Re: Does every language family contain one with "ma-" "da-" "ta-" words for parents?

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-----Original Message-----
>From: Eldin Raigmore <eldin_raigmore@...>
>Is the following definition correct?
>
>A "ma-" word is or begins with "ma-" or with "ama-" or
>with "mVma-" where V stands for a vowel. A "da-" word
>is or begins with "da-" or "ada-" or "dVda-" where V
>is a vowel.  A "ta-" word is or begins with "ta-" or
>"ata-" or "tVta-" where V is a vowel.
I'd say the definition is more like:

1) A "ma" word contains a bilabial or labiodental nasal followed by an open and/or back vowel.

2) A "da" word contains an apical stop followed by an open and/or back vowel.

3) Every language family contains at least one language with a "ma" word and a
"da" word, one of which is a term for "mother" and the other is a term for
"father".

It's a pretty vague constraint, but we're talking about an awfully large number of
languages, not all of which have the same set of phonemes. I'm tempted to allow
a "weak form" of (1) which is generalized to "any nasal", but I think I'll have
to wait to see how the data comes out before deciding what my claims[*]
actually are.

[*]They're not my claims. Some clever-looking guy on a TV show with lots of long words
claimed it. I'm sure he was clever, he had a beard and everything ;-)

Actually, I recall hearing the same claim from several different sources, though they
were admittedly mostly on the pop end of the scientific spectrum.




Paul