Re: Evidence for Nostratic? (was Re: Proto-Uralic?)

On Fri, 4 Jul 2003 16:56:20 +0200, =?iso-8859-1?Q?J=F6rg=20Rhiemeier?=
<joerg_rhiemeier@...> wrote:

>> Also, regarding Ablaut, my hypothesis is that most of the contrasts in
>> vowel quality (e vs. o) were originally contrasts in tone.  It is well-
>> noted that vowels did not undergo alternation in the presence of
>> a "laryngeal" (?, h, x, etc.).
>
>They did, but *e became *a next to *h2 and *o next to *h3.
I disagree with the current laryngeal theory.  I also reject the notion
that PIE's vowel system was centered on [e].  Instead, I think that the
Ablaut alternations came from [a], that is, a low-central unrounded vowel.
This vowel was then fronted and raised when subject to a high tone, and
backed and raised when subject to a low tone.  If this is true, then
current laryngeal theory must be rejected, in favor of a new
reconstruction: "h2" was [h] or [x], and "h3" was likely a labialized
variation of "h2" (akin to plain velar stops vs. labialized velar stops).
There was also "h1" which supposedly only lengthened the vowel, and thus
was likely [h], making "h2" [x] and "h3" [xW].

>Yes.  There were probably several factors affecting vowel quality.
Certainly.  One of them was the apparent rounding and backing of a vowel
before a nasal, as in the thematic conjugation.

>Not all Afro-Asiatic languages are VSO: most Cushitic langauges are SOV,
>and Chadic languages are SVO.  According to some scholars, the three
>branches for which VSO order is typical (Semitic, Berber and Egyptian)
>form a distinct subgroup.  Anyway, a shift in word order wasn't the factor
>that led to the split between A-A and the rest of Nostratic (assuming
>the relationship is real, which might not be the case).
Ah, I was unaware of that.  Obviously, then, PAA had SOV word-order too; it
was only the Semitic/Berber/Egyptian branch that shifted to VSO, for
whatever reason.

>If it occurs only in Hungarian (not even in Ob-Ugric?), then it is
>most likely a Hungarian innovation.  Unless one can prove that Uralic
>is related to some other languages which show something that is
>demonstrably cognate to the Hungarian forms.
That's what I think, too.  Although one could argue that just because no
living Indo-European language has a stative conjugation, doesn't mean it
didn't exist in Proto-Indo-European, and apply that logic to Proto-Uralic.
However, I think we would see more remnants of a stative paradigm in the
living Uralic languages if there had been one in Proto-Uralic.

>Yes; or an agent marker (the difference is that the latter is also used
with
>intransitive verbs with active semantics, such as "to run").
That is certainly possible; however, are there any attested IE languages
which retained an active/stative distinction in intransitive verbs?  I
can't think of any, but then again I'm no expert.

>>      Syntactically/grammatically, this makes sense: the genitive case
>> is the case of origin, and only animate nouns can "originate action"
(i.e.,
>> perform an action).  The problem lies in reconciling this with the
current
>> reconstruction of PIE.  As for the nominative-accusative syncretism, it
is
>> obvious that inanimate nouns could never be grammatical agents, and thus
>> never had a true nominative in PIE.
>
>Exactly.
So you can see how the genitive could arise to be used also as an
ergative/agentive case?

>The distinction between s-stems and thematic stems survived quite well;
>they still were distinct classes in Classical Latin at least 3000 years
>after the breakup of PIE (e.g. corpus, gen. corporis < *corpos-is).
But you also have Latin genus (earlier *genos), gen. generis < *genes-is.
Why wasn't it *genoris?

>Some scholars suspect an adjectival origin for thematic nouns, but that
>remains speculative.
I've also seen this, whereby thematic nouns arose from adjectival genitives
(or genitival adjectives, I'm not sure which one is appropriate, LOL).
However, I don't think that that explains forms such as *wlkWos 'wolf'.

- Rob

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