12.1714, Qs: 'Yesterday' & 'Tomorrow', Syllabic Consonants

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-12-1714. Tue Jul 3 2001. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 12.1714, Qs: 'Yesterday' & 'Tomorrow', Syllabic Consonants

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1)
Date:  Mon, 2 Jul 2001 15:36:52 +1000
From:  Malcolm Ross <Malcolm.Ross at anu.edu.au>
Subject:  History of terms for 'yesterday' and 'tomorrow'

2)
Date:  Mon, 02 Jul 2001 07:45:50 -0000
From:  "Zoe Toft" <zoetoft at hotmail.com>
Subject:   Query re syllabic consonants

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Mon, 2 Jul 2001 15:36:52 +1000
From:  Malcolm Ross <Malcolm.Ross at anu.edu.au>
Subject:  History of terms for 'yesterday' and 'tomorrow'

I am interested in the diachronic origins of terms for 'yesterday'
and 'tomorrow'. In Germanic, Slavic and Oceanic Austronesian
languages, at least, we find terms for 'yesterday' derived from
'evening' (Slavic, Oceanic) and for 'tomorrow' from 'morning'
(Germanic, Oceanic). I have three questions:

1) Is there a Slavonic specialist who can tell me how Russian
/vchera/ 'evening' is related to /vecher/ 'evening'? I take it
/vchera/ is a case-marked form of /vecher/, but I haven't managed to
locate the details.

2) Are there similar developments in other language families? I
assume there are, and I would be grateful for examples.

3) Has anyone written anything about these developments? Perhaps I
have been looking in the wrong places, but almost everything I have
found about the linguistics of time is either about aspect and tense
(like Comrie's excellent works) or has a strong philosophical bias.
The development of lexical items seems too mundane to command
attention.

Please reply to my e-mail address and I will summarise for the list
whatever replies I receive.

Thank you.

Malcolm Ross
-
_____________________________________
Dr Malcolm D. Ross
Senior Fellow
Department of Linguistics
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
Australian National University
CANBERRA ACT 0200


-------------------------------- Message 2 -------------------------------

Date:  Mon, 02 Jul 2001 07:45:50 -0000
From:  "Zoe Toft" <zoetoft at hotmail.com>
Subject:   Query re syllabic consonants

Dear all,

I am a PhD student at the school of Oriental and African Studies in London,
UK and am looking for references on languages with so called syllabic
consonants. Bell (1978) cites 85 languages with syllabic consonants but some
of his original sources have been liberally interpreted for inclusion in
this category and very few provide any sort of phonetic data (which is not
surprising given the age of many of his sources). Therefore I am trying to
update his database and would appreciate your input.
Blevins (1995:220) provides a table on the parametric variation in syllabic
segments, ranging from Kabardian, which only allows non high vowels as
syllabic segments, to Imdlawn Tashlhiyt Berber which allows all types of
segments, including fricatives and stops, to be syllabic segments. I would
like to find more examples for inclusion in her table: Do you know of
languages which allow for rhotic but not lateral or nasal sonorants as
syllabic constituents (cf Sanskrit)? Or languages which allow for fricative
syllabic consonants, but not stops (cf Dakelh/Carrier)?. I would be
particularly interested to hear of a language where voicing plays a role in
the potential of a segment to be syllabic: if we accept a general version of
the sonority hierarchy (e.g. Katamba 1989:104), voiced segments are more
sonorant than voiceless ones and thus one could conceive of a language
which, for example, allows voiced fricative syllabic stops but not voiceless
ones.

Please send suggestions and references to me at:

109299 at soas.ac.uk

If there is interest I will post a summary on the list.

Many thanks,

Zoe Toft


Bell, A. (1978) Syllabic consonants. In Greenberg, J. (Ed.) Universals of
Human Language. pp 153-201
Blevins, J. (1995) The Syllable in Phonological Theory. In Goldsmith, J. The
Handbook of Phonological Theory. pp 206-244
Katamba, F. (1989) An Introduction to Phonology.



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