Re: Paleoasiatic (was: Favourite Language Group?)

Quoting Tim May <butsuri@...>:

> Tim May writes:
>  > |Numerals
>  > |
>  > |Nivkh has specific sets of numerals for the enumeration of various
>  > |categories of objects - boats, people, animals, fishing-nets, small
>  > |round obj.cts, etc.  Panfilov (1962) lists 26 such sets.  For example,
>  > |`three' with reference to people is _t'aqr_; to animals, _t'3m_; to
>  > |sweep-nets, _t'for_; etc.  It is noteworthy that the palatalised t'
>  > |remains stable as initial in all variants, an the same stability
>  > |applies in other numbers.  Thus, _n'_ is the initial for the 26
>  > |variants of _n'im_ 1, and m is the initial for all variants of _mim_ 2.
>
> Incidentally, those 's should be prime marks, signifying
> palatalization, rather than single quotes or apostrophes, which
> signify aspiration.
For me, apostrophes or single quotation marks always mark glottalization,
inasmuch as that is the convention used in the IPA itself, and I find
the various ASCII-fication schemes to be confusing and misleading on
this point if one's background is in linguistics.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier            "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

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