Re: Just a Little Taste of Judean (Part 2)

Steg Belsky wrote:

> >Si.  And "ese", etc. derives from _ipse_ (as in "ipso facto"), and
> >_aquel_, etc. comes from _ecce ille_, a stronger form of _ille_.
> >Incidentally, Latin for _this_, _hoc_, died out except for the word
> >for
> >"today", _hoy_ < _hoye_ < _hodie_ < _hoc die_ (on this day).  Very
> >nicely distorted, the only remnant of _die_ isn't even a syllable,
> >just
> >/j/.
> Wait...so how many Latin words are there for "this" ?  Tom said "ille,
> illa, illud" are the forms of "this" where e'l, la, il, elle, etc. come
> from, so then what happened to _hoc_?
Well,  "hoc" et al. were "this";  "ille" "that"; "iste" was (IIRC)
"that", as in "*that* man is someone I just can't stand" (negative
tone).   "Hoc" dropped out of the language (except in some phrases,
as others have mentioned;  German "heute" comes from Latin "hodie",
having undergone the High German soundshift);  "ille" developed into
the articles;  "iste" had various fates, sometimes being dropped (I think)
and sometimes become a regular demonstrative.

> So, let's see...in Judean _hoc_ would be pronounced [hox].  And if the
> [x] gets absorbed before other consonants, there could be:
> (using the previous possible words)
Wait:  what's causing the fricativization?  Normally, when phonological
rules come along, they're generalized as much as possible, so that, e.g.,
all final voiceless stops will fricativize (or something like that).  If
such a rule came along, you'd have <p> and <t> becoming /f/ and
/s/ (or /T/) respectively.  (Of course, this may not affect your language
much if you don't have many final stop consonants).

Here's a question:  I seem to remember linguists reconstructing
a /T/ phoneme for Protosemitic; is that true, and if so, did it survive
into any stage of Hebrew?

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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

There's nothing particularly wrong with the
proletariat. It's the hamburgers of the
proletariat that I have a problem with. - Alfred Wallace
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