Arabic and IE

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
"Robert R. Ratcliffe" <ratcliff at fs.tufs.ac.jp> wrote:

>Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that the Nostratic idea started in
>the 19th century as a way to link what was then known about language
>families with the Biblical narrative. There were supposed to be three
>families corresponding to the three sons of Noah-- Semitic, Hamitic, and
>Japhetic (IE).  Other families were gradually added.

I believe Pedersen coined the term "Nostratic" in the twentieth
century, but I'll leave Pedersen aside for two reasons: I have
not read him on Nostratic, and I don't think the modern work on
Nostratic (Illich-Svitych, Dolgopol'skij, Bomhard) owes very much
to Pedersen except for the name.

>Now from what (little) I know of the modern Nostratic work, the best, or
>at least most obvious argument for a common link are the similarities in
>the system of pronouns (including the verb conjugation) of IE, Uralic,
>and Altaic.  But AA languages show a radically different system.
>
>[..]
>
>So who does argue for an IE-AA link and why?

Illich-Svitych, Dolgopol'skij, Bomhard, to name a few.

Illich-Svitych's and Bomhard/Kerns' Nostratic dictionaries list a
large number of proposed Nostratic etymologies including IE and
AA reflexes (Illich-Svitych includes only roots that he has
recognized in more than two families, so there are none involving
*only* IE and AA; Bomhard/Kerns if I remember correctly, does
include a number of IE-AA-only proposals).  Each of these
etymologies (and there are many) should be evaluated on its own
merits.  I believe a number of them are quite convincing.

I don't think it's justified to say that there exist *no*
similarities between the verb conjugations of IE and AA.  The
stative/perfective endings (as found in Semitic, Egyptian,
Berber) are readily comparable to the IE perfect and the Hittite
hi-conjugation (as well as the related medio-passive forms).  The
only sound-law that is required is that (pre-)PIE at some stage
changed absolute final *-k (which does not occur in PIE at all)
to *-H2.  We have:

   Proto-Semitic    Egyptian    Hittite       Indo-European
   (Lipin'ski)      (Loprieno)

1. *-ku             -kj         -hi           *-H2e
2. *-ka ~ *-ta      -tj         -ti (-*tHi)   *-tH2e
   *-ki ~ *-ti
3. *-0              -j          -i            *-e
   *-at

1. *-na             -wjn        -weni         *-me(n)
2. *-kanu ~ *-tanu  -twjn       -teni         *-t(H)e
   *-kina ~ *-tina
3. *-u:             -wj         -nzi (*-nti)  *-e:r (*-ent)
   *-a:             -tj

We can reconstruct Proto-Nostratic *-k, *-tk, *-0; *-wen,
*-tkwen, ? (Note that *(s1)tkwen- is the Kartvelian 2p.pl.
pronoun).


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