6.1170, : Kinship Terms

Tue Aug 29 15:27:29 UTC 1995

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-6-1170. Tue Aug 29 1995. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines:  229

Subject: 6.1170, Disc: Kinship Terms

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Editor for this issue: lveselin at emunix.emich.edu (Ljuba Veselinova)

---------------------------------Directory-----------------------------------
1)
Date:  Fri, 25 Aug 1995 20:22:18 EDT
From:  Jefweb at aol.com
Subject:  Disc: Kinship, RE: 1119, 1141, 1143

2)
Date:  Sat, 26 Aug 1995 14:53:07 EDT
From:  Jefweb at aol.com
Subject:  Disc: Kinship terms

---------------------------------Messages------------------------------------
1)
Date:  Fri, 25 Aug 1995 20:22:18 EDT
From:  Jefweb at aol.com
Subject:  Disc: Kinship, RE: 1119, 1141, 1143

This style of post, for its length, is the kind I would like to avoid.
However, I take a few lumps and I have to present my counters.

I said
>   The asymmetry of 'son'  with some of the other kinship terms has been
>pointed out: mother, father, sister, brother and daughter.
>   The '-ster' (as found in Norse borrowed 'sister' ) seems to be the
>feminine agentive, perhaps related to the others, but of a different order.

Leo A. Connolly (1141) responds
No, it is not a feminine agentive.  German _Schwester_ and Dutch _zuster_
also
have -ster with no hint of Norse influence.  By the way, although English
_sister_ is allegedly borrowed from Norse, OE _sweoster_ could perfectly well
have lost its _w_ all by itself, perhaps rounding the following vowel in the
process.  (How about that!  Old English has -ster too!)  [how 'bout a smily
face when you talk to me like that! :- ) - jw]

I repost
Although I'm not quite sure what he imputes to me about "-ster" -- did I say
it was a strictly Norse affix? or that it was not found in OE? The point is
he says "No, it is not a feminine agentive..." (I'm not sure whether he is
saying -ster is not a feminine agentive, or it is not the suffix in sister).
Notwithstanding, the OED has a detailed presentation of the -ster, and its
forms, background, variable uses, exceptions, representation in different
developments, distinctions in Middle English northern and southern use -- all
introduced by [my emphasis] "FORMING FEMININE AGENT NOUNS".

I said
>Iinterestingly, this at-one-time feminine '-ster' is found in 'mister'

LEO AC responded
No way.  _Mister_ is a weakened, or unstressed, form of _master_, which in
turn
derives from Latin _magister_ 'master, ruler, chief', later 'teacher'.  It is
extended from Latin _magis_ 'more', and the root is also seen in Latin
_mag-nus_ 'great'.  But any dictionary contains this information.

Jeff reposts
Not any -- the OED does NOT adhere to the "mister comes from master
conclusion", and separate entries will be found there for 'mister' and
'master'. 'Mister' was during the Middle English period an occupational
status designation (cf. "a man of mester") what one would call the man whom
you dare not by constraints of status call 'sir(e)' or 'lord'. It is not a
designation of comparative superiority, but the reverse. Contrary to the
'more' of Latin  _magis_, the 'mister', adverts to the 'less' of Latin
_minister_ (servant). I can no longer maintain that "mister has a feminine
suffix" and for that, I'll accept the lump, but perhaps only half-a-lump,
because the occupational/agentive '-ster' was widespread and arguably
represented (squirm, squirm) a semantic nexus, a confluence of discrete
developments (cf. gosling/gossip). 'Mister' was accepted because of the same
appearance of its '-ster' with that of the occupational suffix, as in
'Webster', etc.

I said
> "-er" in Germanic is
>in many cases overtly agentive. 'Father' can be argued to have had a sense
>related to occupational 'feeder' in some remote connection

Leo AC says
BTW, it has been claimed that PIE -ter in these forms *was* an agentive
suffix,
but the root would then be _*p at -_ (@ is Schwa, i.e. a vocalyzed laryngeal),
which is not attested in the meaning 'feed'.  Kretzschmer apparently
suggested
that the root (full grade *_po:(i)-_) meant 'protect', but Pokorny
(Indogermanisches etymologisches Woerterbuch) merely mentions this
skeptically.

Scepticism is in order, however we spell it.
>>>

Valuable. He takes what I say out of context:
>chronologically closer, the feminine form of 'father' is given in the OED as
>'foster', from the time when '-ster' was productively feminine.

but he deprived it of its fuller context, I had also said: "father" [in a
clear REMOTE reference, having been discussing Indo_European roots]], can be
argued to have had a sense related to occupational "feeder", and THEN I said
what he quoted.

And Leo AC says
The OED says nothing of the sort!  Did you actually get your magnifying glass
out and look at it? [please use smily faces when you talk like that to me,
bubster! :-)] I did, and found the following.  The more common word
means 'food, nourishment' , later 'guardianship' or 'offspring'. This word
derives from the root PGmc. *_fo:d-_ + the instrumental suffix _-tro-_.  The
consonants aren't quite as neat as the OED suggests, but the etymology seems
on
target.
[that is foster sb1]

[the following one, sb2, which Leo AC DOWNPLAYS, is clearly what I had in
mind and it gives "foster" as food+fem agentive, as opposed to "father",
which I had been discussing, if incorrectly, as food+agentive. This is not
difficult, notwithstanding the points raised about whether the root of
'father' is indeed 'food' or 'protect']

He continues downplayedly,
There is also a much less well-attested OE _fo:stre_ 'nurse' , but OED
derives this from that same root *_fo:d-_ + the feminine agentive suffix. So
this foster is the 'female feeder', not the 'female father', whatever that
might mean. [C'mon... female feeder vs MALE feeder]
>>>

Etymology is a tricky business, and I advise paying close attention to the
facts and the acknowledged authorities instead of suggesting
plausible-sounding
new explanations without *careful* research.

[ comment withheld ]
....................................................................

Richard M. Alderson III (1143)
says
First, _mister_ < Latin _magister_ and is not germane to further discussion.

I says
Because of what I have written above, that the OED analysis sees  _mister_ <
Latin _minister_, I want to remove my foot before I close the door.

He says
Second, _foster_ is related to _food_, rather than to _father_.  _father_ <
PIE
*pX-ter-, where *X is usually thought to be *x{^w}, the o-colouring laryngeal
which then connects the PIE etymon with the root *po:- "protect", rather than
the root *pat- "eat".  The suffix *-ter- is the usual agentive; presumably in
origin *pXter- is a nursery word re-analyzed by adult speakers.

[This is the kind of analysis and criticism that I'm looking for, and in this
particular, it is in agreement with Leo A. Connolly above. I find it
convincing and am appreciative -- jw].

The same suffix is seen in _mother_, _brother_, and _daughter_; a related
agentive suffix *-sor- appears in _sister_.  The Germanic *t in the cognate
forms is epenthetic:  A similar *t is seen, for example in _stream_, cf.
Greek
_rheuma_ "stream", Sanskrit _sravati_ "flows".

None of these suffixes is gender-specific.

I say,
It still leaves me wondering about the Germanic -ster feminine agentive in
"baxster", etc. And not that these matters were here addressed specifically,
but additionally, it opens the question of the etymons of the agentive
kinship terms. ??? father = protector;
mother = suckle morpheme; brother = ?; sister = sewer???

Jeffrey Weber
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2)
Date:  Sat, 26 Aug 1995 14:53:07 EDT
From:  Jefweb at aol.com
Subject:  Disc: Kinship terms

A word on 'boy' , 'daughter', 'bond'

Re: boy
E. Cobham Brewer in _Dictionary of Phrases and Fable_ (1899) says: BOY in
sailor language has no reference to age, but only to experience in
seamanship. A boy may be fifty or any other age. A crew is divided into able
seamen, ordinary seamen, and boys or greenhorns. A "boy" is not required to
know anything about the practical working of the vessel, but an "able seaman"
must know all his duties and be able to perform them.

Re: daughter
OED is unsure of the etymologies of 'dautie' and 'daut'. There are other
words that the OED is unable to provide histories for which are, like
'dautie' and 'daut', not unreasonably worthy of examination for a connection
with 'daughter'.

- -------------------
Dautie, dawtie (outside dates 1676,  1823): Sc. -- A person caressed or
indulged: a darling, pet, favorite.

Daut, dawt (outside dates 1500, 1853): Sc. -- to pet, fondle, caress, make
much of.
- --------------------

The discussion of kinship terms seems like its trying occassionally to make a
socio/politico linguistic statement but IMHO is too parsimonious and for its
restraint too vague. Also IMHO the talk of 'bonding' language is interesting
for the points it raises but nonetheless an injection of pop psychology into
the discussion. 'Bonding' (doesn't it) goes back to the Psyche 101 texts of
the 1950's, with the ducklings-in-a-line that bond with anything that moves
and the terry-cloth mothers for baby monkeys to snuzzle up to absent the real
thing. In the late 1960s Lionel Tiger introduced the term 'bond' to explain,
as a genetically selected trait, purposeful cooperation among males developed
through 'the hunt'. In time this discussion of kinship terms will no doubt
meld toward the 'house bond', with its variant use of the root.

Jeff Weber
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