Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc. (was Re: 'out-' affix in conlangs?)

On Aug 18, 2008, at 7:50 AM, Eugene Oh wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 1:17 PM, J R <tanuef@...> wrote:
>
>>
>> Hebrew had such a change word-initially. See for example Arabic /
>> walad/ vs.
>> Hebrew /jElEd/ 'boy'. A certain amount of morphophonemic variation
>> was
>> created - 'to be born' shares the same root, but still contains /w/:
>> /l@hiwwaled/. (And in Modern Israeli Hebrew of course /w/ is
>> pronounced
>> /v/,
>> but that's another matter.)
>>
>> The ubiquitous conjunction /w@/ 'and, but, change tense', did not
>> undergo
>> this change.
>>
>> And the word for 'rose' actually didn't either. My etymological
>> dictionary
>> says it's a borrowing, ultimately from Iranian.
>>
>> Josh Roth
>
>
> Ah, illuminating indeed! Many thanks. It seems like a valid
> inference, from
> that, that the Arabic trivocalic system, rather than being the
> archetypal
> "simple predecessor" is actually the product of vowel simplification
Could you elaborate on this?

> (reminds me of someone's theory that the Arab's developed guttural
> sounds
> and simple vowels due to the harsh desert conditions-- was it Sapir?).
>
> And of course I agree with Benct in clamouring for an explanation
> of the
> conjunction that means "change tense"!
Check out < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waw_(letter) >, under "Words
written as vav". Namely:

> Vav Consecutive (Vav Hahipuch, literally "the Vav of Reversal"),
> mainly biblical, commonly mistaken for the previous type of vav; it
> indicates consequence of actions and reverses the tense of the verb
> following it:
> when placed in front of a verb in the imperfect tense, it changes
> the verb to the perfect tense. For example, yomar means 'he will
> say' and vayomar means 'he said';
> when placed in front of a verb in the perfect, it changes the verb
> to the imperfect tense. For example, ahavtah means 'you loved', and
> ve'ahavtah means 'you will love'.
> (Note: Older Hebrew did not have "tense" in a temporal sense,
> "perfect," and "imperfect" instead denoting aspect of completed or
> continuing action. Modern Hebrew verbal tenses have developed
> closer to their Indo-European counterparts, mostly having a
> temporal quality rather than denoting aspect. As a rule, Modern
> Hebrew does not use the "Vav Consecutive" form.)
>
I have been told that the two morphemes are merely homophones and not
the same, but I'm not sure... I wonder if you could use both of them
on the same word?