r and s in Turkic

Tue Oct 27 14:17:36 UTC 1998

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Dear Lyle:

     Let me throw my two cents into the discussion, as it seems to me you
might oversimplify certain issues.

(1) For the Altaic theory, it really does not matter whether one
reconstructs *z and *sh or *r2 or *l2 (note that *none* of the Altaicists
reconstructs just plain *r and *l here, as it may seem from you posting:
Starostin, for example, following Ramstedt, reconstructs palatalized *r'
and *l'). I, for one, am not convinced that the protolanguage had liquids,
and I though I usually write *r2 and *l2, it is rather due to tradition,
than to an assumption that these are actual liquids. You are certainly
right in pointing out that r > z is less typical than z  > r. But I fail
to see how recognition of proto-Turkic *z rather than *r2 is going to
"disprove" Altaic. It still can correspond to -r- in other languages,
right, and our cognates do not have to be complete look-alikes, right?

(2) I don't think any of turkologists except Shcherbak nowadays support
his idea that *z < *s. There are too many exceptions to the "rules" of *s
> *z that you list, thus, e.g. *ka:z (Chuvash xur) 'goose' does have a
long vowel, but *k"uz (Chuvash ker) does not. Etc., etc.

(3) The theory of wholesale borrowing from Bulgaric to proto-Mongolic
faces many obstacles (some of them unsurmountable in my opinion). First,
it is cyclic by its logic: Turkic "loans" in Mongolic have /r/, therefore
they must be Bulgar loans. But there should be, a second independent
evidence for the fact that these words are indeed Bulgaric loans, apart
from the the /r/ itself. As a matter of fact, this evidence does not
exist. Let me demonstrate it by using the same word for "ox".

(a) First, while there is an initial h- in Middle Mongolian form, which
allows us to reconstruct pre-Mongolic *p-, there is no evidence for
reconstruction of proto-Turkic *p"ok"uz with initial *p-. The only Turkic
language that has initial h- that can be claimed to represent an earlier
*p- is Khaladj, but as far as I know the word is not attested in Khaladj
(or not recorded) (But not eveyone accepts even Khaladj h- < *p-). There
is an initial h- in Uzbek in this word, but it is prothetic, as it doesc
not prtesent a regular reflex of *p- (contrary to Doerfer's claim), e.g.
does not show up in such word as ar "man", where we should expect it if
Uzbek h- were regular. Thus, we end up with Turkic *"ok"uz.

(b) The only actual Bulgar form that we know is Chuvash vAxAr 'ox' (If I
rememnber correctly, the word is not attested in Bulgar inscriptions), and
it *does* represent a series of problems. While initial prothetic v- is in
all probability a late development (it looks like there is no v- in Bulgar
inscriptions, or at least it is difficult to tell), there is no way to
claim that Chuvash vocalism (very different from Common Turkic, and even
today not satisfactorily explained) is a late development, too. Thus, what
basis do we have to say that MM h"ok"ur is a Bulgar loan? It appears that
none, except the final -r-.

(c) summing up, the hypothesis that Mongolic word is a loan from
Bulgar s based on three (sic!) unproven hypotheses: that Bulgaric had *h-
(no traces of it in any of Bulgaric languages) (1), that Chuvash vocalism
is secondary as compared to Common Turkic (2), and that it represents a
late development (3). Thus, the loanword explanation, a hypothesis itself,
is relying on three other hypotheses to be true. It is much more complex
solution than a single hypothesis that words in question represent
cognates.

     Finally, the wholesale loanword scenario is based on one more
hypothesis, again not proven. It presumes that Mongols were in contact of
all Turks with Bulgars. But Bulgars are... the westernmost branch of
Turkic, and there is a zero independent evidence that they ever were in
touch with Mongols (until 13th c.), who came to the territory of Mongolia
from the
territory to the east. The only evidence presented for this brave claim is
again Bulgar "loanwords" in Mongolic with -r. Circularity again, isn't it? 

Sasha

=======================================
Alexander Vovin
Associate Professor of Japanese
Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures
382 Moore Hall
1890 East-West Road
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Honolulu, HI 96822
vovin at hawaii.edu
fax (808)956-9515 (o.)
t.(808)956-6881 (o.)

On Mon, 26 Oct 1998, Lyle Campbell wrote:

> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> In view of the several messages on the problem of Turkic sound
> correspondences involving r (and liquids) and s (and sibilants), I'll throw
> into the mix a small bit about it taken from a recent paper of mine
> evaluating Dolgopolsky's Nostratic.  Since this bit starts with one of
> Dolgopolsky's specific proposed Nostratic forms, the content relevant to
> the discussion of the Turkic problem becomes clear only towards the end of
> it all.  (I claim no first-hand knowledge of the topic, and attribute most
> of the significant content to Juha Janhunen, except for any mistakes I may
> have made -- sorry for any diacritics which do not come across).
>         Lyle Campbell
> 
>         [48] *p'oK'ü 'wild cattle, pack' (Indo-European *pek'u / *pek'we-
> 'cattle'; Altaic *p'ok'ür'- 'bovine animal, bull').  This set clearly
> involves borrowing.  The Altaic *p'ok'ür'-, represented only by Turkic, is
> a clear example of a documented loan, involving one of the strong points
> among the arguments of those who oppose the Altaic hypothesis.
> Proto-Turkic *s split into s and z, and *S ("sh") into S and Z ("zh") in
> specific environments (involving roots of two syllables and with long
> vowels), and then in the highly influential Bulgaric (Chuvash) branch of
> the family z > r, and Z > l.  As a result, words in Mongolian (and
> Tungusic) which have an  r or l corresponding to s, z, S, or Z in other
> Turkic languages can only be borrowings from this branch of Turkic, not
> true cognates to other Altaic languages (or they are accidental
> similarities).  There is a sizeable number of these in the Dolgopolsky's
> putative Altaic lexical comparisons.  In this case, in set [48], the word
> involved is Proto-Turkic *pöküs 'bovine', borrowed from Bulgaric into
> Mongolian and from there on into Tungusic (Janhunen 1996a:240-1, 255).
> This set would be questionable in any case, given the important role of
> cattle in the prehistoric cultures from the area of the Proto-Indo-European
> homeland and in the territory of the various so-called Altaic languages.
>         I should add here that Starostin and Dolgopolsky (in discussion in
> the symposium) disputed this interpretation of the Turkic facts, preferring
> reconstructions of Proto-Turkic which reflect the liquids rather than the
> sibilants and in this way they deny that borrowing is a problem for these
> "Altaic" forms.  This interpretation would require assuming that the
> liquids (l/r) were original and changed to sibilants in certain of the
> Turkic languages, a kind of sound change seldom seen in the world's
> languages, though changes in the other direction are common (as in
> rhotacism).  There is considerable literature precisely on this topic.
> Among Turkologists, those who believe in the Altaic hypothesis (as well as
> Doerfer, who opposes Altaic, though he holds Mongolian forms in these
> comparisons to be Turkic loans) postulate original liquids (which then
> would make the sibilants of other Turkic languages the results of later
> sound changes); those who oppose the Altaic hypothesis (with the exception
> of Doerfer) hold the sibilants to be original (which makes the liquids the
> results of later sound changes).  Put differently, those with a grasp of
> phonological systems and phonetic plausibility all postulate a change of *s
> > z > r  and  *S > Z > l, where the steps in the change are seen as
> incremental, intimately interrelated, and natural.  No one with a sense of
> phonology postulates the reverse, the unnatural and implausible changes of
> *r > z/s  and  *l > Z/S, which are almost unknown in languages elsewhere
> (Shherbak 1986b, Janhunen personal communication).
> 
> [[From:  Campbell, Lyle. In Press. Nostratic and Linguistic Palaeontology
> in Methodological Perspective. In:  Nostratic: Evaluating a Linguistic
> Macrofamily, ed. by Colin Renfrew and Daniel Nettle.  Cambridge: The
> McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.]]
> 