Refining early Basque criteria

[Patrick C. Ryan]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear Larry and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Larry Trask" <larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 1999 10:45 AM

> Pat Ryan writes:

> [on Mama-papa words like Basque <ama> 'mother']

>> I feel that you may be mixing apples with oranges here.

>> I would, myself, be quite sceptical of any claim that an imitative word like
>> <miau> indicated anything more than an attempt to capture the quintessential
>> acoustic impression of a cat-call.

>> But, 1) there is nothing "imitative" about <ama> for 'mother';

> Agreed, but I didn't mean to say there was.  The point is not that such words
> are imitative; the point is that they are *motivated*.

>> 2) more importantly, <ama> does not have the form we would expect from
>> childish babbling, which, I hope you would agree, would be along the lines
>> of C(1)V(1)C(1)V(1).

> Yes; babbling is stereotypically of the form CVCV (reduplicated).  But not
> invariably so.

No, but for your argument to be plausible, *(?)ama would have to be frequent
enough to be widely accepted as a word for 'mother', is that not correct?

>> I gladly concede that <mama>, <d/tad/ta>, <kaka>, etc. are childish attempts
>> to render other words, e.g. <*?ama> and <*?atV>, etc.

> Oh, no -- this is not the point at all.  See below.

Perhaps not your point! But it is my point.

>> but there is nothing that I know which *necessitates* or universally
>> *inclines* children all over the world to connect /m/ with 'motherhood' or
>> /d/ or /t/ with 'paternity' --- short of some universalistic sound-symbolism
>> argument, which I provisionally do not accept.

> No; this is a misunderstanding.

> Children do not make any such connections as those suggested at all.
> The point is that nursery words are *not* invented by children: they are
> invented by adults.

> Once children reach the stage at which they are beginning to have enough
> control over their vocal tracts to produce speech sounds consistently, they
> behave in a highly consistent fashion, as argued by Jakobson as long ago as
> 1941. The first vowel they learn to produce is [a] -- the easiest vowel to
> produce, since it requires minimal tongue action.  The first consonants they
> produce are labials -- [m], [b], [p] -- presumably because these require no
> tongue control.  The next consonants they learn are coronals -- [n], [d], [t]
> -- presumably because these require no more than the raising of the tip/blade
> of the tongue.  Velars, which require bending of the tongue, come later, as
> do other consonants.

> Accordingly, the first consistent noises the eager parents hear from the
> child are things like [(m)ama], [(b)aba], [(p)apa], followed by [(t)ata],
> [(d)ada], and so on.  It is at this point that the delighted parents decide
> that their child is trying to speak -- which is very doubtful -- and assume
> happily that the little bugger is trying to say 'mother' and 'father'.  The
> assumption that the kid is trying to say 'mother', rather than 'tickle' or
> 'telephone' or 'banana' is one made *entirely* by the parents.  Jumping to
> this conclusion, the happy parents begin to speak back to the child, using
> what they fondly -- but wrongly -- believe to be the child's own words.  In
> this way, such "mama-papa words" -- as we call them -- can become
> institutionalized in adult speech.

This scenario is attractive but rather weak when carefully considered.

Unless you are arguing that *mama almost invariably is produced *first*, and
that the mother is inclined to accept the baby's *first* "word" as referring
to herself, then it is equally likely that the mother will reinforce *baba
or *papa as a selfg-designation --- a very rare occurrence.

> So, such words recur in lots of languages as a direct consequence of the
> observable universal progression of speech-sound production in infants,
> coupled with the widespread tendency of parents to interpret these early
> sounds as having specific meanings.  That's all.

Merely adding parentheses to *mama {*(m)ama} does not responsibly address
the argument, IMHO.

>> I would suggest rather that these very ancient words have been retained in a
>> substantially unchanged form because of the strong emotional significance
>> they have in most human societies.

> But this is fanciful, and there exists a far simpler explanation.  Just
> listen to an infant producing its first speech sounds, and you have your
> explanation.  Nothing more elaborate is called for.

I have listened to children making their first "noises" and am under the
impression that oral consonants are produced before nasal ones. Is that
incorrect?

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
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