Q: oblique cognates

[Gonzalo Rubio]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 
In his four vol. work _Comparative Bantu_ (Farnborough: Gregg
International Publ., 1967-1971), Malcom Guthrie talked about SKEWED
correspondences or reflexes (of "proto-forms"). These skewed forms are
very probably connected because of their formal and semantic similarities,
but they do not exhibit the regular correspondences one would expect.
 
These skewed correspondences cannot be explained by any specific sound law
or known internal development: Meinhof's rule (deletion of voiced stops in
nasal contexts: C --> 0 /N___VN[C]); Kwanyama law (like Meihof's rule, but
affecting only /mb/ and /nd/); Dahl's law (dissimilation by voicing of /k/
--more or less, the Bantu version of Grassmann's law), etc.  Sometimes, it
may be the case that we are missing information about the internal history
of a concrete Bantu language, but this unknown rule/event would affect
just one or two words... unlikely if it's not by analogy. Moroever (and
more likely) a skewed form might be a loanword from another Bantu
language, instead of a reflex from a "common ancestor" (call it
"Ursprache" if you wish), which would explain the irregularity.
Nevertheless, many skewed forms seem to exhibit different patterns,
suffixes or prefixes, etc.
 
In sum, for some reason we are missing, these skewed forms seem to belong
to a coherent set of cognates but exhibit some irregularities.
 
As far as I know, the only use of SKEWING as a concept in historical
linguistics besides Guthrie's (who coined it, I think) can be found in a
recent book by Patrick R. Bennett, _Comparative Semitic linguistics: A
manual_ (Winona Lake, Eisenbrauns: 1998), pp. 30-31 (see p. 31 for
examples of skewing in Semitic). In many examples from Bennett's, the
skewing depends on the use of different nominal patterns (similar to the
caput/cabeza problem), different vocalizations, different genders,
truncation, expansion, etc. Other examples from Bennett's present just the
usual "irregularities" we all know well (metathesis, prosthesis, etc.).
 
BTW, Bennett's book offers a very useful repertory of materials to teach
Semitic linguistics (lists of cognates, paradigms in many languages, maps
with lexical isoglosses, etc.). The fist part of the book is a sort of
general introduction to historical linguistics, but using Semitic
examples. And the rest is just a very practical collection of lists, maps,
and so on. I am teaching Comparative Semitic Linguistics this semester,
and I recommended the book to my students since all of them know some
Semitic languages (Akkadian, Hebrew, Aramaic, etc.) but few are familiar
enough with historical linguistics.
 
I hope I didn't skew with my reply, and this is, more or less, what Larry
Trask was thinking of.
 
____________________________
 
Gonzalo Rubio
Near Eastern Studies
The Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore MD-21218
gonzalor at jhu.edu
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