Proto-Languages Question (reply to rob haden)

--- Rob Haden <magwich78@...> wrote:

> >"He gave sharp swords and broad shields to the
> hero"
>
> I think it should be "heroes," since you gloss the
> word as a plural below.
Yes, you're right.


> >Hinession:
> >Nâ v’asan n’herchein nechver ha rhesein cas penos
> da
> >lâroeu
>
> It seems like Hinession underwent a second shift in
> vocabulary.
Well, only a bit.

The "new words" are:
nechver  "sharp"
 It's from Northern Nindic: nechber "painful"

ha "and"  From N. Nindic hai/ha "also, in addition"

penos "towards"
  From N. Nindic peno/penos "across, over towards"

da "the" From Archaic N. Nindic ta/da "the, that, that
one"

All the rest is derived from the words you see in the
following Classical Nindic example, with minor sound
changes and grammatical changes.

 asan "giving"  from N. Nindic athan "giving", gerund
of ethi "to give", seen in "ethed"

 rhesein "shields" from N. Nindic rhedd "shields" with
an analogical -ein plural ending, which became more
used in Hinession.

> >Cl. Nindic:
> >Ethed naw herchín ethaen ‘bo rhedd cath noth i
> laerwy
>
> It seems that both Cl. Nindic and Hinession actually
> preserve accusative *-
> n.  With Cl. Nindic 'rhedd', perhaps the development
> was *rhredn > *rhedd.
> Does 'naw'/'nâ' mean "he"?
The accusative was definitely lost. Classic Nindic
"rhedd" is pronounced /rED/, the <dd> representing a
fricative derived by intervocalic lenition of the
stop. If the final "n" of the accusative was
preserved, the final vowel would have been preserved:

 *rodajn > rodi:n > ro"Di:n > rEDi: > rEDi <reddi>
 *rodaj  > rodi:  > ro"Di   > rED   <redd>

 The -ein of Hinession <rhesein> comes from the
Classic Nindic -ín plural ending which was greatly
extended in Hinession and later Classic Nindic. It is
from *-ajna, a Common Nindic collective formation.

> >Silindion:
> >Anelë kiréin sampi rondeimma kasta i lairohyanu
>
> I don't see how 'rondeimma' can be from
> *rodnoin-naj.
Well, that's because it's not. <rondeimma> is a
Silindion inovation that did not exist in Silic. It is
the commitative case plural of <rondo> It is derived
from the accusative *rodnoin plus the clitic -ma
"with". It's only used when two nouns are being
linked.

> >Essamea:
> >Nelsi kiree sikkie nee rendee kasta sinjänu läirejä
>
> How can -kk- arise from -pn-?
It can't. <sikkie> is a new word, derived from Silic
*sikkije "fast" Basically like, "fast witted, sharp
witted, sharp, smart" etc. etc.  *sapni would become
**sämpe in Essamea.


> >Nindic:
> >*anta-ti: (o:) sjarski-j itt-ani: emopod roda-j
> kasta
> >give-pst (he) sword-pl bite-prp. and  shield-pl
> broad
> >
> >nods je la:jros-ja
> >unto the hero-pl
>
> If the original genitive was *-di, perhaps 'emopod'
> preserves it?
No, these Nindic and Silic sentences show no sound
changes whatsoever. The sound changes happen a bit
after these examples I guess. They're kind of like
idealized versions of what Nindic and Silic would look
like, if they had preserved everything about the
proto-language's phonology. *emopod "and" comes from
*eme + *opod "on top, in addition" etc.

 The> dative preposition 'nods' seems to be able to be
> analyzed as *nod-s.
> Presumably, this metathesized to *nost giving
> Classical Nindic 'noth'.
Something like this. You're essentially correct. *nods
comes from *nod + s, "s" being the zero-grade of *es
"in"

The
> word for "sword" seems to contain an additional -ski
> element.
Yes, *syarski is the root *SYAR* "strike" with an
instrument derivative suffix.

>
> One correspondence between Silic and Nindic seems to
> be S si(:) : N ti(:),
> implying assibilation in Silic.
The problem with that analyses being that, as I said
before, the Silic and Nindic sentences I gave were
only changed in regard to vocab and grammar not sound.
-ti: and -si: occur both in Silic and Nindic. The
distribution seems to originally have been -si: after
consonant roots, -ti: after vowel roots. This may have
been one morphem at one time, but that time was
pre-Proto-Silinestic, not after it's break up.


Another one is S ki
> : N sja, implying that
> earlier *ki became palatalized with lowering and
> centralizing of vowel
> quality, giving *kja, and then eventually became
> *sja (cf. Indo-Aryan from
> Indo-European).
I dont know where you're seeing this one.

 It's possible that N -ani: in
> 'ittani:' and S -ni (?)
> in 'sapni' are related.
Yes, the -ni: is an adjectival derivation. In Nindic
 ittani: it is added to a verbal noun in -a, giving a
sort of participle. Which exists in Silic as well as
-ani:.

The -ni of *sapni ought to be long. Here it is added
to a nominal root, with no real verbal significance,
hence it's just a regular adjective.

 Perhaps the roots *itt-
> (source for geminate?) and
> *sap- mean "bite" and "cut," respectively.
Right...well, *itt means "prick" and *sap is related
to thorns and what not.

 c.f. Silindion <finto> "pine-tree"  *sp-it-mo
From a zero-vowel grade variant of *sap.

 The
> biggest problem is actually
> the verb: Nindic points to *anta-, while Silic
> points to *nel-.  I'm not
> sure how these two can be related, besides both
> containing an /n/.
They're probably related distantly, in some
pre-Proto-Silinestic way.

Alot of roots in Silinestic seem to have related
sounds and semantics.

*bur "weave"
*buk "spider"
*nol "cold"
*not "snow"
and others that I can't remember right now.
Anyways.. the roots were:

*anta "give"
*ne(l) "give"

Probably from a Primitive Nestic root: *@N@
or something.

Anyways, thanks for your analyses. I enjoyed it.

Elliott

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