I've
never heard anyone pronounce it in either Korean or English).

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Dec 14 15:22:33 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 10:22:33 -0500
Subject: cebolla/tipula/kipula
In-Reply-To: <27010750.3185632819@maxw.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.102233.0500.>

	In Lapesa's Historia de la lengua espa?ola I came across
Basque tipula, kipula "onion" < cepulla
The Spanish form is cebolla

	The question is why tipula?
	Was it borrowed at a time when /ke-, ki-/ was in the process of
changing to /ce-, ci-/>? and both pronunciations were in use i.e. *kepulla,
*cepulla
	Was the word borrowed from 2 different dialects of Romance? or at
two different times by different dialects of basque?
	Or did /ki-/ > /ti-/ occur later in Basque?

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From whiting at cc.helsinki.fi  Thu Dec 14 13:06:02 2000
From: whiting at cc.helsinki.fi (Robert Whiting)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 15:06:02 +0200
Subject: minimal pairs
In-Reply-To: <E145mav-0003Xo-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.150602.0200.>

On Tue, 12 Dec 2000, Larry Trask wrote:

> Robert Whiting writes:

>> Now there are those who say that they have no rules for the
>> pronunciation of <th>.  Presumably, when they encounter in print
>> an unfamiliar word with <th> in it they have to go to the
>> dictionary to find out how to pronounce it.  I happen to have
>> generalized rules for the pronunciation of <th> so I can usually
>> make a guess that will be right about 98 times out of 100 about
>> how <th> should be pronounced in an unfamiliar word.  I came
>> across one the other day:  'poikilothermic'.  Without going to
>> the dictionary I knew two things just by looking at it:  a) it is
>> not a native English word, and therefore, b) the <th> is
>> pronounced [T].

> This is usually a good rule, but there are a few exceptions.

That's why I say it only works 98 times out of 100.

> I can think of 'rhythm', 'logarithm' and 'algorithm', and their
> derivatives, all of which have eth in spite of their Greek origin.
> There must be a subrule here, though 'arithmetic' has theta.

First, 'algorithm' is not greek, but comes from Arabic.  The final
cluster, however, is probably by analogy to 'logarithm' since it was
originally '-ism'.  Second, I already pointed these out in a posting
on Fri, 14 Apr 2000.  It seems likely that the environment /___ m#
has an effect on the pronunciation of theta.

> There are also a couple of miscellaneous nasties, like 'asthma'
> and 'thyme', and, in Britain, 'Anthony'. These, in spite of their
> spelling and in spite of their classical origin, fail to contain
> any dental fricatives at all.

I find the same thing in my pronunciation of 'clothes', which sounds
just like my pronunciation of 'close' (v.).  There are also names
like Thomas and Thames.

Bob Whiting
whiting at cc.helsinki.fi


From r.clark at auckland.ac.nz  Fri Dec 15 03:29:27 2000
From: r.clark at auckland.ac.nz (Ross Clark (FOA LING))
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 16:29:27 +1300
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <FRI.15.DEC.2000.162927.1300.>

-----Original Message-----
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk [mailto:larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk]
To: Indo-European at xkl.com

Robert Whiting writes:

> Now there are those who say that they have no rules for the
> pronunciation of <th>.  Presumably, when they encounter in print
> an unfamiliar word with <th> in it they have to go to the
> dictionary to find out how to pronounce it.  I happen to have
> generalized rules for the pronunciation of <th> so I can usually
> make a guess that will be right about 98 times out of 100 about
> how <th> should be pronounced in an unfamiliar word.  I came
> across one the other day:  'poikilothermic'.  Without going to
> the dictionary I knew two things just by looking at it:  a) it is
> not a native English word, and therefore, b) the <th> is
> pronounced [T].

>This is usually a good rule, but there are a few exceptions.  I can
>think of 'rhythm', 'logarithm' and 'algorithm', and their derivatives,
>all of which have eth in spite of their Greek origin.  There must be a
>subrule here, though 'arithmetic' has theta.

Compare "arrhythmia" for a near-minimal contrast.

Ross Clark


From edsel at glo.be  Tue Dec 19 08:27:00 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 03:27:00 -0500
Subject: minimal pairs
In-Reply-To: <E145mav-0003Xo-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.032700.0500.>

[LT]

>There are also a couple of miscellaneous nasties, like 'asthma'
>and 'thyme', and, in Britain, 'Anthony'. These, in spite of their
>spelling and in spite of their classical origin, fail to contain
>any dental fricatives at all.

>Larry Trask

[Ed]

Note that 'Anthony', 'author' etc. are a class apart: the English spelling
does not correspond to Latin spelling, which has 't': Antonius, auctor...I
guess the th-spelling reflects an older English spelling rule for aspirated
t (like in German, cf. Goethe, Luther,...).

Ed. Selleslagh


From petegray at btinternet.com  Thu Dec 14 20:33:03 2000
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 20:33:03 -0000
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.203303.0000.>

>'asthma' ... fail to contain
> any dental fricatives at all.

It does in my speech and that of those around me, and in my dictionary.

Peter


From sarima at friesen.net  Thu Dec 14 15:40:37 2000
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 07:40:37 -0800
Subject: minimal pairs are not always there
In-Reply-To: <Pine.OSF.4.30.0012112228240.1270-100000@vesuri.Helsinki.FI>
Message-ID: <THU.14.DEC.2000.074037.0800.>

At 10:35 PM 12/11/00 +0200, you wrote:

>On Tue, 07 Nov 2000 Stanley Friesen <sarima at friesen.net> wrote:

>> Seems reasonable, though perhaps a bit overstated.  There are
>> plenty of words with some sort of sound-symbolism involving
>> perfectly good phonemes to make this too strong a statement.

>Yes, I grant you the point about sound-symbolism.  I always try
>to allow for this, ...

>But what kind of sound symbolism are you proposing that accounts
>for the fact that pronouns and deictic words in English have [D]
>while other words have [T]?

*I* am not proposing such a thing.  I just felt your original
counter-argument was overstated.  I actually agree with you that there is
no such thing in this particular case.  I just maintain that you cannot
conclude what you do from the data.

>   You can't just make the original
>point go away by some vague reference to sound symbolism without
>showing some connection to the present discussion.  For, if, as
>you agree, when sound symbolism isn't involved, the presence of a
>particular phoneme in a particular word shouldn't tell you
>anything about the meaning of that word, then how is it
>possible that the phoneme /D/ in initial position belongs
>exclusively to pronouns and deictic words?

I would rather say that the presence of a particular phoneme does not
*normally* tell one anything about the meaning of a word.  In addition to
sound-symbolism, I would allow for historical accidents in the origin of
the vocabulary making for temporary statistical anomalies of this sort.  In
other words, a bias in the distribution of a pair of sounds does not *by*
itself* constitute evidence that they are *currently* not distinct
phonemes, but only that at some fairly recent time they were not such.

>   When you can provide
>a convincing answer for this, then you will have made your point.
>Until then, I will continue to maintain that the presence of a
>particular phoneme in a particular word should tell you nothing
>about the meaning of that word (leaving aside the possibility of
>sound symbolism).

I maintain this is only a *statistical* *average* situation, and thus its
violation is not evidence for lack of phonemicity per se.

>>> In the pair ether/either, 'ether' belongs to a class of words
>>> where the pronunciation of <th> as [th] is required (by rule
>>> based on a clearly established pattern [Greek loans originally
>>> containing theta]);

>> I disagree. I do not respond to any such rule in my own
>> listening.  No such rule governs any pattern in my speech
>> production.  As far as I am aware, I just memorized the word
>> 'ether' as such.

>Well I can't argue with your perceptions, because they are in
>your head, not mine.  But this means that you have memorized
>the pronunciation of all other English words with <th> as well
>and when you see a new word with <th> you don't have a clue how
>to pronounce it.

Yep.  Though my vocabulary is so large, and I know so many foreign words I
can often recognize a word and guess its pronunciation based on its
cognates. (Which makes no use of any rule other than that, other things
being equal, related words have similar pronunciations).

>>>    Since the respective pronunciations of these words are
>>> required by rule, this cannot be a phonemic distinction because
>>> the choice of these sounds is not arbitrary.

>> It is in MY speech.  And I doubt many other English speakers
>> could be shown to have even a subliminal awareness of any such
>> rules.

>You still seem to be operating on the assumption that it is
>necessary to know how a system works in order to be able to use
>it.  By and large, native speakers do not know what the rules are
>in any conscious way.

That isn't the point.  Not only do I see no evidence that any speaker is
conscious of such a rule, I see precious little, if any, evidence that they
*act* on any such *unconscious* rule.  I require *evidence* from *behavior*
before I am willing to postulate an unconscious rule.  The mere fact of a
statistical anomaly is insufficient evidence for such without evidence that
speakers are at least subliminally *aware* of it.

>   They just know what sounds right.  And it
>is fully automatic.  ...

Perform an experiment on ordinary English speakers using made up words to
show that they in fact behave as if they had such a rule, and I will
consider your hypothesis.  (Leave out people with any substantial
linguistic training, as they may know too much consciously).

>> Not at all - there is such a thing as a *relictual* pattern. one
>> that is left over from prior history, but which has no *current*
>> linguistic significance.

>The entire language is a relictual pattern left over from prior
>history.  Otherwise you have a creole.  There are only relictual
>patterns that are no longer fully productive and ones that are.

And there are ones that at not *at* *all* productive.  I generally only
accept synchronic rules for *currently* *productive* patterns, at least
without considerable additional evidence.

>The latter are used to create new forms in the language by its
>speakers; the former are not.  Here is a good example of a
>relictual pattern that is no longer productive:  the English
>personal pronoun system.  Now tell me that this pattern has no
>significance for the *current* language or that native speakers
>aren't aware of it because it is a "relictual pattern left over
>from prior history."

They are aware of no *rules* generating it, we just memorize it, and how to
use it.  The sort of rule you are proposing is more of the sort that would
be used in generating *new* pronouns - it is a rule of word formation word
use (or, in traditional  terminology, phonemics not syntax).

>> The only evidence I would accept for a synchronic rule is
>> evidence from the speech behavior of native speakers.

>Okay, so you won't accept the list of words and pronunciations
>that I provided based on a contemporary corpus and dictionary.

Not *by* *itself* - not as evidence for an internal rule for *generating*
words.  There are many sets of words in the dictionary that are not related
by any rule whatsoever.

>Fine.  Take the same list and ask a couple of hundred native
>speakers how they pronounce these words.

How does this prove anything?  Native speakers *already* know how to
pronounce all of the words in their vocabulary - indeed, it is by asking
native speakers that the dictionary writers arrive at the pronunciations
therein.  To demonstrate a rule you have to use words the speaker does
*not* already know, and show they determine the pronunciation based on the
particular factor that you are proposing as a rule.

>   If you find significant
>differences from what I have provided, then you will have made
>your point.  But I think that you will find that this is the way
>that these words are pronounced by native speakers today.

Of course it is.  Alll that proves is that the dictionary writers wrote
down the right pronunciation for the words.  Memorization is as good an
explanation of this pattern as any other.  The sort of behavior pattern I
am talking about is one that goes beyond this in that it shows deeper
patterning than mere historical accident.

>> The mere existence of a pattern is not, by itself, sufficient to
>> establish a rule.

>The existence of patterns is the only basis for establishing
>rules.

But you are making your claim from one *static* pattern of words in the
dictionary.  That is not the only sort of pattern that exists.  There is
also the way in which speakers derive new words, and they ways in which
they mis-hear words when they are pronounced in opposition to rules, and
how they sound out written words they do not have in their active
vocabulary (though one must be careful here to rule out prior exposure to
the word).

To establish *linguistic* *rules* it is the *latter* sorts of patterns that
are required, as there are too many ways that mere static patterns of words
could have been caused to make any valid conclusion from that sort of
pattern alone.

>find patterns.  Now when you have a pattern that you can't
>account for, you are justified in saying that you can't account
>for the pattern, but you aren't justified in saying that the
>pattern has no significance because you can't account for it.

Fine.  I am not saying that.  I am saying that I can account for it just
fine thank-you as a non-productive, relictual pattern. I find that a
sufficient account, and see no need for anything more, at least not without
evidence that the pattern goes beyond old words.

>But above a certain level of coincidence or randomness, patterns
>not created by rules are ruled out by the second law of
>thermodynamics.

Only when the system has had time to reach equilibrium - which English has
not yet done with regard to /D/ vs. /T/.  (If any language in fact ever
does reach equilibrium).

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com


From r.clark at auckland.ac.nz  Fri Dec 15 06:07:37 2000
From: r.clark at auckland.ac.nz (Ross Clark (FOA LING))
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 19:07:37 +1300
Subject: minimal pairs (was: PIE e/o Ablaut)
Message-ID: <FRI.15.DEC.2000.190737.1300.>

[For obvious reasons I have considerably shortened this exchange]

[Topic I went through a good deal of first-year linguistics stuff and ended
with a conclusion -- you need data to do historical grammar -- which I guess
we can agree on]

<snip>
[Topic II - mental reality]

>RW>Realistic means based on realia -- things that actually exist
>RW>as opposed to mental constructs.

[RC]
>This is not sufficient to make any discrimination among
>linguistic descriptions. Any linguist of any theoretical
>persuasion will claim that their description is "based on"
>"things that actually exist".

[RW]
Any theorist will tell you that his theories are based on things
that actually exist.  The problem is that for any given set of
data there are virtually an infinite number of hypotheses that
will account for it.  Some will just be more plausible than
others.  However, it is usually not too difficult to see how far
beyond the data any particular theory has gone, and, more
important, whether it is falsifiable or not.

[RC]
>As linguists, I think we should simply admit that insofar as our
>synchronic descriptions are any more than mere transcription,
>they are attempts to capture some aspect of mental reality.

[RW]
I don't say that we shouldn't; in fact, I think we pretty much
have to.  What I say is that such a thing is presently beyond our
reach.  Until we can get inside the human mind, there is no way
to verify whether what we have captured is "mental reality" or
not.  It may be a useful model to explain certain things (like
Niels Bohr's planetary model of the atom) but it also may have
nothing to do with reality (like Niels Bohr's planetary model of
the atom).  I don't say that we shouldn't try to get there, only
that there is no direct road there presently available.  So
whether all our rules of synchronic grammar actually reflect
something that actually goes on in the mind (which is what I
assume you mean by "mental reality") is something that remains to
be seen.

[RC]
Although I don't think we're getting very far with this quasi-philosophical
discussion, it may be important in understanding our disagreement. You seem
to be more pessimistic than I am about knowing anything about what actually
goes on in speakers' minds.

[Snip preamble to Topic III - Grimm & Verner]

RW>But I can see that I shouldn't expect connections to be made when
RW>these connections have not been expressly stated.  So let's start
RW>again.  Grimm's Law says that certain PIE consonants shift in a
RW>certain way in Germanic.  But there are a large number of
RW>exceptions.  One exception is that unvoiced stops don't shift
RW>when the stop is the second part of a voiceless cluster (thus
RW>/sp/, /st/, and /sk/ remain unshifted).  However, even with this,
RW>there are still a large number of exceptions to Grimm's Law.
RW>Verner's Law says that when the PIE stress fell after the
RW>consonant then the consonant shifted in a different way.  So
RW>Verner's Law in effect *excludes* hundreds of Germanic words from
RW>the effects of Grimm's Law thereby producing a nice phonological
RW>generalization.

[RC]
>This is the most peculiar interpretation of Verner's Law I have
>ever seen. The fact is that Verner made it possible to *include*
>many words which had previously simply been sidelined as
>"exceptions".

[RW]
To include in what?  Certainly not Grimm's Law.  Verner's Law
justifies certain exceptions to Grimm's Law.  The consensus is
that Verner's Law operated after Grimm's Law (thus Grimm's Law
feeds Verner's Law by providing voiceless fricatives for it to
operate on).

[RC} But it provides them in *precisely* those cases which were previously
put aside as mere exceptions!

[RW]
 The words "in effect" above indicate that what I
said is not what actually happened, but rather that this is the
result that it produced.

So once again:  Grimm's Law says (inter alia) that PIE voiceless
stops become Germanic voiceless fricatives:

            PIE           Germ.

            *p             f
            *t             T
            *k             x

But considering the dental, PIE *t results in Germanic T, d, and
t.  Now T is the normal outcome of Grimm's Law; t is the result
of Grimm's Law not acting on the second member of a voiceless
cluster (Latin 'sto:', Goth. 'standan' "stand"; this sound is
"in actuality" excluded from the effect of Grimm's Law rather
than "in effect" excluded).  Until Verner discovered his law, d
was just an unexplained exception to Grimm's Law.  Verner's Law
is:

   [+fric., -voice] > [+voice, (?stop)] / [+voice, -accent] ___
   {+voice, #}
   (the notation (?stop) is included because this rule apparently
   also voiced PIE *s in this environment; for those who may not
   be able to read the 8-bit character, this is a "plus or minus"
   sign)

This rule explains the shift of PIE *t to Germanic d (Latin
'pater', Goth. 'fadar').  Although the actual rule has shifted
T to d (where T was the result of Grimm's Law), the effect is to
exclude this word from having to have the expected outcome
(*faTar) if only Grimm's Law had operated.  This is why I said
that *in effect* Verner's Law excludes this word from the effects
of Grimm's Law.  It doesn't actually exclude it from the
operation of Grimm's Law (otherwise the fricative wouldn't have
been there for Verner's Law to convert).

[RC] All your "in effect" seems to do is to take us back to the fact that
the end result ("effect") is the same whether we say (a) "Grimm's Law
applies, except in this list of words, where something else happens" or (b)
"Grimm's Law applies generally, followed by another sound change which
occurs under certain specifiable phonological conditions". The fact that (b)
is universally reckoned to be a scientific advance on (a) does not seem to
show up on your screen.

[Here we move toward Topic IV(The Original) -- English [T] and [D]]

>RW> This seems rather like asking what evidence I have for
>RW> Grimm's Law or Verner's Law other than hundreds of examples and
>RW> the fact that they provide a nice phonological generalization.

>RC>No, because you are not presenting this as a historical law. As
>RC>a historical explanation of why /th/ occurs in certain places and
>RC>/dh/ in others, it is not in dispute.

>RW>Historical law - historical explanation -- What's the difference
>RW>in your mind?

[RC]
>You misunderstood me. I was not proposing an antithesis.

[RW]
I'm sorry.  It rather sounded like you were.  But if there is no
antithesis, why is it a valid historical explanation but not a
valid historical law?

[RC] It's both. See below.

RW>What happened happened.  If the explanation can be
RW>stated as a rule and is not in dispute, what is the problem?

[RC}
>What I said was that the *historical* explanation of the
>distribution of [th] and [dh] in native English words was not in
>dispute. What we are arguing about is a *synchronic* account of
>[th] and [dh] in Modern English. This is why the comparison with
>Grimm/Verner was not appropriate.

[RW]
The point is that sound laws (changes) are historical events that
occur at a certain time in a certain language under certain
conditions.  Once the change goes to completion, that's it.  If a
word got missed by the change, it stays.  If new words that would
have undergone the change if they had been in the language when
it took place come into the language after the change, they
stay.  These words don't have to be loans; they could be new
coinings.  So if you know of any new coinings in English that
have intervocalic [T] (and aren't neologisms based on Greek or
Latin), I'd be happy to know.  Otherwise, if you find an English
word with intervocalic [T] there is about a 98% chance that it
is a loanword borrowed after the change.  And all loanwords that
came into the language after the change with intervocalic [T]
still have it.

[RC] I don't see how this is "the point" of anything that's gone before.

[RW]
So the further point is that sound laws (changes) that took place
long, long ago are still present (and significant) in the
language until some other change eliminates their effects.

[RC] No, the *effects* of long-ago sound changes may be observable in
languages for thousands of years, but whether the "sound laws (changes)" are
in any sense still in the language is what we are discussing.

[RW]
Therefore, you can't disqualify the sound patterns of the modern
language from being significant simply because they are based on
*historical* events that happened in the distant past.  The sound
law (change) that voiced intervocalic [T] in Old English is
qualitatively no different from Grimm's Law that operated in
Pre-Germanic to produce the [T] in the first place.

[RC] Of course. And I did nothing so sweeping as to "disqualify the sound
patterns of the modern language from being significant".

[RW]
So the *synchronic* pattern is the same as the historical
explanation.

[RC] I hope you don't mean this. The historical explanation is an
explanation *of* the synchronic pattern. If the two are the same thing, this
becomes unintelligible.

[RW] Native English words have intervocalic [D] (with a
few exceptions) and borrowed English words have intervocalic [T]
(if that's what they were borrowed with).

It seems to be very difficult for people to grasp the concept
that synchronic grammar and historical grammar have to have the
same result because they both describe the same entity (the
modern language as it is produced by its speakers).

[RC] I don't have any difficulty grasping it. What evidence do you have that
others do?

[RW]  The modern language is not produced by historical events, it is
produced by
its modern speakers.

[RC] Surely it is both, as is implicit in the historical explanations you've
been discussing, and indeed in what you go on to say:

[RW]  A knowledge of history is only useful to
help explain *why* modern speakers produce the language that they
do rather than some other or some previous version.  The modern
speakers tell us *what* they produce.  What modern speakers
produce and what historical explanations tell us to expect them
to produce must be the same thing, or else our historical
reconstruction must be wrong (because the native speakers of the
language can't be).  But neither the native speakers nor
historical explanations can tell us *how* they produce their
language.

[snip]

>RW> But ultimately, it is unimportant whether speakers can still
>RW> recognize foreign words after several centuries or not. The
>RW> pronunciation rules are marked in the lexicon.  The native
>RW> speaker learns these rules and follows them.  It is these rules
>RW> that produce the pattern, not the speaker's perception of the
>RW> words as native or non-native.

>RW> For other evidence that native speakers distinguish by rule
>RW> the [th] of loan words from the [dh] of native words I offer the
>RW> pattern created by the presence of intervocalic [th] and [dh] in
>RW> English words.

RC>This is not "other evidence". This *is* your evidence.

RW>Then my position is unassailable.

[RC]
>I think you should be worried about this. "Self-validating"
>might be another way of putting it.

[RW]
Are you now denying the existence of the pattern?  Or are you
still just saying that this pattern can't have any significance?
Because if the pattern is there, then this is not self-validation;
it is validation through evidence.

[RC] It is validation through evidence only of the existence of a certain
pattern in the distribution of [D] and [T] in a certain subset of English
words. As you've pointed out, there is a clear historical explanation for
this pattern. It is not validation for your particular account of how native
speakers produce this pattern.

>RW>As with Verner's Law, the fact that the rule by which the
>RW>exclusions are made is valid and leads to a valid generalization
>RW>is sufficient.

[RC]
>Not in the slightest like Verner's Law, as I've pointed out.
>Consider: For any pair of English phonemes (say /p/ and /b/) it
>is possible to extract a subset of the words in which they occur
>where the two are in "complementary distribution". (Say [p]
>initially and [b] medially, so we include pig, nibble and rubber,
>but exclude big, nipple and supper.) We then state that there is
>only one phoneme, but that the excluded words "follow a different
>rule". What principle would exclude such a ridiculous analysis?

[RW]
Surely the principle that the "different rule" would have to be
in direct conflict with (the opposite of) the first rule would
reveal that this analysis is self-contradictory.

[RC] Where does this principle come from?

[RW]t why make
your ridiculous analysis so complicated?  Why not just extract a
subset of English words that begin with /b/ and say that all
English words begin with /b/ and that all the excluded English
words "follow different rules"?  The fact that the different
rules must be in conflict with the original rule makes such an
analysis impossible because P and ~P ("a proposition and its
opposite" or "P and not-P") cannot both be true.  The principle
is known as contradiction or mutual exclusivity.

[RC] I really would suggest to you that you are much too quick (here and in
the other thread)to assume that your interlocutors are guilty of elementary
logical fallacies, rather than simply disagreeing with your views.

In the present instance, there is no logical contradiction, since the words
to which each rule applies would be marked in some way (the same way as your
[T] and [D] words must be marked as following "different rules").

Perhaps you wish to propose as a universal constraint that "rules which have
opposite effects may not, under any circumstances, co-exist in the same
grammar". You might be right, although I believe examples of just this have
been discussed in the (phonological) literature.

[RC]
But are you trying to say that you consider this to be in any way
parallel to saying that native English words have intervocalic
[D] and borrowed words have intervocalic [T]?  If so, then you
are clearly not even close to grasping what I have been talking
about.

[RC} You may be right. I'm beginning to realize that it would have been a
good idea to ask you much earlier to state clearly just what your "rules"
look like and how they are constrained to apply to certain words and not
others.

[snip]

RC>As I understand your position, you are claiming that there is a
RC>single phoneme, say /th/, with a realization rule that says
RC>(among other things) that /th/ is realized as [dh]
RC>intervocalically, except in certain exceptional words.

RW>Close.  I claim that there was once a single phoneme /th/ in
RW>English.  Then that this phoneme became voiced to [dh]
RW>intervocalically without creating any new contrasts (/th/ now
RW>has allophones [th, dh]).  Then that any words that came into the
RW>language with intervocalic [th] after this sound change operated
RW>retain [th] intervocalically (this is not necessarily restricted
RW>to loanwords; it could also include new coinings -- there just
RW>don't seem to be any with intervocalic [th]).  There is nothing
RW>particularly exceptional about words with intervocalic [th]
RW>except that the vast majority of them came into the language
RW>after the sound change.  There are a few native words with
RW>intervocalic [th] (for reasons that can be accounted for), but
RW>there are no loanwords that originally had intervocalic [th] that
RW>now have [dh].  This is exceptional, at least to the extent that
RW>there are no exceptions.

[snip]

RC>Meanwhile, how do we know that children and the less educated
RC>actually formulate the rule this way? If they did, one would
RC>expect that errors consisting of pronouncing [dh]
RC>intervocalically in words which should have [th] would be common.
RC>I don't recall any such tendency from my experience as a native
RC>speaker of English, but surely it's you that should be looking
RC>for such evidence.

RW>My point is that we don't know how any speaker actually
RW>formulates the rule.  What goes on on the left side of the arrows
RW>is a mystery.  All we know is that there is a pattern, the
RW>historical reason for the pattern, and that, synchronically,
RW>patterns must be accounted for by rules.  My further point is
RW>that it doesn't matter that we can't formulate the synchronic
RW>rule.  There must be one, or the pattern wouldn't be there.

[RC]
>Since you are sure there is a rule, and are even willing to state
>it, I don't see why you claim it is such a mystery.

[RW]
This is just your same philosophical question in a different
guise.  As I said earlier this is something that can be discussed
indefinitely (in both senses of the word), and I don't have time
to go into it here, nor do I consider it appropriate to this list
(it belongs on a list devoted to the philosophy of science).  A
good (philosophical) discussion on hypothesis confirmation will
be found in S. F. Barker, _Induction and Hypothesis_,
Contemporary Philosophy (Ithaca, 1957).  An extensive discussion
of Linguistic applications (including a bibliography of more
recent general studies) will be found in D. Wunderlich,
_Foundations of Linguistics_, Cambridge Studies in Linguistics
(Cambridge, 1979) [translation of the German version, _Grundlage
der Linguistik_, published in 1974].

But in brief, theories do not eliminate mysteries, they provide a
plausible explanation for them.  A theory is just an explanation
put forward to account for some observation or set of
observations (the evidence).  A theory can account for all the
observations (evidence) in a plausible manner and still be wrong.
Until direct observation and objective verification of cause and
effect are possible, a theory remains a theory.  Now there are
those, apparently including you, who believe that once we have a
theory to account for something, there is no longer any mystery.
But a theory is just a plausible story.  It is not evidence.
Plausible stories are what we use to bridge the gaps where there
is no evidence.  Innocent people have been executed on the basis
of plausible stories well told.  But once the plausible story
breaks down, the mystery reappears, implying that it never really
went away.  So plausible stories (theories) don't really
eliminate mysteries, they just give them something to hide behind
so that people who don't look beyond the explanations can't see
them.

<snip>

[RC]
>We may be working from fundamentally different conceptions of how
>languages are organized here. I repeat your schema from the
>discussion of historical grammar:

> speakers     +     rules      -->      Old English

>>From this it would appear that, for you, "rules" includes all
>the information commonly thought of as being part of the lexicon.

[RW]
No, rules are generally marked in the lexicon only if they are
not the productive rule.

[snip some paragraphs which show that your understanding of lexicon/rules
seems to be more or less the same as mine]

[RC] So where is the lexicon in the above formula?

[RC]
>Just above, you stated that "The pronunciation rules are marked
>in the lexicon", which makes me wonder whether you share an
>assumption that I had been taking as given, namely that there are
>two different types of information/knowledge relevant here:

>   (i) information about the phonological shape of particular
>lexical items -- for example, the fact that the English word for
>"fish" has an /f/ in initial position.

>   (ii) general information about the realization of particular
>segments and configurations (such as allophonic and
>morphophonemic rules).

>In my experience, most people would use the term "rules" of the
>latter type of information, but not the former.

[RW]
Yes, rules are generalized statements of repeated (and
repeatable) observations.  What you give in (i) above is a single
instantiation of a more general rule (graphically, initial <f> in
English represents /f/ or, as a phonotactical rule, /f/ is a
permissible initial segment in English).  Now this single
instantiation would not be sufficient to formulate the general
rule (there is even an aphorism about this: "one swallow does not
a summer make"; or, as my professor always said: "testis unus,
testis nullus").

Basically, information about the phonological shape of lexemes
needs to be given in the lexicon only if it is not transparent
from the orthography.

[RC]?? How did orthography get in here??

[snip five paragraphs in which I realize, with growing horror, that all
along you have been talking about rules to convert *spellings* to *sounds*.
Is this a new school of phonology I haven't caught up with? Or how does what
you are doing here relate to what is conventionally called "phonology"? More
to the point, how does it relate to the original point of departure, namely
the question of whether e/o ablaut was a synchronic rule in early stages of
IE, when spelling was unknown? Are you by any chance a deconstructionist
linguist of the Roy Harris school, who thinks that writing is older than
speech?]

RC>The pattern has been created by historical changes in the
RC>language. That is what creates the distribution of [dh] and [th]
RC>that is the input to each speaker's language-learning task. There
RC>is no general principle that speakers must recognize (consciously
RC>or unconsciously) any such pattern, or make use of it in their
RC>rule-governed language behaviour.

RW>No, the modern language is not created by the historical events
RW>that brought it about.

[RC]
>There is obviously a distinction in your mind between "create"
>and "bring about" which I am not picking up. Otherwise you have
>contradicted yourself. Or is it the tense distinction between "is
>created" (by speakers,now) and "brought it about" (in the past).
>In either case, I am happy to re-state my claim above as:

>The historical changes *brought about* the present distribution
>of [dh] and [th].

[RW]
My point about "create" is that history doesn't create things.
History is just a record of what happened -- a record of people
and events.  People and events create things (sometimes people
create events as well), but the record of people and events
doesn't create things.

[RC] "History" is also, in a perfectly ordinary sense, a set of events.
Since I didn't say that "history" created the pattern, but rather "the
historical changes", I would have thought that my meaning was clear enough.

[RW]
 The modern language (in the form of
modern speech and modern writing) is "created" by its modern
speakers.  And at any point in time the "modern" language is the
one currently in use.  So this "historical" change was "created"
by the speakers of the language at that time, not by history.
The fact that it is still present in the language of modern
speakers just shows that it has been successfully passed on from
generation to generation.  If it hadn't, it wouldn't still be in
the language.

[RC] Again, you are not distinguishing between changes and their results.

[RW]
The fact that these are historical changes just means that they
happened in the past.  But that doesn't necessarily mean anything
to the modern speakers of the language because for the most part
they don't know anything about the history of the language they
speak.  And this doesn't make any difference because the pattern
is present in the language *synchronically*.  You claim that
there is no dispute about this and have even suggested that my
demonstration of the existence of this pattern in the modern
language was unnecessary.  But now you seem to be claiming that
the fact that these are "historical" changes means that this
pattern has no significance for the modern language.  It may not
be significant in the "why" sense, but it must be in the "what"
sense.

[RC] No, not "must be". That's what we're arguing about.

[RW]  But this doesn't matter because, by and large, speakers
don't know the "why" of their language, only the "what."

RW>The modern language is created by what
RW>goes on on the left side of the arrows in the diagram above.
RW>This is the assumption of generative grammar.  And it is a basic
RW>premise of generative grammar that patterns must be accounted for
RW>by rules.  If you have evidence, rather than just an intuition,
RW>that linguistic patterns are not created by rules, then please
RW>share it.  It will revolutionize synchronic grammar.

[RC]
>No, I don't think it will. My view is one you have probably heard
>before: That there are two distinct phonemes /th/ and /dh/, which
>occur in various words in various positions. A subset of the
>English vocabulary shows a pattern of complementary distribution
>between these phonemes. The pattern is there in the vocabularies
>of English speakers because it is there in the corpus of
>presently spoken English on which they have based their
>internalized knowledge of English. And it is in the corpus as a
>consequence of changes which took place long ago in the history
>of the language.

[RW]
Well, I can't say that I've heard the idea that changes that took
place long ago in the history of a language have no significance
for the modern language before.

[RC]I wouldn't want to defend either that woolly proposition or its
contrary. Neither of them is a paraphrase of what I just said. Please read
it again.

[RW]
 If the results of changes are
still part of the language, it doesn't matter when they happened.
Speakers of the modern language don't know and don't care when
they happened.  They just learn them as part of the language.

[RC] And what we are discussing is: In exactly what sense are they "part of
the language"?

>Your analysis (again, correct me if I'm wrong) postulates a
>single phoneme /th/ with two different "pronunciation rules".
>Some words follow a rule that says intervocalic /th/ is
>pronounced [th], and others a rule that says it is pronounced
>[dh]. Which words follow which rule presumably has to be marked
>on individual lexical items.

[RW]
Well, the first thing to correct is that "my analysis" does not
say that there is only a single phoneme /T/.  I have no basis
for saying this.  My analysis is only about the validity of the
evidence that is used to "prove" that there are two phonemes /T/
and /D/.  The fact that I consider this evidence inconclusive is
not proof that there is only one phoneme, nor does "my analysis"
require that there be only one phoneme.

[snip repetition of basic facts]

This then, is the basis for my analysis.  As I said, I think that
there is nothing here that can be questioned.  If anyone sees
something that is not an empirically verifiable observation based
on data, please let me know.

Now my analysis says that you can't be certain that a contrast is
caused by different phonemes when there may be some other basis
for establishing the contrast.  My analysis says that you can
prove phonemicity using minimal pairs only through arbitrary
contrasts, contrasts where the presence of one phoneme or the
other doesn't tell you anything about the words involved except
that they are different words.  Thus if the presence of one sound
always tells you that the word is a pronoun or a deictic and the
presence of the other always tells you that the word is not a
pronoun or a deictic, then the contrast of these two sounds is
not necessarily the basis for the contrast between the words and
this contrast should not be considered evidence of the
phonemicity of the two sounds.  Please note, however, that this
is not the same as proving or even claiming that the two sounds
are not phonemes.

Similarly, if the presence of one sound tells you that the word
is a substantive and the presence of the other tells you that the
word is a verb, then the contrast predicts meaning (or function)
class.  This is not a phonemic contrast but a morphophonemic
alternation. While morphophonemic alternations do not preclude
the sounds involved from being phonemes as well, using
morphophonemic alternations to prove phonemicity is not
acceptable in my analysis.

When we come to the difference between intervocalic [T] and [D],
the division of the words into classes is admittedly on less firm
ground.  While I don't have many qualms about using grammatical
information that is based on meaning as a means of distinguishing
words (because as Stefan Georg pointed out, words that can't
appear in the same context don't have to be otherwise
distinguished), using lexico-historical information is going
outside of the grammatical structure of the language.  Using such
distinctions does not involve meaning in any specific way.  But
I still say that when a certain sound is required in one clearly
defined set of words and another sound is required in another
clearly defined set of words then contrasts between those sounds
when they appear as required in members of those sets should not
be allowed as evidence of phonemic contrast.

[RC] But the classes are "clearly defined" only in the light of the sort of
historical information that even you are dubious about!

[RW]
 Again, however,
this is not the same as saying that the two sounds can't be
phonemes.

[RC] Is your position, then, that you're not sure whether they are distinct
phonemes or not?
And supposing you decided they were not, you still have not explained how
your rules would work.

[Side trip to New Zealand]

[RW]
But on the subject of phonological nativization of loan words, I
have a few questions about New Zealand English (NZE) that I
expect that you can answer.  I presume that NZE has a number of
Maori loan words, and that many of these loans have been in the
language for a couple of centuries (but none before 1740).  Now
based on what you have said about Greek and Latin loans
(neologisms) in English, I would expect that New Zealanders
consider loans from Maori to be just good English words, and that
they would see nothing unusual about Maori segments in contexts
in which they would not appear in English.  I realize that
initial /ng/ in words of Maori origin is not a realistic parallel
to intervocalic [T] in words of Greek or Latin origin because the
prohibition against initial /ng/ in English is a phonotactic one
while there is no such prohibition against intervocalic [T].  But
here are my questions:  Do native speakers of NZE recognize Maori
loanwords as Maori words or do they just consider them English?
If they do recognize them, on what basis do they do it?  Do
native speakers of NZE Anglicize the pronunciation of initial
/ng/ in any way or do they pronounce it as it would be in Maori?
Would native speakers of NZE be able to coin new words with
initial /ng/?  Have they actually done so?

[RC]
Maori loanwords in NZ English are largely concentrated in the familiar
colonial domains of flora, fauna and some aspects of Maori culture. When
written in English, they use Maori spelling conventions. Those two types of
clue would be enough for most literate people to recognize most of them.
However, there are a few that early acquired an English-looking spelling and
probably are unrecognized by most people, like "biddy-bid" for a
burr-bearing plant (Maori /piripiri/).

Borrowings with initial <ng> are not numerous -- Orsman's very comprehensive
dictionary of NZ English lists only 10, only a couple of them common, though
place names would account for more. In general the initial consonant is
nativized to /n/. Orsman gives this pronunciation for the two most common:
<ngaio> (a tree) and <Ngati> (prefix to tribal names); for the remainder he
doesn't specify an English pronunciation, but just notes that the Maori has
an initial velar nasal. I've never heard of any new words coined with
initial /ng/.

All of this is complicated by the fact that many people actually know Maori
-- some as native speakers, and many more who have studied it. There has
also been a move in the last couple of decades to de-nativize the
pronunciation of words of Maori origin in English, making them phonetically
more like Maori. Many people nowadays use an apical tap [r] in the word
"Maori" (at least), rather than an English-type [R]. For the town of
<Whangarei>, you can hear older local people of European descent saying
something like [woNg at Ri:], while the news reader on TV will pronounce it
something like [fa:Na:rei].

All of which means that these words have been through a period of
nativization into English, but that their foreignness has never been
entirely lost sight of, and they may be becoming more foreign as we
speak.:-)

[Back to the Original Topic]

[RC]
>In the broad sense implicit in your schema, both analyses
>produce the [th]/[dh] pattern by "rules". (In the narrower sense,
>however, your analysis has "rules" that mine doesn't.)

>Now that we have two analyses to compare, perhaps you can
>explain why you think yours is superior.

[RW]
Well, as far as I am concerned, both analyses have the same
linguistic rules.  Your analysis just ignores some of them.

[RC] What you mean is that they *ought* to be part of my analysis. They are
not.

[RW] It excludes them by saying that they happened too long ago to have
any effect on the modern language,

[RC] Wrong. I have never said this.

or it excludes them by saying
that modern speakers can't possibly be aware of the rules that
linguistic analysis uncovers,

[RC] For someone who takes others to task for supposed imprecision with
modals, you have a rather loose way with them yourself. Again, I have never
said that they "can't possibly" be aware of these rules. I do believe,
however, that they "may not" be aware of such rules/patterns, and I do not
assume that they "must" be aware of them.

[RW}
or it excludes them by saying that
some rules about how words are pronounced can't have any bearing
on phonology.

[RC] Three out of three. I never said that, whatever it may mean.

[RW]
But again, my analysis is not about the distribution of [T]/[D]
in English, it is about what is acceptable evidence for the
distribution (and collaterally about such distributions in
general).

[RC] I'm pleased to hear that -- otherwise we have wasted a huge amount of
the IE List's space.

[RW]
 So if my analysis has rules that yours doesn't, one of
them is that evidence that is offered as unequivocal proof of
some condition should not have any other possible explanation.

[RC] What begins here is, of course, not a discussion of differences in the
"rule" content of our analyses, but of philosophical/methodological virtues
which you apparently believe your analysis possesses and mine does not. I
decided to snip it rather than respond at every turn to the insults implicit
in it. I am getting tired.

When I first got involved in this discussion, you had asserted that
complementary distribution of [T] and [D] was a characteristic of "English",
full stop. When I adduced some counterexamples, you professed to find it
bizarre that I should think loanwords relevant to the matter. Now it appears
that you think these words are very much part of English, and you're not
even willing to say that your single-phoneme analysis is definitely correct.
Fine. I'm willing to leave it there.

Ross Clark


From ALDERSON at xkl.com  Tue Dec 19 18:56:46 2000
From: ALDERSON at xkl.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 10:56:46 -0800
Subject: Admin:  Indo-European and Nostratic lists on vacation
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.105646.0800.ALDERSON@XKL.COM>

Dear Readers,

The lists will be suspended for the next week while I travel.  Those messages
that come in before 18:00 Pacific Standard Time (UTC - 8:00) will be posted
tonight.  Regular service will resume on or after Wednesday, 27 December 2000.

May you all find peace and joy in this season of the turning of the year.

						Rich Alderson
						Indo-European and Nostratic
						list owner and moderator


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 19 01:52:05 2000
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 01:52:05 -0000
Subject: Iberia
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.015205.0000.>

Max Wheeler (12 Dec 2000) wrote:

>Some further curiosities w.r.t. Latin Iberia:

>1. The preferred form for this root in Latin seems to be Hibjr-; Greek
>texts seem to have /ibjr-/ (with smooth breathing) though Greek may well
>have lost the phomeme /h/ by the time this word came to be recorded.

This resembles the discrepancy between Lat. <Hannibal> and Gk. <Annibas> in
transcribing <Channi:ba`al> 'favor of Ba`al'. Greek makes <e:ta> out of West
Semitic <che:th> and sometimes transcribes the pharyngeal `ayin initially
with the smooth breathing: LXX <Astarte:> for Heb. <`As^to:reth>, Punic
<`s^trt>. The Greek smooth breathing was probably not as smooth as our
simple glottal stop.

The discrepancy suggests that the initial sound was close to che:th, which
is usually taken as [x]. It is worth noting that West Semitic has a radical
Ch-B-R 'to bind, unite, join, etc.' which forms several nouns including Heb.
<cha:be:r> 'associate', pl. <chabe:ri:m>. It is conceivable that Gk.
<ibe:res>, Lat. <Hiberes> are derived from the Punic term for 'allies,
foederati', applied originally to those natives whose leaders agreed with
Carthaginian policy in Spain.

Obviously this speculation says nothing about Georgia and doesn't apply to
river-names at all. If only we had the Carthaginian account of the
colonization of Spain.....

Doug Kilday


From Georg at home.ivm.de  Tue Dec 19 08:53:56 2000
From: Georg at home.ivm.de (Stefan Georg)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 09:53:56 +0100
Subject: Iberia
In-Reply-To: <3A389715.7030109@lrz.uni-muenchen.de>
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.095356.0100.>

Thanks, Wolfgang, for this excellent lesson. In connection with it, I
have to mention that a few weeks ago we had a public lecture here (I
didn't attend) on the "two ancient Albaniae", in the Balkans and the
Caucasus, arguing that there is a connection after all, because of,
surprise, the name ! It was read by a certain Dr. Hecht ...

>Let me just add another aspect to the discussion: When I browse through
>all the Iberia/Hibernia/Ebro etc. terms I'm left with the impression
>that the Ancient world used Iberia etc. to denote all kind of places in
>the outer periphery of the then known world (Spain, Caucasus). In other
>words: Anything was 'Iberia' as long as there existed a local motivation
>to apply this term. A local motiovation could have been any place name,
>river name (Ebro for the Spanish regions ?), ethnonym (Armenian iver-k
>(asp. k) for the Georgians) or what so ever as long as it 'sounded'
>alike or resembled 'Iberia' in its phonetics (the same happened to the
>European term 'Georgia' (in the Caucasus) which shows assimilation of
>Persian Gurji etc. to 'Georgia' - here, the Christian connotation of St.
>Georg plays an important role as well as the name of Gregor in terms of
>the early Georgian orthodoxy). Note that we can observe the same 'folk
>semantics' or 'folk constructions' for the term Albania: Because the
>Ancient World knew lots of place names (esp. associated with high
>mountains) that contained something like alb- (Alpes, Albion (celtic),
>Alba etc.) a more general term 'albania' emerged that was used for
>regions with high mountains. When the Alwan people (Classical Armenian
>aluan-k (velar l, asp. k (plural)) in now Northern Azerbaijan came into
>the horizon of the Ancient World (4th c. BC) their name was
>reinterpreted on the basis of this general term, which gives us the
>Classical name 'Albania', then used for both the Balkan und Caucasus
>regions. The pity is that some people belief in the reality of such
>correpondences which are - in fact - nothing but folk constructions in
>the dimension of the geographic knowledge of the Ancient World.

>Wolfgang
>--
>********************
>Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze
>Institut f?r Allgemeine und Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft
>Universit?t M?nchen - Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1 - D-80539 M?nchen
>Tel.: ++49-(0)89-2180 2486 (secretary) // ++49-(0)89-2180 5343 (office)
>Fax:  ++49-(0)89-2180 5345
>Email:	W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de
>Web:  	http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wschulze/
>********************

--
Dr. Stefan Georg
Heerstra?e 7
D-53111 Bonn
FRG
Tel./Fax +49-228-691332


From thorinn at diku.dk  Tue Dec 19 08:34:16 2000
From: thorinn at diku.dk (Lars Henrik Mathiesen)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 08:34:16 -0000
Subject: Danish Spelling
In-Reply-To: <002e01c06602$1e7ab5a0$8d6063d1@texas.net> (dlwhite@texas.net)
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.083416.0000.>

> From: "David L. White" <dlwhite at texas.net>
> Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 13:14:43 -0600

> Danish does not use the sort of spellings I said it does. The source
> of my error, upon examination, is a "phonetic" transcription of
> Danish (which can hardly be right), not actual Danish spelling.

And why can't that phonetic spelling be right? Danish has no voiced
stops --- to the first approximation, at least, though I've been told
that instruments will show some voicing in some contexts.

But assume for the argument that the facts are like this: In absolute
initial position, /ptk/ are aspirated voiceless and /bdg/ are plain
voiceless. In all other positions, including after /s/, you find only
plain voiceless stops. (The symbols are assigned historically --- the
Danish distinction maps very well onto German unvoiced/voiced stops,
for instance).

Which phoneme do those plain voiceless stops belong to? They sound
exactly like the /bdg/ you get in initial position. They don't sound
like initial /ptk/. So why shouldn't <stave> (spell) be /sda:u/?

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)


From Georg at home.ivm.de  Tue Dec 19 08:56:23 2000
From: Georg at home.ivm.de (Stefan Georg)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 09:56:23 +0100
Subject: Ngaio Marsh
In-Reply-To: <20001214131910.18176.qmail@tyr.diku.dk>
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.095623.0100.>

>If anecdotes about surname pronunciation are really on topic here, I'd
>like to know what happens to the (Korean?)

Cantonese

>family name Ng in the mouths of English-speaking non-linguists.

--
Dr. Stefan Georg
Heerstra?e 7
D-53111 Bonn
FRG
Tel./Fax +49-228-691332


From semartin at pacifier.com  Tue Dec 19 18:24:47 2000
From: semartin at pacifier.com (Sam Martin)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 10:24:47 -0800
Subject: Ngaio Marsh
In-Reply-To: <20001214131910.18176.qmail@tyr.diku.dk>
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.102447.0800.>

The surname Ng is not Korean. It is the Cantonese version of the
Chinese name Wu. I believe the usual western pronunciation of the name is,
as you suggest, "eng", like the name of the IPA symbol (n with a tail).

On 14 Dec 2000, Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

> If anecdotes about surname pronunciation are really on topic here, I'd
> like to know what happens to the (Korean?) family name Ng in the
> mouths of English-speaking non-linguists.

> (I'm guessing that the native pronunciation is a vocalic eng, but I've
> never heard anyone pronounce it in either Korean or English).

> Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Dec 19 10:02:13 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 10:02:13 +0000
Subject: cebolla/tipula/kipula
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.100213.0000.>

Rick Mc Callister writes:

>       In Lapesa's Historia de la lengua espa?ola I came across
>  Basque tipula, kipula "onion" < cepulla
>  The Spanish form is cebolla

>       The question is why tipula?
>       Was it borrowed at a time when /ke-, ki-/ was in the process of
>  changing to /ce-, ci-/>? and both pronunciations were in use i.e. *kepulla,
>  *cepulla
>       Was the word borrowed from 2 different dialects of Romance? or at
>  two different times by different dialects of basque?
>       Or did /ki-/ > /ti-/ occur later in Basque?

The answer to the last question is "no".

This fluctuation in the place of an initial plosive is not normal
in Basque, and the word for 'onion' appears to be unique in exhibiting
this particular variation.  The traditional view, still taken seriously
today, is that the word was borrowed at a time when the Romance
palatalization was well advanced, and that the unfamiliar Romance
[kj-] was variously rendered by the Basques as [k-] or as [t-].
But nobody really knows, and other interpretations are possible.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Tue Dec 19 16:31:38 2000
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 11:31:38 -0500
Subject: cebolla/tipula/kipula
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.113138.0500.>

On Thu, 14 Dec 2000 10:22:33 -0500, Rick Mc Callister
<rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu> wrote:
> In Lapesa's Historia de la lengua espa?ola I came across
>Basque tipula, kipula "onion" < cepulla
>The Spanish form is cebolla

Another example of a Romance language, or a language taking words from a
Romance language, keeping hard K and G before front vowels, is Sardinian:
{kentu} = "100", {iskit} = "he knows" - and even {omne} = "all" whereas
every other Romance language that I know has a form derived from {totus}. In
the case of Sardinian, the island was likely too rocky and mostly goat
pasture to attract much mass Roman settlement, and the most Latin that the
Sardinians were likely exposed to was educated correct classical Latin of
appointed governers and suchline. Similar may have happened in the Basque
mountains, and the Basques when trying to understand what Romans were
saying, may most often have heard onions called by some educated Roman's
educated correct "kepulla" and not some ex-legionary settler's colloquial
"tsepolla".

I read somewhere that late Latin's habits of softening C and G, and shifting
short I and U to E and O, may be features of an Osco-Umbrian accent that
gradually pervaded all Latinity as the peoples of Italy mixed under the
Roman Empire.


From dlwhite at texas.net  Tue Dec 19 13:27:36 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 07:27:36 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest the result of a Plague
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.072736.0600.>

        Yes, the plague of Justinian does indeed seem to have been relevant.
This idea goes back to Morris 1973, at least.  However, Higham (1992) denies
that we even know there was a plague.  My view is that 1) yes, there was a
plague, and 2) though it demoralized and weakened the Britons, it did not
exterminate them, or come close.

Dr. David L. White


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Tue Dec 19 20:11:34 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 15:11:34 -0500
Subject: AS Conquest
In-Reply-To: <e.61fac29.2769bd4c@aol.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.151134.0500.>

This is interesting. Didn't both the Votadinii (Gododdin-sp?) and the
Damnoni (same as Dyfed?) become nuclei of medieval Welsh statelets? The
Votadini were originally in the area between Edinburgh and Northumbria,
weren't they?

>Part of the "foederati system" entailed moving group of peoples into buffer
>zones along Roman borders.  I believe that two groups from "Germania" called
>"Votadini" and "Damnoni" were actually moved as such to north Wales just
>around the time of Magus Maximus.

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Tue Dec 19 16:15:27 2000
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 11:15:27 -0500
Subject: Further Thoughts On "Goth-" :: another similar name
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.111527.0500.>

On Thu, 14 Dec 2000 14:59:59 -0600, David L. White <dlwhite at texas.net>
wrote:

>  The word is sometimes connected with a word meaning 'flood' or
>something of that sort (sometimes given as 'pour').  It occurs to me that
>from an original /gout/ (ancestral to Germanic /gaut/), ...

Another Germanic tribe name with a somewhat similar possible origin is
"Angle", "English" from IE root {ang} = "narrow", because they lived around
the "Narrow Water", i.e. the Schlei estoary.


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Wed Dec 20 01:12:36 2000
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 20:12:36 EST
Subject: "Goth"/ Getae
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.201236.EST.>

In a message dated 12/14/2000 3:18:28 AM, mcv at wxs.nl writes:
<< The Getae were most likely a Thracian (or Daco-Thracian) people.  There is
no likely connection between Germanic *Gut- "Goth", and the Getae.>>

In a message dated 12/18/2000 10:17:52 PM, anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK
writes:
<< Re the Getae, a more recent example of a writer using an anachronistic
name for a people, is a tomb inscription in York Minster (a cathedral in
England) that referred to modern Yorkshire or Lincolnshire people as
"Trinobantes"! >>

First, thanks MCV for the help.

The name "Getae," whether earlier identified as a Thracian group or later on
as Dacians, passes to the Goths soon after they make their first appearance
in the 3d century BC.  From that time, a fair number of writers and
inscriptions use the words Getae and Goth interchangeably right up until
Jordanes merges the legends and histories of the two groups in his famous
"Getica."  Also, beginning at about the same time, references to Getae as
Thracians or Dacians disappear from the records.

So I'm coming at this from the angle (suggested by Ingemar Nordstram in his
work) that the people may have changed but that the names might be related.

It may be relevant that Getae also referred not only to peoples but also to a
place -- the "Getian desert" of the various Greek writers in BCE -- located
northeast of the lower Danube and into the Ukraine.  The term desert in Greek
was not necessarily a negative.  It was also used to refer to a "free zone"
so to speak.  This area is in the general location of the pre-literate Goths.

Now I do see instances where for example it has been suggested that Lat
<-e->, Gr <-o-> where < PIE <-e> in some forms involving <ghw->.   If "Goth"
in some form were a borrowed word from Greek or some intermediary tongue (?
Thracian, Scythian), could not "Getans" or "goet- > "Gutans"?  I am not
saying this happened but that it is not probibited by the sound rules?
(Especially since the very name is a reconstruction in early Gothic?)

With regard to anthony.appleyard's comment, there are much closer examples of
Getae and Goth than the "Trinobantes" reference.   Note that the "Germanic"
Franks > "Romance" French.  In the past we've examined on this list the fact
that vlack, welsh, valsk, volock, walloon, uualah and possibly volcae may be
related words all describing very different people in very different places.
 And it occurs to me that there's no small irony in the heirs of Horsa and
Hengist describing themselves as British.

Regards,
Steve Long


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Tue Dec 19 20:00:40 2000
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 15:00:40 -0500
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
In-Reply-To: <F164okPcFOPgWqL0keH00002305@hotmail.com> (acnasvers@hotmail.com)
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.150040.0500.>

On 18 Dec 2000, Douglas G Kilday wrote:

> On the other hand I would remove "wolf"; Lat. <lupus> argues against a
> labialized stop. Gk. <lukos> probably results from taboo-substitution by an
> epithet 'bright-eyed', 'shining-eyed' or the like. I would refer "wolf" to
> PIE *wlpos. Making all attested forms into taboo-variants, as Mr. Watkins
> does, is an unnecessary shell-game.

Since Latin frequently borrowed vocabulary from p-Italic sources (cf. _bo:s_ <
*g{^w}o:ws), _lupus_ is irrelevant in an argument against a labiovelar here.
The /k/ in Greek _lukos_ is regulrly derived from *k{^w} ("labiovelars > velars
next to pre-Greek *u"), and the velars in the Slavic and Indic cognates
*require* a labiovelar.

Thus, your *wlpos poses more questions than it solves, in contradistinction to
the standard *wlk{^w}os.

								Rich Alderson


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Tue Dec 19 20:12:34 2000
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 15:12:34 -0500
Subject: re Northern Subject Rule
In-Reply-To: <4.3.1.2.20001214182209.00af9b70@getmail.friesen.net> (message
 from Stanley Friesen on Thu, 14 Dec 2000 18:23:28 -0800)
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.151234.0500.>

On 14 Dec 2000, Stanley Friesen wrote:

>> What about one of the basic rules of classical Greek - neuter plural nouns
>> take a singular verb, which I think was presented to us in my first lesson
>> in the early '60s (well 'before the Beatles first LP')?

>> The construction is similar (but not entirely so) in Gaelic - ...

> On this basis some have reconstructed this construction to PIE.

Actually, the same rule ("neuter plural nouns govern singular verbs") is found
in Vedic Sanskrit and in Hittite.  It was the presence of this rule in Indic
and Greek that led Schmidt to the conclusion that neuter plurals were in origin
collective singulars.

Note that the feminine in *-a: < *-eH{_1} is formally identical to the neuter
plural = collective, which has led some to postulate a common origin, with the
semantics developing from "member of a herd" => "female".  This proposal does
not mesh well, in my opinion, with the proposal that the early IE verb system
was active/stative.

								Rich Alderson


From dlwhite at texas.net  Wed Dec 20 00:45:13 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 18:45:13 -0600
Subject: Kle(h)mola
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.184513.0600.>

        The name I have been spelling "Klehmola" is in fact "Klemola".  Yet
another neurological malfunction.  I'm on quite a negative roll here.
There's one still outstanding on Gothic that MCV is sure to catch ...

Dr. David L. White


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Dec 19 10:07:32 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 10:07:32 +0000
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.100732.0000.>

Pete Gray writes:

[LT]

>> 'asthma' ... fail to contain
>> any dental fricatives at all.

> It does in my speech and that of those around me, and in my dictionary.

Most interesting.  I have sometimes seen this pronunciation given
as a possible alternative in dictionaries, but I have hardly ever
heard it.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Dec 19 10:04:44 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 10:04:44 +0000
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.100444.0000.>

Robert Whiting writes:

>  First, 'algorithm' is not greek, but comes from Arabic.  The final
>  cluster, however, is probably by analogy to 'logarithm' since it was
>  originally '-ism'.

Oops -- mea culpa.  I've said some dozy things on this list in my time,
but this one takes the biscuit.  My apologies for this brainless
blunder.  I should *not* send e-mails before my second cup of coffee.
;-)

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Tue Dec 19 13:55:10 2000
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 07:55:10 -0600
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.075510.0600.>

Dear Pete and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "petegray" <petegray at btinternet.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2000 2:33 PM

>> 'asthma' ... fail to contain
>> any dental fricatives at all.

> It does in my speech and that of those around me, and in my dictionary.

[PR]
I have never heard a pronunciation of 'asthma' that was not /azm6/; and, of
course, /z/ is a dental fricative.

Obviously, we must make a distinction between dental fricatives and
interdental fricatives: /dh/.

[ Moderator's note:  /D/ in ASCII IPA notation. ]

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ec at ec hecc, vindga meipi a netr allar nmo, geiri vnda~r . . . a ~eim
mei~i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rstom renn." (Havamal 138)


From brent at bermls.oau.org  Tue Dec 19 12:47:22 2000
From: brent at bermls.oau.org (Brent J. Ermlick)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 07:47:22 -0500
Subject: minimal pairs
In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.16.20001215101019.29b7de6e@online.be>; from edsel@glo.be
 on Fri, Dec 15, 2000 at 10:10:19AM +0000
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.074722.0500.>

On Fri, Dec 15, 2000 at 10:10:19AM +0000, Eduard Selleslagh wrote:
> Note that 'Anthony', 'author' etc. are a class apart: the English spelling
> does not correspond to Latin spelling, which has 't': Antonius, auctor...I
> guess the th-spelling reflects an older English spelling rule for aspirated
> t (like in German, cf. Goethe, Luther,...).

I believe that the "th" in Goethe and Luther (which I've also seen
as Ludher) is an orthographic survival of the dental fricatives
in German.

--
Brent J. Ermlick		Veritas liberabit uos
brent at bermls.oau.org


From bronto at pobox.com  Wed Dec 20 04:34:50 2000
From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 20:34:50 -0800
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <TUE.19.DEC.2000.203450.0800.>

Eduard Selleslagh wrote:
> Note that 'Anthony', 'author' etc. are a class apart: the English
> spelling does not correspond to Latin spelling, which has 't':
> Antonius, auctor...

<Anthony> was misderived from Greek <anthos> `flower'.

A large fraction of Roman gentile names come from Etruscan, so it's
unlikely that we latter-day Antonii will ever find our root(s).

--
Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/


From evenstar at mail.utexas.edu  Wed Dec 27 19:11:16 2000
From: evenstar at mail.utexas.edu (Shilpi Misty Bhadra)
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 13:11:16 -0600
Subject: Bulletin of the Asia Institute 11 (fwd)
Message-ID: <WED.27.DEC.2000.131116.0600.>

>Forwarded on behalf of the undersigned, to whom responses and
>inquiries should be directed.

>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>BULLETIN OF THE ASIA INSTITUTE 11
>              (published November, 2000)

>To order volume 11, send $65 +$8 shipping in U.S. funds (either a check
>drawn on a U.S. bank or as an International Money Order) to:

>Bulletin of the Asia Institute
>3287 Bradway Blvd.
>Bloomfield Hills, MI 48301
>U.S.A.

>or contact bai34 at aol.com

>			Contents

>A. Nikitin, V. Shkoda, and M. Alram
>In Memoriam Evgeny Vladislavovich Zeymal"

>Nicholas Sims-Williams
>"Four Bactrian Economic Documents"

>P. Leriche, Sh. Pidaev, K. Abdullaev et P. Gentelle
>"Bilan de la campagne 1997 de la MAFOuz de Bactriane"		

>Albert de Jong
>"A New Syrian Mithraic Tauroctony"

>A. S. Melikian-Chirvani
>"The Iranian Wine Leg from Prehistory to Mongol Times"

>Prods Oktor Skj>rv?
>"The Joy of the Cup: A Pre-Sasanian Middle Persian Inscription on  a
>Silver Bowl"

>David Frendo
>"The Religious Factor in Byzantine-Iranian Relations"

>A. S. Melikian-Chirvani
>"Ancient Iranian Jade" 	

>Prods Oktor Skj>rv?
>"Eastern Iranian Epic Traditions III: Zarathustra and Diomedes--an
>Indo-European Epic Warrior Type"

>Richard Salomon
>"Another Reliquary Inscription of the Apraca Princess Uttara>-"

>Guitty Azarpay
>"The Sasanian Complex at Bandian: Palace or Dynastic Shrine"

>Sanjyot Mehendale
>"New US-Uzbek Collaborative Archaeological Project in Uzbekistan"

>Reviews
>ALLCHIN ET AL., EDS. Gandharan Art in Context: East-West Exchanges at the
>Crossroads of Asia (Carol Altman Bromberg)

>Bemman et Al. Die Feldsbildstation Oshibat (Richard  Salomon)

>FRYE. The Heritage Of Central Asia: From Antiquity to the Turkish
>Expansion (B. K. Waghmar)

>GRARD FUSSMAN ET AL. Die Felsbildstation Shatial (Jason Neelis)

>RIKA GYSELEN, ED. Sceaux d'Orient et leur emploi (A. D. H. Bivar)

>GUENE, TISSOT, AND CALLIERI. Bibliographie analytique des ouvrages parus
>sur l'art du Gandhara entre 1950 et 1993  (Carol Altman Bromberg)

>HAERINCK AND OVERLAET.  Luristan Excavation Documents. Vol. 2, Chamahzi
>Mumah An Iron Age III Graveyard (Oscar White Muscarella)

>KOTWAL AND KREYENBROEK, EDS. AND TRANS. The Herbedestan and Nerangestan.
>Vol. 2,  Nerangestan, Fragard 1 (Prods Oktor Skj>rv?)

>SALOMON ET AL. Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhara: he British Library
>Kharosthi Fragments (Carol Altman Bromberg)

>ZIMANSKY.  Ancient Ararat: A Handbook of Urartian Studies (Oscar White
>Muscarella)

>ZWALF. A Catalogue of the Gandhara Sculpture in the British Museum (Carol
>Altman Bromberg)

>__________________________________________________________________________

>To order volume 11, send $65 +$8 shipping in U.S. funds (either a check
>drawn on a U.S. bank or as an International Money Order) to:

>Bulletin of the Asia Institute
>3287 Bradway Blvd.
>Bloomfield Hills, MI 48301
>U.S.A.

>or contact bai34 at aol.com

Shilpi Misty Bhadra
University of Texas at Austin
Ancient History, Classics, and Humanities (focus: Indo-European Studies)
senior undergraduate
evenstar at mail.utexas.edu
512-320-0229 (ph)
512-476-3367 (fax)


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Wed Dec 20 12:00:16 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 12:00:16 +0000
Subject: Danish Spelling
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.120016.0000.>

Lars Henrik Mathieson writes:

> And why can't that phonetic spelling be right? Danish has no voiced
> stops --- to the first approximation, at least, though I've been told
> that instruments will show some voicing in some contexts.

> But assume for the argument that the facts are like this: In absolute
> initial position, /ptk/ are aspirated voiceless and /bdg/ are plain
> voiceless. In all other positions, including after /s/, you find only
> plain voiceless stops. (The symbols are assigned historically --- the
> Danish distinction maps very well onto German unvoiced/voiced stops,
> for instance).

> Which phoneme do those plain voiceless stops belong to? They sound
> exactly like the /bdg/ you get in initial position. They don't sound
> like initial /ptk/. So why shouldn't <stave> (spell) be /sda:u/?

Roman Jakobson famously wrote on this very point.  I'm afraid I cannot
recall the reference, but maybe somebody can.

As I dimly recall, Jakobson reported that uneducated Danish-speakers --
apparently there *were* some in his day -- consistently assigned phones
to phonemes on the basis of phonetic similarity, producing a result
very different from the one recognized in the Danish orthography.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From dlwhite at texas.net  Wed Dec 20 15:41:18 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 09:41:18 -0600
Subject: Danish Spelling
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.094118.0600.>

> Which phoneme do those plain voiceless stops belong to? They sound
> exactly like the /bdg/ you get in initial position. They don't sound
> like initial /ptk/. So why shouldn't <stave> (spell) be /sda:u/?

        Because "d" is not the IPA symbol for any voiceless stop.

        But what I was working up to here, before I got derailed by my own
errors, was that the spelling of Gaelic, and "phonetic" transcription of
Danish) indicate that an original contrast of voice can be re-analyzed as a
contrast of aspiration, in which case spellings like "sg-" and
"transcriptions" like [sd-] can make sense.

Dr. David L. White


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Wed Dec 20 17:27:52 2000
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 11:27:52 -0600
Subject: Further Thoughts On "Goth-" :: another similar name
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.112752.0600.>

[ Moderator's note:
  I assume that the humour is unmarked.
  --rma ]

Dear Anthony and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk" <anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK>
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2000 10:15 AM

> On Thu, 14 Dec 2000 14:59:59 -0600, David L. White <dlwhite at texas.net>
> wrote:

>>  The word is sometimes connected with a word meaning 'flood' or
>> something of that sort (sometimes given as 'pour').  It occurs to me that
>> from an original /gout/ (ancestral to Germanic /gaut/), ...

> Another Germanic tribe name with a somewhat similar possible origin is
> "Angle", "English" from IE root {ang} = "narrow", because they lived around
> the "Narrow Water", i.e. the Schlei estoary.

Could this not simply be a professional nomenclature:

fishermen?

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ec at ec hecc, vindga meipi a netr allar nmo, geiri vnda~r . . . a ~eim
mei~i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rstom renn." (Havamal 138)


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Wed Dec 20 23:04:57 2000
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 17:04:57 -0600
Subject: Further Thoughts On "Goth-"
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.170457.0600.>

Dear David and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "David L. White" <dlwhite at texas.net>
Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2000 2:59 PM

>         The word is sometimes connected with a word meaning 'flood' or
> something of that sort (sometimes given as 'pour').  It occurs to me that
> from an original /gout/ (ancestral to Germanic /gaut/), /gut/ might be a
> zero-grade, such as would (since this is a strong verb) occur in past
> participles (like "flooded").   A zero-grade version is, by the way,
> generally taken to be the ancestor of modern English "gut", though the
> semantics are unclear (to me).  The full o-grade might have meant "flood",
> so that the two variants might go back to a difference of opinion as to
> whether the Goths were being called in effect "the flood people" or "the
> flooded people".   As for why they would be called anything of the sort, I
> vaguely recall that sea-levels in the general vicinity were rising at about
> the time in question.  But all this is rather speculative, and I stand ready
> to be set straight.

[PR]
I would have thought some mention of Gutium, the bane of the Babylonians,
might be appropriate here.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ec at ec hecc, vindga meipi a netr allar nmo, geiri vnda~r . . . a ~eim
mei~i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rstom renn." (Havamal 138)


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Wed Dec 20 17:37:52 2000
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 11:37:52 -0600
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.113752.0600.>

Dear Rich and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rich Alderson" <alderson+mail at panix.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2000 2:00 PM

<snip>

> Thus, your *wlpos poses more questions than it solves, in contradistinction
> to the standard *wlk{^w}os.

[PR]

I have always been intrigued with the possibility of a connection between
Egyptian wnS, 'jackal', which, according to the correspondences I have
developed, would result in IE *we/o--n/l---g{^w}/k{^w}.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ec at ec hecc, vindga meipi a netr allar nmo, geiri vnda~r . . . a ~eim
mei~i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rstom renn." (Havamal 138)


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 23 19:39:40 2000
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 19:39:40 -0000
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.: Retraction
Message-ID: <SAT.23.DEC.2000.193940.0000.>

On 19 Dec 2000, Rich Alderson wrote:

> On 18 Dec 2000, Douglas G Kilday wrote:

>> On the other hand I would remove "wolf"; Lat. <lupus> argues against a
>> labialized stop. Gk. <lukos> probably results from taboo-substitution by an
>> epithet 'bright-eyed', 'shining-eyed' or the like. I would refer "wolf" to
>> PIE *wlpos. Making all attested forms into taboo-variants, as Mr.  Watkins
>> does, is an unnecessary shell-game.

>Since Latin frequently borrowed vocabulary from p-Italic sources (cf. _bo:s_ <
>*g{^w}o:ws), _lupus_ is irrelevant in an argument against a labiovelar here.
>The /k/ in Greek _lukos_ is regulrly derived from *k{^w} ("labiovelars >
>velars next to pre-Greek *u"), and the velars in the Slavic and Indic cognates
>*require* a labiovelar.

>Thus, your *wlpos poses more questions than it solves, in contradistinction to
>the standard *wlk{^w}os.

[DK] (opening mouth, removing foot)

Agreed. I need to do a better job of checking cognates. Lat. <lupus> is best
explained as a p-Italic loan, Gk. <lukos> requires no special theory, and
*wlpos is unacceptable as a PIE reconstruction. It is usable only as an
intermediate Proto-Germanic form after separation from PIE, assuming *pw ->
*p -> *f in PGmc.

Lat. <nefrendes> 'kidneys' also has p-Italic phonology. I should have quoted
the Lanuvian form <nebrundines> in my comparisons.

Doug Kilday


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Wed Dec 20 17:44:20 2000
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 11:44:20 -0600
Subject: re Northern Subject Rule
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.114420.0600.>

Dear Rich and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rich Alderson" <alderson+mail at panix.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2000 2:12 PM

[ moderator snip ]

> Actually, the same rule ("neuter plural nouns govern singular verbs") is
> found in Vedic Sanskrit and in Hittite.  It was the presence of this rule in
> Indic and Greek that led Schmidt to the conclusion that neuter plurals were
> in origin collective singulars.

> Note that the feminine in *-a: < *-eH{_1} is formally identical to the neuter
> plural = collective, which has led some to postulate a common origin, with
> the semantics developing from "member of a herd" => "female".  This proposal
> does not mesh well, in my opinion, with the proposal that the early IE verb
> system was active/stative.

[PR]

I favor a feminine from -/ha/ and a collective from -/?a/.

However, I would be most interested to learn how this affects the proposal
of an early IE active/stative verbal system in your opinion.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ec at ec hecc, vindga meipi a netr allar nmo, geiri vnda~r . . . a ~eim
mei~i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rstom renn." (Havamal 138)


From colkitto at sprint.ca  Thu Dec 21 07:46:31 2000
From: colkitto at sprint.ca (Robert Orr)
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 02:46:31 -0500
Subject: re Northern Subject Rule
Message-ID: <THU.21.DEC.2000.024631.0500.>

Subject: Re: re Northern Subject Rule

On 14 Dec 2000, Rich Alderson wrote:

"Note that the feminine in *-a: < *-eH{_1} is formally identical to the
neuter plural = collective, which has led some to postulate a common origin,
with the semantics developing from "member of a herd" => "female".  This
proposal does not mesh well, in my opinion, with the proposal that the early
IE verb system was active/stative."

Then the "proposal that the early IE verb system was active/stative" needs
more work.  The common origin of the feminine *-a-stem nom sg and the neuter
*-o-stem pl is about as established as anything in IE studes can be, and is
typologically well supported.  I will take the liberty of quoting myself.

"The emergence of the new fem gender cannot be separated from the rise of
the *o -/ a-stem opposition, which underwent a great deal of development to
accommodate the new gender system.  The  *a -stem nom sg ending *-a
originally had collective meaning (some *-a  forms were eventually to evolve
into neut pl forms, with subsequent generalisation of *-a  as a neut nom/acc
pl ending; although still taking sg agreement in some instances), and in
some forms this meaning later shifted to individual.  It actually appears
that one of these forms, which may be reconstructed as IE *guen  (> Gk gune,
OCS  zena, Go qino, OIr ben 'woman', etc.), provided the impetus for the
formation of the new gender.  Miranda 1975 provides a partial outline of how
such an evolution could have taken place, citing Brugmann 1897, 1904:
354-62, 1911: 82-109, and citing the example of a development in Konkani as
a typological parallel, where the rise of a new fem gender (Miranda 1975:
209 fn.15 discusses the terminology for this new gender, tentatively
suggesting 'feminine juvenile') from the old neut can be traced back to one
form,  cedu , which has undergone the semantic change 'child' > 'girl'; see
also Weiss 1993: 91-94 for similar data from Polish.  Konkani is an
appropriate example; as Miranda shows, its gender system already has a long
evolution attested, traceable back to IE itself via Indo-Iranian and
Sanskrit.

One part of the proposed evolution that causes Miranda a little difficulty
involves the proposed shift from collective to individual ("Brugmann's other
(1897) suggestion that an original collective noun ending in *-a  might have
undergone a semantic change to denote a female (e.g., *ekwa  'mare'
developing from *ekwa 'drove of horses') is questionable since such changes
are hard to find"; 1975: 202 fn. 5).  Examples of such a shift, although
fairly rare, do actually exist: the Sele Fara dialect of Carinthian
Slovenian shows a form  zijstu in the meaning 'woman' < * zenistvo, which
originally had collective meaning, cf. also Ge Frauenzimmer 'woman'.  These
forms, taken together with Miranda's Konkani evidence, show that the entire
chain of development by which IE gender is said to have evolved according to
Brugmann and Miranda is possible, even if not very common.

(references available on request)

Robert Orr


From dlwhite at texas.net  Wed Dec 20 22:46:19 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 16:46:19 -0600
Subject: AS Conquest
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.164619.0600.>

> This is interesting. Didn't both the Votadinii (Gododdin-sp?) and the
> Damnoni (same as Dyfed?) become nuclei of medieval Welsh statelets? The
> Votadini were originally in the area between Edinburgh and Northumbria,
> weren't they?

        Yes.  I don't know who orginally wrote this (below), but it is
somewhat mangled.   The groups in question were moved from places in Britain
to North Wales and Devon, not direct from Germania. The North Welsh
migration is the one I referred to earlier that might have resulted in a
counting system originally from Northern Britain becoming established in
Wales.

Dr. David L. White

>> Part of the "foederati system" entailed moving group of peoples into buffer
>> zones along Roman borders.  I believe that two groups from "Germania" called
>> "Votadini" and "Damnoni" were actually moved as such to north Wales just
>> around the time of Magus Maximus.

> Rick Mc Callister
> W-1634
> Mississippi University for Women
> Columbus MS 39701

[ Moderator's note:
  The material quoted by Rick Mc Callister on 19 December 2000 was from a
  post by Steve Long on 13 December 2000.

  May I take this opportunity to ask that everyone be conscientious about
  identifying the posts from which quotes are taken, both by author and by
  date?
  --rma ]


From sarima at friesen.net  Thu Dec 21 06:02:01 2000
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 22:02:01 -0800
Subject: AS Conquest
In-Reply-To: <l0313031ab665707ed35e@[209.147.211.22]>
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.220201.0800.>

At 03:11 PM 12/19/00 -0500, you wrote:

>This is interesting. Didn't both the Votadinii (Gododdin-sp?) and the
>Damnoni (same as Dyfed?) become nuclei of medieval Welsh statelets?

I believe this is the case, yes.  I believe it was Gwynedd and Dyfed.
[I have certainly long assumed that 'Dyfed' was derived from the older
tribal name].

>  The
>Votadini were originally in the area between Edinburgh and Northumbria,
>weren't they?

So I have heard.

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com


From jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr  Sun Dec 24 23:08:17 2000
From: jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr (=?windows-1250?Q?Mate_Kapovi=E6?=)
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2000 00:08:17 +0100
Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro....
Message-ID: <MON.25.DEC.2000.000817.0100.>

There was a discussion some time ago about relation of the words like Bask.
txakur, Logudor dzhagaru, Spanish/Port. cachorro... I was just lurking but now
I must add something to the subject because I think it could be interesting to
those who participated in that discussion earlier.

I accidentally came across a sizeable amount of information about words I
mentioned and others similar to them in a Croatian etymological dictionary by
Petar Skok. The starting word is Croatian ogar which would be something like a
hound. There is version of it - zagar. It seems as if those are two words with
a same root and different prefixes - o- and za-. There is also a mention of the
form bigar.

The autor says ogar > Magyar ag?r, Romanian ogar. Other Slavic languages -
OCS and Old Russian ogar7 (7-jor), Czech oha?, Polish oharz.

There is a claim that the form zagar is a Balkanic word: Bolg. zag?r, Alb.
zag?:r/za:r, Middle Greek z?garon, Modern Greek zag?ri/zagar?s, Turkish
zag?r. All have the meaning "Jagdhund".

And the author goes outside Balkan and Slavic languages:
Avarian (Caucasus) - eger
Ossetic - yegar
Logudor (as mentioned here) - g?agaru; Corsica - yakaru/g?akaru "shepherd
dog"

Then already known here Bask txakur and Port./Spanish cachorro "young dog".

Also Georgian dzagli; all-European words like jackal (Eng.), ?akal (Turkish)
(i would add) etc. which comes, as he says, from Sanskrit ?rgala "canis
aureus".

In the end he staits that O?tir was surely right when he put it with Alarodic
elements and that it could be a part of pre-IE substratum as an old hunting
term.

As I have already said, these are not my claims, there are those of the author
of the dictionary which was written about 3 decades ago. These example are, if
not all correct and related, surely interesting and could point to some
consclusions.

Thanks,
M. Kapovi?


From Squaliace at netscape.net  Tue Dec 26 06:01:32 2000
From: Squaliace at netscape.net (Squaliace at netscape.net)
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2000 01:01:32 -0500
Subject: Dark L in Portuguese
Message-ID: <TUE.26.DEC.2000.010132.0500.>

 There is no need to specify Brazilian as the variety of Portugugese that has
dark final Ls.

 The approximation to /u/ is shared with European Portuguese. European
Portuguese tends to swallow the sound vigorously, but the sound it swallows
is the same. The minimal pair would be mau and mal, which have fallen
together in all positions, including pre-vocalic, in both European Portuguese
and Brazilian.

Chester Graham
Chester at britanic-ih.com.br


From petegray at btinternet.com  Wed Dec 20 15:06:30 2000
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 15:06:30 -0000
Subject: Ngaio Marsh
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.150630.0000.>

Ngaio Marsh is usually pronounced by English speakers as if it were Naio.
This is true even of NZers (though things may ave changed since I left the
country.)

The surname Ng is normally pronouned by English speakers as "ing".

Peter


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Wed Dec 20 20:49:28 2000
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 20:49:28 -0000
Subject: Ngaio Marsh
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.204928.0000.>

Lars Henrik Mathiesen (14 Dec 2000) wrote:

>If anecdotes about surname pronunciation are really on topic here, I'd
>like to know what happens to the (Korean?) family name Ng in the
>mouths of English-speaking non-linguists.

>(I'm guessing that the native pronunciation is a vocalic eng, but I've
>never heard anyone pronounce it in either Korean or English).

If I'm not mistaken, this surname is Chinese and means "crow". I used to
work in a place where someone named Ng was employed. His name was always
pronounced "Ing" over the public-address system and by other
English-speaking employees, never "Eng". Oddly, this person abbreviated his
surname, signing his initials as "W.N."

Doug Kilday


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Wed Dec 20 20:31:07 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 15:31:07 -0500
Subject: Ngaio Marsh
In-Reply-To: <f04310101b664d3259372@[195.247.65.70]>
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.153107.0500.>

	My youngest daughter has a classmate with the name Ng "ung" /@N/ in
Mississippi English
	No more bastardized than the students I've had named Georg who
pronounced it /jorj/ :>

>>If anecdotes about surname pronunciation are really on topic here, I'd
>>like to know what happens to the (Korean?)

>Cantonese

>>family name Ng in the mouths of English-speaking non-linguists.

>Dr. Stefan Georg
>Heerstra?e 7
>D-53111 Bonn
>FRG
>Tel./Fax +49-228-691332

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From colkitto at sprint.ca  Thu Dec 21 01:22:52 2000
From: colkitto at sprint.ca (Robert Orr)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 20:22:52 -0500
Subject: Ngaio Marsh
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.202252.0500.>

>If anecdotes about surname pronunciation are really on topic here, I'd
>like to know what happens to the (Korean?)

Cantonese

>family name Ng in the mouths of English-speaking non-linguists.

Ing (sometimes even spelled that way)

Robert Orr


From petegray at btinternet.com  Thu Dec 21 08:41:48 2000
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 08:41:48 -0000
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <THU.21.DEC.2000.084148.0000.>

>> First, 'algorithm' is not greek, but comes from Arabic.  The final
>> cluster, however, is probably by analogy to 'logarithm' since it was
>> originally '-ism'.

A simpler source of the analogy is the Greek artihmos = number.

The 1934 edition of the concise Oxford, gives:
  Algorism,  Arabic (decimal) notation ...[f. OF augorisme f. med L.
algorismus f Arab al-Khowarazmi the man of Khiva, surname of a
mathematician;  mod. misspelling -ithm by confus. w. Gk arithmos number]

Striking that both the meaning and the spelling have changed.
In 1934 was this descriptive of actual pronunciation, or prescriptive of
"best" pronunciation?

Peter


From jrader at Merriam-Webster.com  Wed Dec 20 20:28:43 2000
From: jrader at Merriam-Webster.com (Jim Rader)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 15:28:43 -0500
Subject: Pronunciation of <asthma> (Was: minimal pairs)
In-Reply-To: <E148JgC-00026D-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.152843.0500.>

I checked Merriam-Webster's' pronunciation files, which go back
about 50 years, and there is virtually zero evidence for a
pronunciation with an interdental consonant--however, most of the
citational evidence is from professionals in medicine and science.
Our unabridged dictionary of 1934 did contain variant
pronunciations with interdental fricatives, but they were dropped
from the more recent _Webster's Third New International_ of 1961.

A very deliberate pronunciation with edh is noted from a TV
commercial made in 1972 by Carroll O'Connor, who played the
character Archie Bunker in the U.S. television series _All in the
Family_ (1971-79).  Of course, malapropisms and
mispronunciations were part of O'Connor's "Archie Bunker" shtick,
and if he was in character when making the commercial, the
pronunciation with edh would have been taken as part of the shtick
and hence a deliberate mispronunciation.

Jim Rader

> Pete Gray writes:

> [LT]

>>> 'asthma' ... fail to contain
>>> any dental fricatives at all.

>> It does in my speech and that of those around me, and in my dictionary.

> Most interesting.  I have sometimes seen this pronunciation given
> as a possible alternative in dictionaries, but I have hardly ever
> heard it.

> Larry Trask


From gordonselway at gn.apc.org  Wed Dec 20 23:43:33 2000
From: gordonselway at gn.apc.org (Gordon Selway)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 23:43:33 +0000
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.234333.0000.>

As an asthmatice, I am not aware of anyone within my personal acquaintance
***who does not say 'asDm@'***.  'asma' may be heard, but would be taken as
likely to be on the lips of the possessor of a lisp.  I have heard the 'azma'
pronunciation from those who have acquired in no doubt from some kinematic or
televisual contagion.  A cispontine/transpontine difference?

Gordon Selway
<gordonselway at gn.apc.org>

At 7:55 am 19/12/00, proto-language wrote:
>Dear Pete and IEists:

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "petegray" <petegray at btinternet.com>
>Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2000 2:33 PM

>>> 'asthma' ... fail to contain
>>> any dental fricatives at all.

>> It does in my speech and that of those around me, and in my dictionary.

>[PR]
>I have never heard a pronunciation of 'asthma' that was not /azm6/; and, of
>course, /z/ is a dental fricative.

>Obviously, we must make a distinction between dental fricatives and
>interdental fricatives: /dh/.

>[ Moderator's note:  /D/ in ASCII IPA notation. ]

>Pat


From petegray at btinternet.com  Thu Dec 21 08:35:10 2000
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 08:35:10 -0000
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <THU.21.DEC.2000.083510.0000.>

>>> 'asthma' ... with a dental fricative.

>I have hardly ever heard it.

Is the form with /T/ a spelling pronunciation?  Or is the form without /T/
related to the loss of /T/ near /s/ in some American dialects in words such
as "clothes"?

Peter


From petegray at btinternet.com  Thu Dec 21 08:45:49 2000
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 08:45:49 -0000
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <THU.21.DEC.2000.084549.0000.>

> I have never heard a pronunciation of 'asthma' that was not /azm6/; and, of
> course, /z/ is a dental fricative.

To clarify, my pronunciation is /asTmi/.   Unvoiced /s/, unvoiced /T/,
voiced nasal /m/.  /i/ at the end 'cos I'm a kiwi.  Real English has /@/.

The only colleague of mine I can find at the moment, this close to
Christmas, says /asm@/  (unvoiced /s/, no dental fricative).  He comments
"It would be very pretentious to pronounce it /asTma/."   Curses!

Peter


From BMScott at stratos.net  Wed Dec 20 19:52:36 2000
From: BMScott at stratos.net (Brian M. Scott)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 14:52:36 -0500
Subject: minimal pairs
In-Reply-To: <20001219074722.A84425@bermls.oau.org>
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.145236.0500.>

BJE> I believe that the "th" in Goethe and Luther (which I've also
BJE> seen as Ludher) is an orthographic survival of the dental
BJE> fricatives in German.

<Luther> is from earlier dithematic <Liut-hari> and <Hlud-hari>.  The
earliest example of <Go"the> of which I'm aware is <Nikolaus Go"the>
in Badra; the spelling is said to be a High German reworking of Low
German <Go"de>, a pet form of <Godefrid> and the like.

Brian M. Scott


From Georg at home.ivm.de  Wed Dec 20 18:10:15 2000
From: Georg at home.ivm.de (Stefan Georg)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 19:10:15 +0100
Subject: minimal pairs
In-Reply-To: <20001219074722.A84425@bermls.oau.org>
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.191015.0100.>

>On Fri, Dec 15, 2000 at 10:10:19AM +0000, Eduard Selleslagh wrote:

>>  Note that 'Anthony', 'author' etc. are a class apart: the English spelling
>>  does not correspond to Latin spelling, which has 't': Antonius, auctor...I
>>  guess the th-spelling reflects an older English spelling rule for aspirated
>>  t (like in German, cf. Goethe, Luther,...).

>I believe that the "th" in Goethe and Luther (which I've also seen
>as Ludher) is an orthographic survival of the dental fricatives
>in German.

No, it isn't.
--
Dr. Stefan Georg
Heerstra?e 7
D-53111 Bonn
FRG
Tel./Fax +49-228-691332


From tmcfadde at babel.ling.upenn.edu  Wed Dec 20 19:13:21 2000
From: tmcfadde at babel.ling.upenn.edu (Thomas McFadden)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 14:13:21 -0500
Subject: minimal pairs
In-Reply-To: <20001219074722.A84425@bermls.oau.org>
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.141321.0500.>

This is incorrect.  For one thing, the modern German t (which these th's
are standing in for) doesn't have a fricative as its immediate
predecessor.  It comes, via the 2nd consonant shift, from WGmc. *d, which
seems to come from a Gmc. voiced fricative, but if I'm not mistaken, the
frication on the Gmc. d is thought to have been lost quite early, earlier
than that on g and b.  The outcome of Gmc/WGmc thorn (voiceless
fricative) in the high German dialects is, again via the 2nd consonant
shift, d.  Now, in early OHG there are spellings of this as th, suggesting
that the change had not gone to copmpletion yet, but they disappear
quite early.  But like I said, this isn't the sound represented by the th
in Goethe and Luther.  the spellings of german t with th are a relatively
recent phenomenon (the last few centuries) and I believe are usually
thought of as an imitation of the Latin rendering of Greek aspirates/
a sort of overly correct attempt at representing the aspiration on German
t.  no frication is or ever was intended.  consider for example the word
tun, which was very commonly spelled with th in the 19th century.  the
normal OHG spelling was tuon - with a t - and this is cognate of course
with English do.  it is thus not possible for the 19th cent. thun to be a
holdover of some Gmc. *edh that has been forgotten in all intervening
spellings.

> I believe that the "th" in Goethe and Luther (which I've also seen
> as Ludher) is an orthographic survival of the dental fricatives
> in German.

> --
> Brent J. Ermlick		Veritas liberabit uos
> brent at bermls.oau.org


From connolly at memphis.edu  Wed Dec 20 19:09:59 2000
From: connolly at memphis.edu (Leo A. Connolly)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 19:09:59 +0000
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <WED.20.DEC.2000.190959.0000.>

"Brent J. Ermlick" wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 15, 2000 at 10:10:19AM +0000, Eduard Selleslagh wrote:

>> Note that 'Anthony', 'author' etc. are a class apart: the English spelling
>> does not correspond to Latin spelling, which has 't': Antonius, auctor...I
>> guess the th-spelling reflects an older English spelling rule for aspirated
>> t (like in German, cf. Goethe, Luther,...).

> I believe that the "th" in Goethe and Luther (which I've also seen
> as Ludher) is an orthographic survival of the dental fricatives
> in German.

Not a bit.  It is utterly lacking in Middle High German.  But the custom arose
of writing <th> next to long vowels and diphthongs, and this was common until
the spelling reform of c. 1900.  Before that time we find spellings such as
Rath 'council' (as in _Rath-skeller_), _thun_ 'do', _That_ 'deed'.  But since
then it's been _Rat_ (and _Ratskeller_), _tun_, _Tat_ etc.

BTW, I believe Luther's father spelled the name _Luder_, a most unfortunate
spelling, since it means approximately 'slob', as Martin's enemies were only to
happy to point out.

Leo Connolly

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From W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de  Thu Dec 21 09:36:29 2000
From: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Wolfgang Schulze)
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 10:36:29 +0100
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <THU.21.DEC.2000.103629.0100.>

> I believe that the "th" in Goethe and Luther (which I've also seen
> as Ludher) is an orthographic survival of the dental fricatives
> in German.

Goethe: The name stems from what is known as the North Th?ringen mixed zone
(Low - High German). Historically is had -d-, hence 'Gode' which is an
abbreviation of 'Godefried'(in which the concepts of 'god' (Germanic *guth)
and 'good' (Germanic *go:da) appear to be mixed up).

Luther: The same problem as Goethe: The name stems from the Th?ringer mixed
zone.

The father of M. Luther still wrote his name as 'luder'< Liuthari (in a Low
German variant)
= liut 'people' x (h)lu:t 'clear', 'famous' (?) + hari 'army'.
In the source language (Low German) we had the voiced dental fricative
(cf. Old Engl. leod '(first) man' x (h)lu:d 'laud' (West Germanic
*hlu:da- (-to particple)).

For both names, we have to start with a voiced dental stop (in Old Saxonian
and/or Middle Low German (Luder / Gode)) which was artificially transformed to
-t- (then written -th- ? la mode).

Sorry, no better news...

Merry Cristmas to all,
Wolfgang
--
********************
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze
Institut f?r Allgemeine und Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft
Universit?t M?nchen - Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1 - D-80539 M?nchen
Tel.: ++49-(0)89-2180 2486 (secretary) // ++49-(0)89-2180 5343 (office)
Fax:  ++49-(0)89-2180 5345
Email: 	W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Web:   	http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wschulze/
********************


From laura at rconnect.com  Sat Dec 23 03:10:19 2000
From: laura at rconnect.com (Mark Odegard)
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 21:10:19 -0600
Subject: minimal pairs
In-Reply-To: <20001219074722.A84425@bermls.oau.org>
Message-ID: <FRI.22.DEC.2000.211019.0600.>

On 19 Dec 00, at 7:47, Brent J. Ermlick wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 15, 2000 at 10:10:19AM +0000, Eduard Selleslagh wrote:

>> Note that 'Anthony', 'author' etc. are a class apart: the English
>> spelling does not correspond to Latin spelling, which has 't': Antonius,
>> auctor...I guess the th-spelling reflects an older English spelling rule
>> for aspirated t (like in German, cf. Goethe, Luther,...).

> I believe that the "th" in Goethe and Luther (which I've also seen
> as Ludher) is an orthographic survival of the dental fricatives
> in German.

This comment will not appear until after New Years (I
saw RMA's note)

I don't think any high-German speakers do Luther or
Goethe that way. I do wonder what Low-German speakers
do, tho'.

Orthographic survival? I wonder. It's rather like doing
the 'c' in Andalucia as a soft, waggle-tongued thorn.
--
Mark Odegard
laura at rconnect.com


From edsel at glo.be  Fri Dec 22 12:50:13 2000
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 13:50:13 +0100
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <FRI.22.DEC.2000.135013.0100.>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Anton Sherwood" <bronto at pobox.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2000 5:34 AM

> Eduard Selleslagh wrote:

>> Note that 'Anthony', 'author' etc. are a class apart: the English
>> spelling does not correspond to Latin spelling, which has 't':
>> Antonius, auctor...

> <Anthony> was misderived from Greek <anthos> `flower'.

[Ed]

I have never heard that one. It looks very implausible to me, since English
writers were undoubtedly more familiar with Latin than with ancient or any
other kind of Greek, and in Latin texts, classic and later, the name Antonius
is very common. I know of no other West European language that uses the
th-spelling. The same is true for 'author', which is certainly not misderived
from Greek.

> A large fraction of Roman gentile names come from Etruscan, so it's
> unlikely that we latter-day Antonii will ever find our root(s).
> Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/

[Ed]

It is true that many a nomen gentile is - or pretended to be - of Etruscan
origin (Maecenas, Maro, most names ending in -(n)na or -(m)nus, maybe even
Caesar ['from Caere' - now Cerveteri - ??]...). On the other hand, the
Etruscans often Etruscicized (actually: obliterated) Greek, Latin and oriental
names or designations (e.g. Macstarna < Magister-na, Clu(tu)msta <
Klytaimnestra). And the (in origin Anatolian) Etruscans are linguistically
second cousins of the Italic speaking peoples, so the search for the roots of
the latter day Antonii (etc...) risks becoming cyclical ('cercle vicieux').

I don't know the origin of the name 'Antonius'. Does anybody?

To me it looks like definitely IE, and - just maybe - with Greek roots (ant-,
-o:n, or -o:ne:, referring to someone who stands up against xxx, or bids
against xxx...???) even though it could be Italic as well, but that is just
wild guesswork of mine.

The -ius is of course a usual Latin ending of a nomen gentile (an adjectival
form).

Ed. Selleslagh


From bronto at pobox.com  Thu Dec 28 07:46:41 2000
From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood)
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 23:46:41 -0800
Subject: II subgroups
Message-ID: <WED.27.DEC.2000.234641.0800.>

A story about Bombay (see below sig) makes me ask myself what is
Bombay's principal language, and more generally which Indic languages
belong where.  I look in various books for maps.  Crystal's <Cambridge
Encyclopedia of Language> distinguishes the major Dravidian languages,
but shows Indo-Iranian as an undifferentiated lump.  Where should I look
for a more detailed map, and for a subclassification of the Indic
languages?

--
Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/

  http://www.forbes.com/global/1998/0810/0109078a.html
  http://www.csupomona.edu/~gurey/urp475/dabbawallah.htm


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Thu Dec 28 08:19:08 2000
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 03:19:08 EST
Subject: Meaning of "Goth"
Message-ID: <THU.28.DEC.2000.031908.EST.>

In a message dated 12/18/2000 11:48:13 PM, dlwhite at texas.net writes:

<< The word is sometimes connected with a word meaning 'flood' or
something of that sort (sometimes given as 'pour').  It occurs to me that
from an original /gout/ (ancestral to Germanic /gaut/), /gut/ might be a
zero-grade, such as would (since this is a strong verb) occur in past
participles (like "flooded").   A zero-grade version is, by the way,
generally taken to be the ancestor of modern English "gut", though the
semantics are unclear (to me).  The full o-grade might have meant "flood",
so that the two variants might go back to a difference of opinion as to
whether the Goths were being called in effect "the flood people" or "the
flooded people".   As for why they would be called anything of the sort, I
vaguely recall that sea-levels in the general vicinity were rising at about
the time in question. >>

Thank you, Dr. White, for the help.

It was the Cimbri, I believe, who explained their invasions into Roman
territory in the late BC as the result of a flood that overcame their dikes
and forced them to leave home.  Perhaps there is some relation.

The original meaning of the word "Goth" is confused by many factors, not the
least by the assumption that the word is Germanic.  The common names for many
groups is in fact the ones applied by outsiders (e.g., "Greek", "Apache",
"Basque"), so it is never clear with names of obscure origins whether the
name was in fact indigenous.

There is a weak verb <us-gutan> recorded in Ulfila that means 'pour out' and
would appear to have some connection with such words as 'gutter'.   But in
the earliest attested writings, we already see <Gu<thorn>> as 'God'; plural,
<guda>.   So the idea that the 'pour' reference may be to religious libations
rather than floods or waterways is there from the start, if the name has its
roots in Gothic.

In a message dated 12/14/2000 3:18:28 AM, mcv at wxs.nl wrote: <<The only
attested Gothic form is <Gut-Tiuda> "Gothia".>>  I can't for the life of me
find the source for this attestation though it is often mentioned.  However,
it's worth noting that in Ulfila, <<thorn>iuda> is often used to refer to
"heathens" or "Gentiles" and has a load of similar terms in Greek that refer
to certain kinds of non-Christian religious worship (e.g., <Thuiades>,
whorshippers at the Dionysian festival of <Thuia>).  On its face, however,
<Gut-Tiuda> appears to mean "God-people", certainly not an unusual
self-appelation for people in history who have felt a certain special
connection to the Deity, be they Israelites or Mormons.  But I do not know if
this attested form referred to pre-Christian or Christian Goths.

One question that all of this raises is how this word "Goth" works with a
regular <PIE development?  If the word were <gut> in east Germanic, than what
transformations should it have gone through.  I have for example this from
Lehrman:  "Initial position: Gk anser (for hanser) Goth. gans, OHG kans --- Gk
kh?oth (fundo), Gk khut?s (fusus) Goth. giutan, OHG kiozan --- Gk khol*,
ON gall, OHG kalla --- Gk khth?s, heri, hesternus, Goth. gistra, OHG k?star
--- Gk kh?rtos, hortus, gards, OHG karto --- hostis (peregrinus) gasts, kast
--- homo, Goth. guma, OHG komo --- Gk khth*n like khth?s for kh?s for
kh?m, cf. kham?i, humi, humus; to be compared with Goth. gau?, OHG kouwi,
kou--- "

 Note in the above that the <g-> is consistently unique to Gothic. If "Goth"
is Gothic, shouldn't we expect the kind of development seen in the examples
given above?

Regards,
Steve Long


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Thu Dec 28 12:56:29 2000
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 06:56:29 -0600
Subject: Further Thoughts On "Goth-" :: another similar name
Message-ID: <THU.28.DEC.2000.065629.0600.>

Dear Rich and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "proto-language" <proto-language at email.msn.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2000 11:27 AM

> [ Moderator's note:
>   I assume that the humour is unmarked.
>   --rma ]

<snip>

> Could this not simply be a professional nomenclature:

> fishermen?

[PR]
In this world of woe, any humor is welcome.

However, the suggestion was not humorous.

OHG angul, 'fish-hook' from *Hang-, 'bend'.

[ Moderator's note:
  I accept the rebuke and offer my apologies.
  --rma ]

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ec at ec hecc, vindga meipi a netr allar nmo, geiri vnda~r . . . a ~eim
mei~i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rstom renn." (Havamal 138)


From petegray at btinternet.com  Thu Dec 28 14:55:01 2000
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 14:55:01 -0000
Subject: Gk gen plural
Message-ID: <THU.28.DEC.2000.145501.0000.>

Does anyone happen to know if there is any actual evidence for the genitive
plural ending -a:so:m in Greek, rather than the normal -a:o:n and its
derivatives?

If not, what basis is there for the assumption that this ending was imported
from the pronouns?  Can't the attested forms be derived (with the help of
paradigmatic analogy) from an original -ah2-om?  Mycenaean seems to show no
sign of the -s-.

Peter


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 28 10:26:57 2000
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 10:26:57 -0000
Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro....
Message-ID: <THU.28.DEC.2000.102657.0000.>

On 25 Dec 2000, Mate Kapovif wrote:

>There was a discussion some time ago about relation of the words like Bask.
>txakur, Logudor dzhagaru, Spanish/Port. cachorro... I was just lurking but now
>I must add something to the subject because I think it could be interesting to
>those who participated in that discussion earlier.

>There is a claim that the form zagar is a Balkanic word: Bolg. zagar, Alb.
>zaga:r/za:r, Middle Greek zagaron, Modern Greek zagari/zagarss, Turkish zagar.
>All have the meaning "Jagdhund".

These particular forms are probably derived from Classical Greek. <Zagra>
and <zagrion> are attested as offensive terms (cf. "you dog!") and
<Zagraios> is an epithet of Dionysos. <Zagr-> probably results from *diagr-
(cf. Gk. <agra> 'hunting', <agreus> 'hunter', <agremios> 'taken in hunting',
etc.). The meaning 'Jagdhund' as opposed to simply 'Hund' agrees with this
analysis.

Doug Kilday


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Dec 28 21:00:44 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 16:00:44 -0500
Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro....
In-Reply-To: <001701c06dfe$8c2db3a0$d9811dc3@219.205.255.5>
Message-ID: <THU.28.DEC.2000.160044.0500.>

I hope I'm not dogging everyone too much with this puppy :>

I looked in Buck and found

	Latin catulus, catellus "puppy, cub" [Buck 1949: 180]
	Rumanian catel, Old Italian catello, Old French cael, obsolete
French cheau [Buck 1949: 180]
	Old Norse hadhna "kid", Russian kotot'sja, Polish kocic'sie "bear
cub" [Buck 1949: 180]
	Posner also cites Sardinian kateddu "little dog, puppy" < *ket- +
-ellu [Posner 1996: 86]

	Monteagudo [1976: 94] gives a "pre-Romance" root *kats, *kac^ "dog"

	which suggests the possibility of
catulus/catellus > *katlu > *katju/kakju/kacju > *kac^o > cach-orro

	although I imagine an /e/ would be expected, as in lacte- > leche

	so maybe there was influence from Spanish cazar, Italian cacciare
"to hunt" < Vulgar Latin *captiare "to hunt" < Latin capio "I take"

and BIG MAYBE a methathesis (or some type of sequence in which the
palatalization was scrambled) in Basque > txakur and BIGGER MAYBE a
backformation to zakur--but I don't expect anyone to take my word without
proof :>

	I'd appreciate suggestions

btw: would you be kind enough to repost your info in ASCII or TEX for the
examples that got garbled

	Does anyone know how recent the terms are in the Balkan and
Caucasus languages cited?
	Is it possible that they all spring from a Slavic, Greek or Turkish
term for a specific type of dog?

[snip]

>In the end he staits that O?tir was surely right when he put it with
>Alarodic elements and that it could be a part of pre-IE substratum as an old
>hunting term.

	Alarodic?

[snip]
>M. Kapovi?

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From petegray at btinternet.com  Thu Dec 28 14:41:38 2000
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 14:41:38 -0000
Subject: Danish Spelling
Message-ID: <THU.28.DEC.2000.144138.0000.>

>an original contrast of voice can be re-analyzed as a
> contrast of aspiration,

The opposite, of course, has happened in the Pinyin spelling of Mandarin,
where the English letters p and b are chosen to represent aspirated and
unaspirated labial plosives.

Peter


From thorinn at diku.dk  Fri Dec 29 01:04:24 2000
From: thorinn at diku.dk (Lars Henrik Mathiesen)
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 01:04:24 -0000
Subject: Danish Spelling
In-Reply-To: <E148hup-0003uu-00@rsunx.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
 (larryt@cogs.susx.ac.uk)
Message-ID: <FRI.29.DEC.2000.010424.0000.>

> Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 12:00:16 +0000
> From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)

> Lars Henrik Mathieson writes:

>> Which phoneme do those plain voiceless stops belong to? They sound
>> exactly like the /bdg/ you get in initial position. They don't sound
>> like initial /ptk/. So why shouldn't <stave> (spell) be /sda:u/?

> Roman Jakobson famously wrote on this very point.  I'm afraid I cannot
> recall the reference, but maybe somebody can.

> As I dimly recall, Jakobson reported that uneducated Danish-speakers --
> apparently there *were* some in his day -- consistently assigned phones
> to phonemes on the basis of phonetic similarity, producing a result
> very different from the one recognized in the Danish orthography.

Well, I can report that Danish first graders do it too --- <sdau> for
<stave> or <sgreud> for <skrevet> are both examples I think I recall
from my daughter's first attempts.

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)


From thorinn at diku.dk  Fri Dec 29 01:12:13 2000
From: thorinn at diku.dk (Lars Henrik Mathiesen)
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 01:12:13 -0000
Subject: Danish Spelling
In-Reply-To: <000701c06a9b$4c4a8080$626163d1@texas.net> (dlwhite@texas.net)
Message-ID: <FRI.29.DEC.2000.011213.0000.>

> From: "David L. White" <dlwhite at texas.net>
> Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 09:41:18 -0600

>> Which phoneme do those plain voiceless stops belong to? They sound
>> exactly like the /bdg/ you get in initial position. They don't sound
>> like initial /ptk/. So why shouldn't <stave> (spell) be /sda:u/?

>         Because "d" is not the IPA symbol for any voiceless stop.

I was using // to denote phonemic transcription, which I think is
common practice. ([] being phonetic, and <> graphemic).

By your criterion, phonemic transcription would have to use something
like /p_ht_hk_h/ and /ptk/ to denote the two series of stops in
Danish, which would be inconvenient.

>         But what I was working up to here, before I got derailed by my own
> errors, was that the spelling of Gaelic, and "phonetic" transcription of
> Danish) indicate that an original contrast of voice can be re-analyzed as a
> contrast of aspiration, in which case spellings like "sg-" and
> "transcriptions" like [sd-] can make sense.

I think we agree, then.

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)


From douglas at nb.net  Thu Dec 28 13:12:27 2000
From: douglas at nb.net (Douglas G. Wilson)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 08:12:27 -0500
Subject: minimal pairs
In-Reply-To: <000b01c06b85$69863780$74dc7ad5@xpoxkjlf>
Message-ID: <THU.28.DEC.2000.081227.0500.>

>> I have never heard a pronunciation of 'asthma' that was not /azm6/; and, of
>> course, /z/ is a dental fricative.

>To clarify, my pronunciation is /asTmi/.   Unvoiced /s/, unvoiced /T/,
>voiced nasal /m/.  /i/ at the end 'cos I'm a kiwi.  Real English has /@/.

>The only colleague of mine I can find at the moment, this close to
>Christmas, says /asm@/  (unvoiced /s/, no dental fricative).  He comments
>"It would be very pretentious to pronounce it /asTma/."

Some say /&s(T)m@/, some say /&z(D)m@/ (I say the latter but probably the
former is preferable logically). Both are common. Some speakers omit the
/T/ or /D/ always, most others probably do in rapid speech. None of these
is 'pretentious' IMHO.

Maybe the /T/ or /D/ comes from a spelling pronunciation; nothing wrong
with that.

"Isthmus" is /Is(T)m at s/, with similarly optional /T/, IMHO.

What about /krIs(t)m at s/?

-- Doug Wilson


From stevegus at aye.net  Thu Dec 28 16:12:05 2000
From: stevegus at aye.net (Steve Gustafson)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 11:12:05 -0500
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <THU.28.DEC.2000.111205.0500.>

Peter Gray wrote:

>>>> 'asthma' ... with a dental fricative.

>> I have hardly ever heard it.

> Is the form with /T/ a spelling pronunciation?  Or is the form without /T/
> related to the loss of /T/ near /s/ in some American dialects in words such
> as "clothes"?

I suspect that the pronunciation /klo:z/ for "clothes" is an old, inherited
one; cf. Norwegian "klaer".

The pronunciation of transliterations of ungainly Greek consonant clusters
in English is bound to vary widely; most of these words were encountered in
writing before heard on anyone's lips.  Even similar groups can resolve
differently: "diphthong" is often spoken differently than "diphtheria,"
(diphthong occasionally has diff-, diphtheria is always dip-).  Neither of
them track "phthisis."

--
   Cain:  Are ye happy?
   Satan:  We are mighty.
                                 --- Byron, "Cain"


From BMScott at stratos.net  Thu Dec 28 22:02:44 2000
From: BMScott at stratos.net (Brian M. Scott)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 17:02:44 -0500
Subject: minimal pairs
In-Reply-To: <005a01c06c17$5a7a8380$4102703e@edsel>
Message-ID: <THU.28.DEC.2000.170244.0500.>

On Friday, 22 December, 2000, at 07:50:13, Eduard Selleslagh wrote:

ES> From: "Anton Sherwood" <bronto at pobox.com> Sent: Wednesday,
ES> December 20, 2000 5:34 AM

>> <Anthony> was misderived from Greek <anthos> `flower'.

ES> I have never heard that one. It looks very implausible to me,
ES> since English writers were undoubtedly more familiar with Latin
ES> than with ancient or any other kind of Greek, and in Latin texts,
ES> classic and later, the name Antonius is very common.

I don't know whether the misapprehension was responsible for
establishing the <th> spelling, but it certainly existed. William
Camden's _Remains Concerning Britain_ (1605) includes a chapter on
'Usuall Christian Names'. Of <Anthonie> he writes: '_Gre._ as
_Antheros_, Flourishing, from the Greeke _Anthos_ a floure, as
_Florens_ and _Florentius_ with the Latines, and _Thales_, _Euthalius_
with the Greekes. There are yet some that drawe it from _Anton_ a
companion of _Hercules_.'

ES> I don't know the origin of the name 'Antonius'. Does anybody?

Emidio De Felice's _dizionario dei nomi italiani_ s.n. <Antonio> says
(unfortunately without citation) that the name is probably of Etruscan
origin, though the etymology is unknown. He adds that in the
Renaissance it was arbitrarily associated with Gk. <a'nthos> 'flower',
so the connection isn't solely English. In this connection it may be
worth noting that in general <th> spellings become common in much of
Europe in the 15th and 16th c.  E.g., in notarial documents from
Bordeaux ca.1500 the name appears consistently with <th>
(<Anthoin(n)e>, <Anthoyne>, <Anthony>, <Anthoni>, <Anthonio>), and
<th> spellings seem to have been usual in Sweden and the Low Countries
even a bit earlier.

Brian M. Scott


From mc2499 at mclink.it  Thu Dec 28 16:44:30 2000
From: mc2499 at mclink.it (Ian Hutchesson)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 17:44:30 +0100
Subject: Ng
Message-ID: <THU.28.DEC.2000.174430.0100.>

>>family name Ng in the mouths of English-speaking non-linguists.

I went to school with a person of that surname in Australia long ago. It was
always pronounced Ning -- even by the Chinese students --, though the /i/
was almost non-existent.

Ian


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Fri Dec 29 03:04:21 2000
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 22:04:21 -0500
Subject: re Northern Subject Rule
In-Reply-To: <200012192012.PAA11704@panix2.panix.com> (message from Rich
 Alderson on Tue, 19 Dec 2000 15:12:34 -0500 (EST))
Message-ID: <THU.28.DEC.2000.220421.0500.>

On 19 Dec 2000, I wrote:

> ... the feminine in *-a: < *-eH{_1}

where the subscript on the laryngeal symbol should be "2" rather than "1".
*-e{H_1} yields *-e:, as in the instrumental singular.

								Rich Alderson


From stevegus at aye.net  Fri Dec 29 16:33:27 2000
From: stevegus at aye.net (Steve Gustafson)
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 11:33:27 -0500
Subject: Gk gen plural
Message-ID: <FRI.29.DEC.2000.113327.0500.>

petegray wrote:

> Does anyone happen to know if there is any actual evidence for the genitive
> plural ending -a:so:m in Greek, rather than the normal -a:o:n and its
> derivatives?

> If not, what basis is there for the assumption that this ending was imported
> from the pronouns?  Can't the attested forms be derived (with the help of
> paradigmatic analogy) from an original -ah2-om?  Mycenaean seems to show no
> sign of the -s-.

Wouldn't they both end up the same, in that -a:so:m turns into -a:ho:m with
the typical Greek loss of intervocalic -s-; then Greek loses the -h-, and
turns final -m to -n, to yield -a:o:n?

I don't believe that the Linear B material preserves any intervocalic *s
that would have been lost in Greek.  There is a Linear B ko-to-na-o (Gk.
ktoina:o:n) identifiable as a genitive plural, but given the severe
limitations of the script it there is no reason to say it doesn't just
represent the mainstream attested form.

In Latin (and Italic generally), -a:som is borrowed from its proper place in
the pronouns to yield -arum (Oscan -azum).  I'm not sure in what
circumstances in Greek you could expect to see a difference between the
result of -aso:m and -aH2o:m.

--
   Cain:  Are ye happy?
   Satan:  We are mighty.
                                 --- Byron, "Cain"


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Sun Dec 31 09:05:25 2000
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 04:05:25 -0500
Subject: Gk gen plural
Message-ID: <SUN.31.DEC.2000.040525.0500.>

On Thu, 28 Dec 2000 14:55:01 -0000, petegray <petegray at btinternet.com>
wrote:
>Does anyone happen to know if there is any actual evidence for the genitive
>plural ending -a:so:m in Greek, rather than the normal -a:o:n and its
>derivatives? ...
> ...Can't the attested forms be derived (with the help of paradigmatic
> analogy) from an original -ah2-om?  Mycenaean seems to show no
> sign of the -s-.

Mycenean Greek's spelling system is a syllabary (Linear B), which as far as
I remember ignores [h] except before [a]. I.e. it has a symbol for HA but
not for HI etc. So, in Mycenean Greek *[asom], the S would not show in
writing even if it was pronounced.


From rohan.oberoi at cornell.edu  Fri Dec 29 09:22:17 2000
From: rohan.oberoi at cornell.edu (rohan.oberoi at cornell.edu)
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 04:22:17 -0500
Subject: II subgroups
Message-ID: <FRI.29.DEC.2000.042217.0500.>

Try:

http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/didact/karten/indi/indicm.htm

for a map and accompanying classifications, albeit in German.

Regards,
Rohan.

Anton Sherwood wrote:

>A story about Bombay (see below sig) makes me ask myself what is
>Bombay's principal language, and more generally which Indic languages
>belong where.  I look in various books for maps.  Crystal's <Cambridge
>Encyclopedia of Language> distinguishes the major Dravidian languages,
>but shows Indo-Iranian as an undifferentiated lump.  Where should I look
>for a more detailed map, and for a subclassification of the Indic
>languages?

>Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/
>
>  http://www.forbes.com/global/1998/0810/0109078a.html
>  http://www.csupomona.edu/~gurey/urp475/dabbawallah.htm


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sat Dec 30 20:37:52 2000
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 15:37:52 -0500
Subject: II subgroups
In-Reply-To: <3A4AEFE1.6CDC732B@pobox.com>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.DEC.2000.153752.0500.>

	Bombay is around where Marathi and Gujurati meet. I had a friend
from there who spoke Marathi, which he said was the local language of the
countryside and that Gujurati was spoken to the northwest. I think I
remember him saying that because of migration that Hindi was common in the
city.

>A story about Bombay (see below sig) makes me ask myself what is
>Bombay's principal language, and more generally which Indic languages
>belong where.  I look in various books for maps.  Crystal's <Cambridge
>Encyclopedia of Language> distinguishes the major Dravidian languages,
>but shows Indo-Iranian as an undifferentiated lump.  Where should I look
>for a more detailed map, and for a subclassification of the Indic
>languages?

>Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/

>  http://www.forbes.com/global/1998/0810/0109078a.html
>  http://www.csupomona.edu/~gurey/urp475/dabbawallah.htm

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sat Dec 30 08:53:01 2000
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 08:53:01 -0000
Subject: II subgroups
Message-ID: <SAT.30.DEC.2000.085301.0000.>

> Where should I look
> for a more detailed map, and for a subclassification of the Indic
> languages?

Hi Anton.  Colin Masica "The Indo-Aryan Languages" Cambridge Language
Surveys 1991 is excellent and not too expensive - my copy was GBpounds
12-50.

According to Masica, the languages of Bombay include:
(a) Urdu, and its southern form Dakhini (both spoken by urban Muslims)
(b) Marathi (The main language of the whole surrounding area)
(c) The groups of dialects clumped together as "Bhili".  (This is found
north of Bombay, extending around the Gujarati area to southern Rajasthan).

Bombay being what it is, no doubt there are others!

Peter


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Dec 29 16:58:02 2000
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 11:58:02 EST
Subject: Anthony as Greek?
Message-ID: <FRI.29.DEC.2000.115802.EST.>

In a message dated 12/29/2000 1:39:12 AM, BMScott at stratos.net writes:
<< He adds that in the Renaissance it was arbitrarily associated with Gk.
<a'nthos> 'flower', >>

Let me apologize, but it is escaping me why "Anthony" cannot come from Gk
<anthos> or <antho:n>.   Aeschylus before 400BC already uses the term to also
denote "pride", "honor" and "height of achievement".  It was also used to
connote "brightness" or "brilliance."  Parallel the name with Gk <stephanos>,
garland, and the fact that <Stephanus> appears as a Roman name at least by
the first century BC.

Is there a clear reason why Ant[h]onius cannot be Greek?

Regards and a Happy New Year,
Steve Long


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Sat Dec 30 12:50:30 2000
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 12:50:30 +0000
Subject: 'Anthony'
Message-ID: <SAT.30.DEC.2000.125030.0000.>

Ed Selleslagh writes:

>  I don't know the origin of the name 'Antonius'. Does anybody?

According to Hanks and Hodges, this was originally a Roman family
name, it is very old, it is of unknown origin, but it is widely
suspected of being of Etruscan origin.

Source: Patricia Hanks and Flavia Hodges (1990), A Dictionary of
First Names, Oxford: Oxford UP.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Dec 30 20:33:59 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 14:33:59 -0600
Subject: Meaning of "Goth"
Message-ID: <SAT.30.DEC.2000.143359.0600.>

> It was the Cimbri, I believe, who explained their invasions into Roman
> territory in the late BC as the result of a flood that overcame their dikes
> and forced them to leave home.  Perhaps there is some relation.

    There was, I believe, more than one group that suffered some such fate.
The AS conquest may have been motivated by the same sort of thing.  Actually
the Baltic (like part of the North) is not a stable sea.  It is recent, and
unstable.  Maybe someone out there can fill us in on its recent history.

> The original meaning of the word "Goth" is confused by many factors, not the
> least by the assumption that the word is Germanic.  The common names for many
> groups is in fact the ones applied by outsiders (e.g., "Greek", "Apache",
> "Basque"), so it is never clear with names of obscure origins whether the
> name was in fact indigenous.

> There is a weak verb <us-gutan> recorded in Ulfila that means 'pour out' and
> would appear to have some connection with such words as 'gutter'.  But in the
> earliest attested writings, we already see <Gu<thorn>> as 'God'; plural,
> <guda>.

        That (the final thorn) is from final devoicing.  It is not original,
as the plural shows.  If the word "Goth" is from "God-folk" (thiuda), the
final thorn would have to be a secondary development, from later redivision.
But since the "pour" word and the "god" word seem to be different extentsion
of the same root, it is difficult to tell.  I myself think that most
polytheistic people are not so (self)-righteous, for lack of a better word,
as to name themselves "God-folk".

> So the idea that the 'pour' reference may be to religious libations rather
> than floods or waterways is there from the start, if the name has its roots
> in Gothic.

> In a message dated 12/14/2000 3:18:28 AM, mcv at wxs.nl wrote: <<The only
> attested Gothic form is <Gut-Tiuda> "Gothia".>> I can't for the life of me
> find the source for this attestation though it is often mentioned.  However,
> it's worth noting that in Ulfila, <<thorn>iuda> is often used to refer to
> "heathens" or "Gentiles" and has a load of similar terms in Greek that refer
> to certain kinds of non-Christian religious worship (e.g., <Thuiades>,
> whorshippers at the Dionysian festival of <Thuia>).  On its face, however,
> <Gut-Tiuda> appears to mean "God-people", certainly not an unusual
> self-appelation for people in history who have felt a certain special
> connection to the Deity, be they Israelites or Mormons.  But I do not know if
> this attested form referred to pre-Christian or Christian Goths.

        Since there are so many "got-" place-names back in Scandinavia, it
would seem that the name must be pre-Christian (assuming that "Gotland" and
"Goeteburg" are to be related to "Goth", which may not be true.)

> One question that all of this raises is how this word "Goth" works with a
> regular <PIE development?  If the word were <gut> in east Germanic, than
> what transformations should it have gone through.

       In other Germanic, you mean?  Not much, apart from the OHG examples.

> I have for example this from Lehrman:  "Initial position: Gk anser (for
> hanser) Goth. gans, OHG kans --- Gk kh?oth (fundo), Gk khut?s (fusus)
> Goth. giutan, OHG kiozan --- Gk khol*, ON gall, OHG kalla --- Gk khth?s,
> heri, hesternus, Goth. gistra, OHG k?star --- Gk kh?rtos, hortus, gards,
> OHG karto --- hostis (peregrinus) gasts, kast --- homo, Goth. guma, OHG komo
> --- Gk khth*n like khth?s for kh?s for kh?m, cf. kham?i, humi, humus;
> to be compared with Goth. gau?, OHG kouwi, kou--- "

>  Note in the above that the <g-> is consistently unique to Gothic.

        No it isn't.  /g/ appears in Norse, as it should in all Germanic
apart from Old High.  Note as well that English, of all periods, being
fairly typical in this regard, has /g-/ in its 'god' word.
        By the way (displaying my ignorance here), how does OHG "kans"
appear as modern German "gans"?  Did only the /d/ -> /t/ part of this shift
get fully established in standard German?

Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Dec 30 20:38:06 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 14:38:06 -0600
Subject: Further Thoughts On "Goth-" :: another similar name
Message-ID: <SAT.30.DEC.2000.143806.0600.>

>> Could this not simply be a professional nomenclature:

>> fishermen?

> [PR]
> In this world of woe, any humor is welcome.

> However, the suggestion was not humorous.

> OHG angul, 'fish-hook' from *Hang-, 'bend'.

> [ Moderator's note:
>   I accept the rebuke and offer my apologies.
>   --rma ]

        Something like /angl/ does indeed seem to have been the Germanic
word for fish-hook, and the word "angler" in English may well be old.

Dr. David L. White


From BMScott at stratos.net  Fri Dec 29 07:23:36 2000
From: BMScott at stratos.net (Brian M. Scott)
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 02:23:36 -0500
Subject: minimal pairs
In-Reply-To: <008501c070e8$ec922c20$f3c407c6@oemcomputer>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.DEC.2000.022336.0500.>

On Thursday, 28 December, 2000, at 11:12:05, Steve Gustafson wrote:

SG> Even similar groups can resolve differently: "diphthong" is often
SG> spoken differently than "diphtheria," (diphthong occasionally has
SG> diff-, diphtheria is always dip-).

I have always said /dif-/ in both. Both the American Heritage Dict.
(3rd ed.) and Merriam-Webster Online recognize both /dif-/ and and
/dip-/ pronunciations of <diphtheria>.

Brian M. Scott


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Fri Dec 29 20:32:01 2000
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 20:32:01 -0000
Subject: minimal pairs
Message-ID: <FRI.29.DEC.2000.203201.0000.>

On 22 Dec 2000, Eduard Selleslagh wrote:

>And the (in origin Anatolian) Etruscans are linguistically second cousins of
>the Italic speaking peoples, so the search for the roots of the latter day
>Antonii (etc...) risks becoming cyclical ('cercle vicieux').

This is the second time in a month you have represented this flimsy
hypothesis of Etruscans coming from Anatolia as though it were an
established fact. If you actually have any non-cyclical arguments
(preferably linguistic) in favor of an eastern homeland for the Etruscans,
perhaps you could post them here or on the other list.

Doug Kilday

[ Moderator's note:
  The hypothesis that the Etruscans may have originated in Anatolia appears to
  be supported by the presence on the island of Lemnos of a stele inscribed in
  a language clearly related to but differing from the Etruscan of Italy.
  --rma ]


From douglas at nb.net  Fri Dec 29 08:30:52 2000
From: douglas at nb.net (Douglas G. Wilson)
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 03:30:52 -0500
Subject: Ng
In-Reply-To: <007601c070ed$74e81220$88916ec3@nergal>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.DEC.2000.033052.0500.>

>>> family name Ng in the mouths of English-speaking non-linguists.

It seems to me that one should approximate the native sound as best one
can, unless the named person prefers something else. We do this all the
time (to varying degrees) when we talk about Goethe or Dvorak or Khrushchev
[or Cholmondeley]. Distinction of aspirated vs. nonaspirated stop or front
vs. back "l" may be difficult for English speakers; distinction of /N/ from
/IN/, /EN/, /VN/, /@N/, /nIN/, etc. should not be, IMHO. Reproducing the
tone in casual speech in English may be awkward, however -- at least it's
too awkward for me (some do it "successfully" though).

I'm no expert but I think the name Ng corresponds to "Mandarin" Wu,
rendering several family names, of which "Crow", "Five", and one named
after a place-name (having the character sometimes called "sky-mouth") come
to mind.

Pronunciation of "ng" (in different tones) can be heard on the Web:

http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Canton/sound/ng4.wav

http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Canton/sound/ng5.wav

http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Canton/sound/ng6.wav

-- it's just about what one would expect, and I don't see why the typical
English-speaker would have trouble recognizing it or approximating it in
casual speech (tone aside).

Of course, an American named Ng might himself abandon the original
pronunciation, out of expedience or politeness (just as some Dvoraks have
done, for example), and introduce himself as "Eng" or "Ing" or whatever he
chooses; some may change the spelling also.

Incidentally, I've read that INITIAL /N/ is tending to disappear in
Cantonese (e.g., "ngo" /No/ > /o/). Possibly there are variations in
pronunciation of syllabic "ng" within Cantonese also.

-- Doug Wilson


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Dec 30 20:42:30 2000
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 14:42:30 -0600
Subject: Danish Spelling
Message-ID: <SAT.30.DEC.2000.144230.0600.>

> By your criterion, phonemic transcription would have to use something
> like /p_ht_hk_h/ and /ptk/ to denote the two series of stops in
> Danish, which would be inconvenient

        The technically proper thing would be to use /p/ versus /ph/, and so
on, with superscript "h", not available to most of us.  Yes, it would be
inconvenient.
        But anyway what I was really working up to was a semi- (or perhaps
pseudo-)Sapirian observation that people do know what the phonemes of their
own language are, and things like "illiterate" (or perhaps "naive")
spellings can show us what they think.  Thus Danes, seeing that /p/ is, so
it seems, spelled /b/, tend to think that /sp/ should be spelled "sb", which
is reasonable enough.  (I marvel that the Gaels had the temerity to update
their spelling to fit their perceptions.  Usually spelling conservativism
rules.)   But in any event over-wrought abstract analysis is not, in my
opinion, necesary.  Blank stares are likley to be the response to any
question along the lines of "What are the phonemes of your language?", but
if we are inspired by Liddell Hart and use "the indirect approach", the
truth will come out.

Dr. David L. White


From jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr  Fri Dec 29 13:20:31 2000
From: jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr (=?iso-8859-2?Q?Mate_Kapovi=E6?=)
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 14:20:31 +0100
Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro...
Message-ID: <FRI.29.DEC.2000.142031.0100.>

Here are all the examples again. Sorry if you could not have read them all the
first time. I hope it's ok now.

Cro. - ogar/zagar/bigar.
Magyar - aga:r
Romanian - ogar
OCS/Old Russian - ogar7 (7-jor)
Czech - ohaR (R- r with a diacritic over it - ?)
Polish - oharz.
Bolg. - zagar
Alb. - zaga:r/za:r
Middle Greek - zagaron
Modern Greek - zagari/zagaros
Turkish - zagar
Avarian - eger
Ossetic - yegar
Logudor - dzhagaru (dzh - eng. j)
Corsica - yakaru/dzhakaru
Bask - txakur
Port./Spanish - cachorro
Georgian - dzagli
all-European words - jackal (Eng.), cakal (Turkish) (c with a hook under - eng.
ch) etc.
Sanskrit - Srgala (S- eng. sh, cerebral)

Rick Mc Callister wrote:

<<Russian kotot'sja, Polish kocic'sie "bear cub">>

That would be all-Slavic *kotiti seN. It could be from the same Ie. root as
Latin catulus, maybe not. It's compared to Slavic *kot7(ka) "cat" (7 - jor) but
these are almost certainly borrowings (originally African - Egyptian(?) word,
cf. Latin cattus) and it's hard to believe that *kotiti seN ("to bear cub (for
some animals)") a would have come from *kot7, because cats were not so
(economically) important. Some contamination of the roots has almost certainly
been present.

Lat. catulus could exclude Spanish cachorro (much harder for Bask) from these
comparisons.

All these words seem to come from one (pre-Ie substrat word?). All the forms
are of a *JaKaR- kind or similar- J- affricate or fricative (j, ch, sh, z, y
etc.); K- k or g; R- r or l...

<<Alarodic?>>

Sorry, don't know what that is. That's what my dictionary source says.

Mate Kapovic


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Sat Dec 30 05:12:00 2000
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 00:12:00 EST
Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro....
Message-ID: <SAT.30.DEC.2000.001200.EST.>

In a message dated 12/28/2000 11:18:17 PM, acnasvers at hotmail.com writes:

<< <Zagr-> probably results from *diagr- (cf. Gk. <agra> 'hunting', <agreus>
'hunter', <agremios> 'taken in hunting', etc.). The meaning 'Jagdhund' as
opposed to simply 'Hund' agrees with this analysis. >>

If the word can be read as coming from Gk <agra>, then it can just as easily
be seen as coming from the more basic form, Gk <agros>, field, farm, tilled
land, pasture, country (vs. city). (Cf., <agraulos>, of field dweller,
shepherds, oxen; <agreios>, of the field or country-side).

This would suggest that the word could refer as much to a sheep or herding
dog or some other kind of dog that lives or works on a farm, as opposed to
perhaps a hunting or a fighting dog.

With regard to "Spanish/Port. cachorro" and maybe "txakur", there is some
reason to think that the words originated in a more complex and ancient
usage.  See Latin <cicur>, tame; <cicurare> to tame.  (Which might refer to
nothing more than a trained dog or animal as opposed to some larger idea like
domestication.)  Also, attested is "Gk <churra>, a call used by swineherds;
<churrabios>, swine-collar; <churrabos>, a bird."  Cf., Pol <kura>, hen.

In such examples as Lat <cicura>, <cura>, <sirius> and Gk <kurma>, <surma>,
<surte:s>, <koura>, <gurgathos>, etc., etc., we see all kinds of words that
involve many kinds of relationships with animals or those who handle or catch
them.   These words seem to show dramatic semantic drift and it is a tricky
matter to interpret any form like -kur or - garu for a specific
animal-related meaning.

Regards,
Steve Long


From kastytis.beitas at gf.vu.lt  Mon Dec  4 21:52:07 2000
From: kastytis.beitas at gf.vu.lt (Kastytis Beitas)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 22:52:07 +0100
Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro....
In-Reply-To: <51.57547f4.277ec8a0@aol.com>
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.225207.0100.>

At 00:12 30.12.2000 -0500, Steve Long wrote:

>In a message dated 12/28/2000 11:18:17 PM, acnasvers at hotmail.com writes:

><< <Zagr-> probably results from *diagr- (cf. Gk. <agra> 'hunting', <agreus>
>'hunter', <agremios> 'taken in hunting', etc.). The meaning 'Jagdhund' as
>opposed to simply 'Hund' agrees with this analysis. >>

>If the word can be read as coming from Gk <agra>, then it can just as easily
>be seen as coming from the more basic form, Gk <agros>, field, farm, tilled
>land, pasture, country (vs. city). (Cf., <agraulos>, of field dweller,
>shepherds, oxen; <agreios>, of the field or country-side).

>This would suggest that the word could refer as much to a sheep or herding
>dog or some other kind of dog that lives or works on a farm, as opposed to
>perhaps a hunting or a fighting dog.

As I remember there is an old Russian verb polevat' that means 'to hunt in
fields' (from Russian word pole 'field')...

**********************************
Kastytis Beitas
----------------------------------
Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics
Faculty of Natural Sciences
Vilnius University
Ciurlionio 21
Vilnius 2009, Lithuania
----------------------------------
Fax:     (370 2)235409
E-Mail:  kastytis.beitas at gf.vu.lt
**********************************


From kastytis.beitas at gf.vu.lt  Mon Dec  4 21:43:02 2000
From: kastytis.beitas at gf.vu.lt (Kastytis Beitas)
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 22:43:02 +0100
Subject: txakur/dzhagaru/cachorro...
In-Reply-To: <005101c071a0$f2ed06e0$05811dc3@219.205.255.5>
Message-ID: <MON.4.DEC.2000.224302.0100.>

At 14:20 29.12.2000 +0100, Mate Kapovic wrote:

>Rick Mc Callister wrote:

><<Russian kotot'sja, Polish kocic'sie "bear cub">>

>That would be all-Slavic *kotiti seN. It could be from the same Ie. root as
>Latin catulus, maybe not. It's compared to Slavic *kot7(ka) "cat" (7 -
>jor) but
>these are almost certainly borrowings (originally African - Egyptian(?) word,
>cf. Latin cattus) and it's hard to believe that *kotiti seN ("to bear cub (for
>some animals)") a would have come from *kot7, because cats were not so
>(economically) important. Some contamination of the roots has almost certainly
>been present.

>Lat. catulus could exclude Spanish cachorro (much harder for Bask) from these
>comparisons.

The word shchenit'sja means 'to bear cub; to cub, to whelp' in Russian
(shchenok 'dog cub'),
and Russian kotit'sja means 'to bear kitten (about cats) or other youngling
(about small carnivorous mammal - ferret etc)'.
It is a general model for creation of words that mean 'to bear younglings'.
The Russian telit'sja means 'to bear calve (of cattle, deer etc.)'
(telionok 'calf'),
zherebit'sja 'to bear colt' (zherebenok 'colt'),
yagnit'sja 'to bear lamb' (yagnionok 'lamb')...

The were wild cats (Felis silvestris) in East European forests.

**********************************
Kastytis Beitas
----------------------------------
Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics
Faculty of Natural Sciences
Vilnius University
Ciurlionio 21
Vilnius 2009, Lithuania
----------------------------------
Fax:     (370 2)235409
E-Mail:  kastytis.beitas at gf.vu.lt
**********************************