h- in Turkic

[manaster at umich.edu]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Sasha raises important points to which I respond
briefly below.  I do not strongly disagree with
anything he says, but I do feel that the subject
should not be closed.
 
On Sat, 31 Oct 1998, Alexander Vovin wrote:
 
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> Alexis,
>
>       I think your message regarding initial h- raises one important
> methodological issue. Namely, can we allow a reconstruction of a segment
> for a proto-language that is preserved in a single language of otherwise
> big language family, and for which there is no second independent
> evidence? It seems that you would answer that question in the affirmative
> in this particular case,
 
My answer is: It depends.  Some syllable-final consonants in
Uto-Aztecan survive only in Tubatulabal.  Some IE laryngeals
survive only in Hittite.
 
> although I remember that once you yourself were
> bashing (quite justifiable, in my opinion, a person X from Moscow
> Nostratic school for search of IE and Nostratic accent distinctions
> uniquely preserved in Bengali).
 
But that is not the only or main reason I was bashing them!
 
> I would hate to disagree with you on
> Khaladj h-, but I think I have to.
 
But I have not taken a strong enough position on Khalaj h-
for anyone to be able to disagree with.
 
> I would answer in the negative to the
> question I posed above, although I think that some exceptions could be
> allowed when a language that unikely preserves segment X, is on the top of
> the branching. In all other cases it is much safer to reconstruct
> something, especially something radical, like PT *h- on the basis of two
> independent pieces of evidence. Khaladj is probably *close* to the root of
> Turkic tree, but it does not represent primary branching, I think. It will
> be dangerous enough to reconstruct PT *h- on its sole evidence (although I
> think that this might eventually turn out to be true -- let us see), but
> looking for the traces of something Nostratic in khaladj *only*, does not
> seem to be very realistic.
 
I did not say that this IS so, only that it is a hypothesis
I would like to investigate.  You should anyway be happy because
you are the one who made me see that it could not just be *p-.
But anyway it may simply be that Khalaj, in addition to
what I call Ataturkish (haha), is the only Turkic language
I am fairly comfortable with, but it sure FEELS to me
like the h- is a real well-established feature here, and
I would hate to have to assume that it is purely one of
those mysterious that so many language make ex nihilo.
 
Anyway, you are right that all by itself the whole thing
would be somewhat improbable, but I do have some other ideas re
Altaic *w-.  Moreover, while no living Turkic language
has anything that looks like a regular reflex of Altaic
*p- or *w-, I am not yet ready to dismiss some of Doerfer's
claims for older stages of the Turkic.
 
In sum, if I choose to waste my time pursuing the
possibility that the Khalaj h- is a reflex of something
old, that should not worry you too much(:-).  Of course,
I have cagily enough NOT been doing so.  Rather I keep
trying to get someone else to waster THEIR time checking
this out(:-).
 
Alexis