Re: Ablaut and Infix Origins

Jeffrey, 

 

There are several different possible explanations for the development of
ablaut, e.g. stress-related development. Assume you have a language that
regularly stresses the penultimate syllable. Now, suppose a suffix is added,
then the stress shifts to the “new” penultimate, leaving the formally
stressed syllable, unstressed:

 

Take random:                  kána                      *eat

                                               kaná-pa               *ate

                                               kaná-ka               *eaten

 

Now, imagine a development where the language in question undergoes
developments such as vowel-lengthening in open syllables, reduction of
unstressed vowels, nasalisation and backed raising before nasals, but
front-raising before labials (with e.g. lenition of the labial) – all
conceivable developments, and you would get:

 

                                               koon@                  *eat

                                               k@neeb@             *ate

                                               k@naag@             *eaten

 

Another possibility for the development of ablaut could be through
interfering sounds, such as umlaut:

                                               kána                     *eat

                                               káni                      *I
eat

                                               káne                     *you
eat

                                               kánu                     *we
eat

 

might end up as:

                                                kána
*eat

                                               kéni                      *I
eat

                                               káne                     *you
eat

                                               kónu                     *we
eat

 

Now let’s play through the vowel-lengthening and unstressed vowel reduction
again and we get:

                                               kaan@                  *eat

                                               keen@                  *I eat

                                               kaan@                  *you
eat

                                               koon@                  *we
eat

 

Consonants could also change the quality of the root vowel, for example, a
related dialect could have:

                                               kaa
*eat

                                               kaa-be                  *ate

                                               kaa-ge
*eaten

 

Through lenition and loss of /b/ > /B/ > 0 in the –be suffix and lenition
and labio-velarisation of the –ge suffix /g/ > /G/ > /w/ you would get
something like:

 

                                               kaa
*eat

                                               kaae
*ate

                                               kawe
*eaten   

 

and subsequently:

 

                                               kaa
*eat

                                               kEE
*ate

                                               kOO
*eaten                  

 

All these changes only need to happen in a small set of common words for
them to spread by way of analogy through a whole language system. 

 

I hope this gives you a feel for the possible changes involved. This set of
examples is far from complete of course, so you can spend your con-langung
hours coming up with possible alternative scenarios…

 

Hope it helped, 

Dan

 

 

 

                                               

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeffrey Jones
Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2008 5:28 AM
"I don't really understand how ablaut and infixing come about. I've been
trying to find information online with good explanations without any
significant success. I found one paper on the theory of infix origins but it
was very Chomskyan. Another summarized the different types but didn't give a
me "feel" for it. There seems to be even less satisfactory information on
ablaut origins. Apparently all the existing ablaut systems came about
thousands of years ago. Any ideas?

Jeff"