Ablaut et al

[Rory M Larson]

Bruce wrote:
> examples are (capital letters indicate 'emphatic' or pharyngealized 
consonants) 
> qaTT 'carve, cut, trim', qaTa' 'cut off', qaSS 'cut, shear, cut off', 
qaTaf 'pick (flowers),
> pluck off, cut off', qaTam 'cut off, trim', qadd 'cut lengthwise into 
strips', qaSur 'be short',
> qasam 'divide, split'.  Another group is nabagh 'emerge, appear', naba3 
'spring forth, gush out',
> nabaT 'well out, gush out', nabat 'grow (as of plants)"
> I'm not sure that anyone has suggested what the final consonants mean 
and they aren't I think
> ever regarded as suffixes, but of course they may have originally been 
that. Generally they
> can't be attributed specific meanings now.

Looking at these examples, I'm struck by their similarity to Siouan words 
with instrumental prefixes.  Perhaps it is not the first element that is 
the original Semitic verb root, but the second.  The first element would 
then be a standard classificatory prefix telling how the verb action took 
place, with the second element being the verb proper.  Thus, *qaT- would 
be pretty much the same as Dakota ba-, Omaha ma-, Osage pa-, "by cutting", 
with *-T, *-a, *-S, *-af, *-am and *-d being the truncated remains of 
various particular verbs that might or might not be done by cutting. 
Similarly, *nab- would mean "emergently", with *-agh, *-a3, *-aT and *-at 
representing various other verb roots that might or might not involve 
coming out.

Thanks, Bruce, for a very stimulating post!

Rory





shokooh Ingham <shokoohbanou at YAHOO.CO.UK> 
Sent by: Siouan Linguistics <SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu>
09/01/2011 08:27 AM
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Re: Ablaut et al






Dear Paul,
Nice to hear from you.  I don't think I've seen you since 1999 in 
Saskatchewan.  The Winnebago examples are rather what I was wondering 
about i.e. does it point to an earlier monosyllabic, possibly final 
consonantal, stage for Siouan?  I realize that this, if it were the case, 
would only be one earlier stage and wouldn't exclude an even earlier stage 
which was not necessarily monosyllabic.  I know one can go on for ever 
like this, but I am retired and have a lot of time to think and often find 
myself speculating about linguistic prehistory.

For the Semitic case Greenberg gives various groups of verbs with 
relatable meanings.  I'm not sure whether the idea originates with him or 
whether it had been remarked on earlier.  The early Arab grammarians also 
remarked on it and referred to it (I think) as 'The Great Derivation', but 
they exaggerate the case somewhat and it obviously isn't 'derivation' in 
the usual sense.  He also suggests that although verbs were originally 
monosyllabic, the addition of the third consonant made the majority 
disyllabic and then the remaining monosyllabic ones were reanalyzed as 
having a geminate final consonant as in qaTT, GaSS, qadd below, or as 
having a medial semi-vowel realised as a long vowel as in qaal 'to say', 
zaal 'to cease' etc.

examples are (capital letters indicate 'emphatic' or pharyngealized 
consonants) 
qaTT 'carve, cut, trim', qaTa' 'cut off', qaSS 'cut, shear, cut off', 
qaTaf 'pick (flowers), pluck off, cut off', qaTam 'cut off, trim', qadd 
'cut lengthwise into strips', qaSur 'be short', qasam 'divide, split'. 
Another group is nabagh 'emerge, appear', naba3 'spring forth, gush out', 
nabaT 'well out, gush out', nabat 'grow (as of plants)"
I'm not sure that anyone has suggested what the final consonants mean and 
they aren't I think ever regarded as suffixes, but of course they may have 
originally been that. Generally they can't be attributed specific meanings 
now.

In some ways the above cases are not unlike the Lakota sound symbolism 
phenomenon where s> š> ȟ etc, giving different meanings, which can in 
some but not all cases be seen to increase intensity, but where the 
relationship cannot be stated in a consistent way such as sóta ’clear’, 
šóta ’smoky’, ȟóta ’grey’; sápa ’black’, šápa ’dirty’; zi ’yellow’,ži 
’tawny’, ǧi ’brown’. 

I suppose the flick, flutter etc group is similar to the slip, slither, 
slimy, sloshy, slurp, sluttish? group, which I would see as a development 
out of onomatopeic words.
Yours
Bruce


--- On Thu, 1/9/11, voorhis at WESTMAN.WAVE.CA <voorhis at WESTMAN.WAVE.CA> 
wrote:

> From: voorhis at WESTMAN.WAVE.CA <voorhis at WESTMAN.WAVE.CA>
> Subject: Re: Ablaut et al
> To: SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu
> Date: Thursday, 1 September, 2011, 4:37
> Bob & Bruce,
> 
> Just going by memory here: I don't have the books at hand
> for reference,
> but don't a lot of the words where accent would predict a
> final
> consonant in Dakota according to Shaw actually appear with
> the final
> consonant in Winnebago: sep 'black', shunk 'dog', phec
> 'fire', etc.
> Does this correlate with the Dakota words, or does
> Winnebago just drop
> some or all final vowels?  Someone with the reference
> works handy will
> have to check it.
> 
> As for the Semitic stem extensions, you can't just randomly
> add extra
> consonants to get new roots, of course.  Has anyone
> ever explained what
> the assorted suffixes like -f, -m, -r added to qat- might
> mean?  Can
> they be identified with other monosyllabic roots yielding
> even vaguely
> consistent changes in the semantics of the extended roots?
> Exactly the
> same problem arises with Indo-European root
> extensions.  It looks to me
> like the same thing as seeing an original root fl- in
> flicker, flit,
> flash, flip, and flutter.
> 
> Paul
> 
> 
> On 8/30/2011 12:42 PM, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> > Bruce,
> >
> > This is indeed an interesting topic.  There is a
> close correlation
> > between Shaw's (and Carter's, etc.) Dakotan
> "consonant-final stems"
> > and stems where the other Siouan languages have long
> vowels.  The
> > rule seems to have been:  If the 1st syllable is
> long, it is
> > accented; if it is short, accent the 2nd
> syllable.  Or, it could be
> > phrased in terms of morae.  This begs the
> question whether or not
> > Dakota had final vowels in the initial accent
> words.  I'm off this
> > afternoon on a short trip up to Omaha and Council
> Bluffs and will
> > return to this issue when I get back.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Bob
> >
> > ________________________________________ From: Siouan
> Linguistics
> > [SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu]
> on behalf of shokooh Ingham
> > [shokoohbanou at YAHOO.CO.UK]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2011 7:23 AM
> > To: SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu
> Subject: Ablaut et al
> >
> > --- On Mon, 29/8/11, rankin at KU.EDU<rankin at KU.EDU> 
> wrote:
> >
> > Bob, This is in reply to your earlier message , where
> you sent your
> > article on Mississipi Valley Siouan "Ablaut". 
> Thanks very much for
> > that.   I found it very interesting and
> noticed that you mentioned
> > Shaw's work on Dakota phonology, which I read many
> years ago, there
> > being a copy of it in the SOAS library.  One
> thing which interested
> > me in Shaw was her explanation of the exceptional
> initial stress in
> > certain disyllabic stems, káǧa  'to make' being
> one I think. She
> > posits an earlier monosyllabic, final consonantal form
> for these
> > stems such as kaǧ- . I have never seen this discussed
> much and
> > wondered what other Siouanists thought about it. 
> It seems like a
> > very neat analysis and parallels the argument of
> Greenberg about
> > Semitic lexical stems which are now disyllabic in the
> majority such
> > as katab 'to write'.  He suggests that Semitic
> stems were originally
> > monosyllabic (in fact bisonsonantal) and that the
> second syllable
> > (or the third consonant depending on how you look at
> it) is a later
> > addition allowing for lexical expansion, an initial
> qat- 'cut'
> > giving later qata', qataf, qatam, qasar and others all
> realtable to
> > the idea of 'cutting'.  The other advantage is
> that it makes Semitic
> > stems look more like Indo-European ones, which is
> attractive.
> > Without wishing to appear to be talking Nostratic, I
> do like the idea
> > of original monosyllabic stems, but of course it does
> get into
> > difficult ground as to how far back you think you can
> go.  I wonder
> > whether it holds up in other Siouan languages. Bruce
> >
>


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