Bows

[Jess Tauber]

The connection with "back" is folk etymology, perhaps? Note the use of the
term in English itself - bow (for archery) versus bow (to the nobility, for
instance) (and lets not forget boughs. Baying (dogs)?). Not that I'd be
averse to a deep etymological or phonosemantic connection between these and
"back" in IE (anyone know offhand?).

In my analysis of quite a few lexical systems there appears to be a
subcomponent, organized along phonosemantic lines, which characterizes bodily
postures by shape, orientation, tension, etc. and by extension emotional or
health states accompanying them on the one hand, and to properties of
nonhuman entities on the other. Mongolian languages, for instance, have many
hundred such terms, as do Southern Bantu languages. In these language types
such terms are expressives or ideophones. More lexicalized systems (such as
found in western Indoeuropean) appear to have many fewer terms surviving
mostly in derivations or shifted semantically. I wonder whether "bow" is such
a survival here, as in the Native American languages we are looking at.

There is also, here, a connection with raw onomatopoeia: the sound of an
arrowshot, or a gunshot- bow/pow//back/bang  vs takw (and variants).
Interesting shift, no? Also the fact that in use there is always a "backish"
component of action in these weapons- pushing the projectile back (in
muzzleloaders) from the vertical in order to usually point it in the
horizontal, or pulling (for bows), or breechloading (for modern guns), the
"backish" recoil of guns (bows?). As if stiff verticality/straightness was
the expected norm. The projectile is then an intrusive fulcrum, tension
increasing to get rid of it. I also wonder whether kicking and cocking are
part of this phonosemantic set in English.

Jess Tauber
zylogy at aol.com


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