15.2644, Disc: New: Re: Review: Linguist 15.1878: Vennemann

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-15-2644. Fri Sep 24 2004. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 15.2644, Disc: New: Re: Review:  Linguist 15.2644878: Vennemann                                                                                                                                                           

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Wayne State U <aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry at linguistlist.org>
 
Reviews (reviews at linguistlist.org) 
        Sheila Collberg, U of Arizona  
        Terry Langendoen, U of Arizona  

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/

The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, Wayne
State University, and donations from subscribers and publishers.

Editor for this issue: Naomi Fox <fox at linguistlist.org>
================================================================  

To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at
http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.html.


===========================Directory==============================  

1)
Date: 24-Sep-2004
From: Robert Mailhammer < Robert.Mailhammer at web.de >
Subject: New: Re: Review:  Linguist 15.2644878: Vennemann 
 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 13:10:54
From: Robert Mailhammer < Robert.Mailhammer at web.de >
Subject: New: Re: Review:  Linguist 15.1878: Vennemann 
 
Dear Linguists,

This is a comment on the review of Th. Vennemann (2003), Europa
Vasconica - Europe Semitica, Berlin/N.Y. by Dr. Hayim Y. Sheynin,
published in Linguist 15.1878. Apart from providing a summary, the
reviewer also attempts to evaluate some of the book's most central
points. Critical statements in a review are in principle welcome,
however, in this case numerous points the reviewer makes are unfounded
and show an unfortunate lack of diligence. This is all the more in
need of correction as the LinguistList reaches a large audience of
linguists all over the world.  Consequently, a high standard for
published reviews ought to be maintained.

First of all, in a number of instances the reviewer attacks points
which are not actually made in the book or which are fully elaborated
on in a separate publication.

- The full etymologies for G _Adel_ and G _Sippe_ are not part of the
reviewed book, but they are only available as separate articles, which
the reviewer admits to be ignorant of (p. 10). Nonetheless, the
reviewer rejects both etymologies on the basis of a short passage in
the introduction of the book without knowing the full account.
Moreover, the introduction was written by the editor of the book under
review and not by its author. Nowhere in the book are G _Adel_ or its
Germanic equivalents translated as 'rulers'. Even the introduction
only speaks about "term for the rulers" (p. xviii). In addition, the
semantic development from 'root' to 'noble' can even be seen in
Semitic as is pointed out in the relevant article.

- On p. 4 the reviewer reports that Vennemann traces back the non-
etymologised words of Germanic to a substratum. This incorrect as every
article dealing with Germanic prehistory carefully distinguishes substratum
influence form superstratum influence (e.g. ch. 18). The very first article
(ch. 1) even argues vehemently against a pure substratum theory.

- The reviewer claims that, according to Vennemann 2003, "the tribes
of the Picts and the Vans" were part of the Semitidic society. In the
relevant article (chapter 11, p. 382), Vennemann explicitly says that
the Vanir (more correctly) are a mythological tribe whose
correspondences to the Picts are not physical but cultural. In other
words, it is not assumed that the Vanir existed physically, or that
they are related to the Picts, but only that the society of the Picts
and the mythological Vanir share some important cultural properties.
Moreover, the reviewer (p.5) claims that there is no "linguistic
evidence" allowing inferences on the Picts' language.  However,
chapter 11 discusses this problem and possible evidence in detail. An
even more serious misinterpretation is the reviewer's claim that
Vennemann admits the lack of linguistic evidence by quoting only a
part of the passage included in ch. 11 (p. 381-382).  Firstly, as the
remainder of the passage reveals, it is a confirmation of the Pictish
origin of an Irish saga and secondly, this is used as an argument of
the connection between Picts and Atlantic people as the paragraph
following the quote makes clear (p. 382).

- According to the reviewer, Lakarra (1996:without page number) claims
that Vennemann does not mention that _p_ and _m_ and _r-_ are absent
from Proto- Basque (p. 7). This is incorrect, as the phonological
inventory on p. 174 clearly mentions these features and also notes
mismatches between Proto- Basque and Old European, by the way, a fact
not noted in Trask 1997, one of the main sources of the reviewer's
critique (p. 7). Moreover, the entire article (ch. 6) never says Old
European was identical to Proto-Basque. On p. 181 Vennemann makes
clear that he equates Old European with a Palaeo- Basque stage
comprising more than ancestral Basque.

- The reviewer (p. 9) claims that Vennemann never acknowledges the
fact that a lot ("plethora") of his etymologies are also included in
Levin 1995. Ch. 7 dates from 1994 (published in 1995) making it
impossible to quote from Levin 1995 for reasons of chronology.
However, in chapter 18 (published in 1998), p. 614, Vennemann
explicitly refers to Levin 1995 ("The most intensive and elaborate
study of this kind is the recent book by Saul Levin (1995)") and also
gives examples of etymologies in common.

- The reviewer (p. 7, p. 12) claims that proposed Semitic loanwords
are from semantic spheres which cannot be reconciled with the role
ascribed to the Semitidic people by Vennemann. This is clearly
incorrect, as Vennemann describes the superstratum relationship
(including cultural, technological and military dominance) at length
in several articles (e.g. ch. 1, 7, 10, 14, 17, 18).

- The reviewer (p. 10) rejects Vennemann's (tentative) etymology for
E_wake_ for two reasons. Firstly, because in Akkadian initial _w_ does
not show up and secondly, because the semantic connection is
unclear. Both points are addressed by Vennemann (p. 358-59),
particularly the Akkadian forms are supported by forms from Arabic and
Ethopian showing initial _w_.  Moreover, according to the literature
(e.g. Lipinski 1997:114-115, Huehnergard 2000:588), initial _w_ is
lost only in Old Babylonian times, but it is safely attested for the
earlier stages. To indicate that an Akkadian form is attested both,
with and without initial _w_ (depending on dialect and historical
stage), the standard dictionary on Akkadian, von Soden 1965ff, puts it
in brackets (see e.g. von Soden 1965ff:1461, 1464), a convention that
is adopted by Vennemann.

- The rejection of Vennemann's suggested etymology for E _ward_ does
not correctly incorporate Vennemann's proposal. First, the meaning of
Gmc.  *_ward_- is 'to guard, to look for' and not that of E _ward_
(p. 360 "ausschauen, bewachen"). Second, the semantic connection is
supplied by Vennemann (p. 360), which is omitted in the review.

- The reviewer (p. 11) does not mention that for the traditional
etymology of G _Erde_, E _earth_ (p.254) Vennemann refers to the
Proto-Semitic root which has the same third consonant as Arabic.
Therefore, the argument that Vennemann uses only the Arabic form is
invalid. The exact correspondences between various Semitic languages
are pointed out in e.g. the comparative Semitic grammar by E. Lipinski
(1997:150).

- The review rejects the proposed etymology for G _Volk_ simply by
claiming that "there is no semantic basis for this suggestion"
(p. 11), disregarding the detailed explanation provided by Vennemann
(p. 665-666).

- It is not clear why the reviewer rejects the proposed etymology for
G _Haus_. Contrary to his claims (p. 11), Vennemann does not posit an
equation with L _casa_ and G _Haus_ does not have any IE cognates
according to the German etymological dictionaries (e.g. Kluge 2002,
s.v. _Haus_).

- The reviewer claims that Vennemann does not supply a Semitic cognate for
WGmc. *_farh_-. However, in the relevant article (ch. 19), it becomes clear
with which Semitic root Vennemann connects the Germanic word. On p. 664
Venemann (19.3) explains the morphological connection to Semitic _plh!_ 'to
furrow', and on p. 665 the semantic link to WGmc. *_farh-_ is elaborated
on.

- The review (p. 9) criticises Vennemann's etymology for G _Ruß_ for
"barely" having acoustic resemblances to the Semitic root in question.
However, as Vennemann (p. 256) states, a Semitic form *_qt!-r_ is likely to
have been borrowed as Paleo-Gmc. *_kh-r-t'-_ which regularly would have
yielded Gmc. *_hr-t'_(Grimm's Law and metathesis or slope displacement of
the _r_, cf. Vennemann 1984, 1988:58), e.g. OS _hrôt_. The reviewer omits
these facts, as well as the semantic explanation Vennemann gives (p. 256).
By the way, his own explanation cannot account for OS _hrôt_ because he
does not give a source for the _h_. A look into a Germanic grammar would
have revealed the phonological regularities.

- In his rejection of Vennemann's etymology for E _apple_ (p. 11), the
reviewer claims that there is no similarity between the Semitic and the
Germanic etyma. However, in ch. 18 (p. 624), the correspondence is
explained: Grimm's law changes a borrowed, pre-Germanic *_b_ regularly into
Germanic *_p_. Two more cases, in which the reviewer does not consider
Grimm's Law: 1. Vennemann's etymology for G _Heer_. The Proto-Semitic
"emphatic velar plosive _q!_" (p. 11 the reviewer's transcription) is
highly likely to yield Gmc. *_h_. 2. Vennemann's etymology for G _Eber_:
PrSmc. *_p_ (Akkad. _appârru_, Arab. _'ifr_ p. 252) regularly corresponds
to Gmc *_b_ according to Grimm's and Verner's Laws.

In addition, the review frequently makes sweeping claims which are not
substantiated by arguments, but only by references to a selection of
the literature which is either not representative, or quoted
incorrectly and/or incompletely.

- The reviewer quotes from Trask 1997 to reject Vennemann's
reconstruction of Old European as Palaeo-Basque. However, it is not
mentioned that Trask (1997:367) confirms the high frequency of initial
_a_ for Proto-Basque as well as for Old European and the agglutinative
character of both languages.  In particular, he does not show
"problems associated with all V.s examples one after another" (p. 7 of
the review). Trask 1997 only criticises a few features, among them the
etymology for the name of the city of Munich, but he does not mount a
full-scale criticism (see Trask 1997:367). That Trask 1997 does not
dismiss Vennemann's ideas as "non-serious" (review, p. 7) is clear
from the very fact that he discusses them in his standard textbook on
the history of Basque. In particular, Trask (1997:367) makes it quite
clear that Vennemann's position is not at all badly researched: "none
of these objections is necessarily fatal to Vennemann's position, but
they are far from helpful, and I would suggest that what Vennemann has
identified, is at best an agglutinating language that looks very
little like Basque."

- P. Kitson may be an important expert (p. 9), but on closer
scrutiny his arguments do not vindicate any of the drastic conclusions
presented in the review. Kitson (1997:83) claims that "nearly every
one of his [Vennemann's R.M.] examples is suspect as one or more of:
falsely segmented, not 'Old European', or not even a river name"
(quoted also by the reviewer, p. 8).  However, Kitson 1997 backs his
claims up with only one example each (fn.  14, 15), which is hardly
enough to say "nearly every one". In addition, Kitson 1997 overlooks
that in the relevant article (ch. 6, p-147) Vennemann specifically
includes other toponyms (especially settlement names) in his
hypothesis ("more generally, [...] the Old European toponymy").
Moreover, Kitson's claim that _Acrista_ and _Indrista_ are falsely
segmented by Vennemann suffers from a an obvious flaw: Kitson (1997:83
fn. 15) posits that in both names the _r_ is part of the root and not
a suffix, which cannot be correct as PIE does not allow roots of the
structure CVCS-; the sonorant S has to be closest to the nuclear vowel
(see any introduction to Proto-Indo- European, e.g. Tichy 2004:35).
Consequently, the two names quoted in Kitson 1997 in fact support
Vennemann's hypothesis of a non-IE toponymy. Moreover, Kitson
(1997:105) claims that the IE language which produced the Old European
hydronymy was one which levelled the difference between _o_ and
_a_. However, this cannot be true as Krahe's hydronyms do contain both
_o_ and _a_ e.g. in suffixes (cf. the quotations from Kahe's
Hydronymie in ch. 6), which would be impossible if Kitson 1997 were
correct. Additionally, the reviewer uses the opinion advanced in
Kitson 1997 on the prehistory of Europe to argue against Vennemann's
reconstruction (p. 9). It should be evident that that reference to a
single unfounded account is hardly enough to reject Vennemann's
proposal so decidedly.

- The review (p. 13) claims that "even the greatest linguists would
not attempt historical reconstruction going back to the fifth
millennium BC" without supplying examples, yet there are entire
branches of historical linguistics that reconstruct proto-languages
without attestations, e.g.  works by reputed authors such as
J. Kurylowicz, W. P. Lehmann, J. Jasanoff, O.  Szemerényi and many
others who have researched stages of languages before attestations.

- The reviewer cites Trask (1997:367) who argues that Schmid (1987) has
"pointed out that a number of morphs found in these old hydronyms can be
straightforwardly identified with Indo-European morphemes". What is
omitted, however, is the fact that Schmid (1987:328) explicitly states that
his approach only works "if attempts to reconstruct a protolanguage are
abandoned", which is a significant deviation from the general opinion on
Indo-European. As Kitson 1997 and Trask 1997, two out of three "important
experts" named in the review (p. 9), base their judgment about the origin
of the toponymastic language only on Schmid's idiosyncratic ideas, their
point is weakened considerably.

- The reviewer's claim (p. 14) that "the languages do not borrow
general ideas of structure one from another [sic]" rests on a fundamental
misunderstanding. Vennemann does not claim that Germanic borrowed the
concept of ablaut from Semitic. Instead, he refers to over-generalisation
in a situation of second language acquisition (p. 626). Apart from that,
the reviewer here shows a lack of familiarity with the theory of language
contact, because there it has been firmly established that right social
situation in principle every feature can be borrowed (cf. Thomason &
Kaufman 1988:48: "In a comparably intense borrowing situation, whole
subsystems or even the entire grammar may be borrowed along with large
numbers of words" (see also Tesch 1979, Appel & Muysken 1987, Mufwene 2001,
Winford 2003, Sankoff 2004).

- In his rejection of the proposed etymology for G _Sippe_ the
reviewer says that the Semitic root "nowhere in Smc. [Semitic, R.M.]
the form similar to Gmc., i.e. without nominal preformative, and with
the meaning 'family' is attested." Unfortunately, the reviewer, who
admittedly had not read the relevant article and in addition seems to
be unfamiliar with the relevant Semitological literature, missed the
reference Vennemann used to establish the Semitic root in form and
meaning: see Lipinski (1997:545):"one cannot forget that _mishApah!â_
[sh used here to indicate the voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant, h!
used here to refer to a voiceless emphatic velar fricative, R.M.]was a
clan or larger family in biblical times, and that _shph!_ means
'posterity' in Ugaritic and 'family' in Punic. This is confirmed by
the most recent Phoenecian-Punic dictionary by C. Krahmalkov
(2000:476).

- The reviewer (p. 12-13) rejects Vennemann's proposals (based on work
by R. Coates) involving various toponyms in Great Britain without
argument, just with the comment "non-convincing". This is clearly not
enough in academic discourse. Moreover, in some instances the review's
argumentation is inconsistent with its own presuppositions.

- The reviewer (p. 9) points out that an etymological dictionary of Afro-
Asiatic, Orel 1995, has been judged as insufficient by Diakonov and Kogan.
However, on p. 13, he uses exactly this dictionary as an authority to
refute two etymologies proposed in Vennemann 2003.

- The reviewer (p.3) says that he "accepts the general principle of
existing of substrata and superstrata and their role in the development and
growth of the languages in condition of language contacts. Our presumption
is only that the existing of such contacts should be proven either by
external or internal evidence beyond reasonable doubts". Firstly, if a
contact situation has been "proven beyond reasonable doubts" one does not
have to argue in favour of it. Secondly, on p. 14, the reviewer says, he is
"not going to check V.'s extra-linguistic data, because we believe that
first the linguistic facts should be proven." This contradicts the quote
from p. 3 where the reviewer explicitly states the equal significance of
external and internal evidence. Consequently, the extra-linguistic
arguments provided in the book under review should have been considered.

Curiously, the reviewer (p. 13) criticises the form of the book and
advises re-writing as well as changing the language to either German
or English.  This not only ignores the reviewer's own judgement that
the book is a "complete failure" but also the fact that it is a
collection of previously published thematic essays, rather than the
author's "magnum opus" (p. 6).  The suggestion that the book under
review is Th. Vennemann's "Lebenswerk" (p. 2), in particular, shows
that the reviewer does not seem to be at home in the world of
Linguistics: The 27 articles of _Europa Vasconica - Europa Semitica_
account for only a fraction of Th. Vennemann's published research;
this author is probably much better known to most linguists for his
work on word order, general and Germanic phonology, and principles of
language change.


Robert Mailhammer
University of Munich


References:

Appel, R. Muysken, P. (1987), Language contact and bilingualism, London

Huehnergard, J.(2000), A grammar of Akkadian, Winona Lake, Indiana

Kitson P. (1996), "British and European river names",
Transactions of the Philological Society 94, 73-118

Krahmalkov, C. (2000), Phoenician-Punic Dictionary, Leuven

Lakarra J. A. (1996), "Sobre el Europeo Antiguo y la reconstrucción del
Protovasco,", Anuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca Julio de Urquijo
(ASJU) 30/1, 1-70

Levin, S. (1995),Semitic and Indo-European: The principal etymologies: With
observations on Afro-Asiatic, Amsterdam

Lipinski, E. (1997), Semitic languages: Outline of a comparative grammar,
Leuven

Mufwene, S. (2001), The ecology of language evolution, Cambridge

Orel, V. E., Stolbova O. V. (1995), Hamito-Semitic etymological dictionary:
Materials for a reconstruction, Leiden

Sankoff, G. (2004), "Linguistic Outcomes of Language contact", in:
Chambers, J. K. ,Trudgill, P. et al. (eds.), Handbook of Language Variation
and Language Change, Oxford, p. 638-668

Schmid, W.P. (1987),"'Indo-European' 'Old European': on
the reexamination of two linguistic terms," in Skomal S. N., Polomé E.C.
(eds.), Proto-Indo-European: The Archeology of a Linguistic Problem.
Studies in Honor of Marija Gimbutas, Washington, DC, 1987, pp. 322-338.

von Soden, W. (1965ff), Akkadisches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Wiesbaden

Tesch, G. (1979), Linguale Interferenz, Tübingen

Thomason, S. G., Kaufman, T. (1988), Language contact, creolization and
genetic linguistics, Berkley

Tichy, E. (2004), Indogermanistisches Grundwissen, 2nd ed.,Bremen

Trask R. L.(1997), The History of Basque. London/New York

Vennemann, Th. (1984), "Hochgermanisch und Niedergermanisch: Die
Verzweigungstheorie der germanisch-deutschen Lautverschiebungen", Beiträge
zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 106, 1-45

Vennemann, Th. (1988), Preference Laws for Syllable Structure, Berlin/New
York/Amsterdam

Winford, D. (2003), An introduction to contact linguistics, Oxford



-----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-15-2644