Re: Ablaut and Infix Origins
| From: | Eric Christopherson <rakko@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, February 24, 2008, 8:42 |
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On Feb 24, 2008, at 1:29 AM, Eric Christopherson wrote:
> On Feb 23, 2008, at 10:28 PM, Jeffrey Jones wrote:
>
>> 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
Here's something else I just read, from Andrew Sihler's _New
comparative grammar of Greek and Latin_ (Amazon: <http://
www.amazon.com/New-Comparative-Grammar-Greek-Latin/dp/0195083458/
ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203841422&sr=8-1>; Relevant section
from Google Books: <http://books.google.com/books?
id=IeHmqKY2BqoC&printsec=frontcover&sig=0SXOYO1u9_WAGMKcWJ4Xu5KgeQY#PPA1
09,M1>):
<quote>
Vowel alternations result from commonplace kinds of sound change.
English has vowel alternations which arose at various times from
various causes. Thus the alternations seen in NE [=New, or Modern,
English] _drink, drank, drunk; meet, met; blood, bleed; wise, wisdom;
revise, revision; efficient, effective_ represent six unrelated
patterns, that is, they arose via six different historical
developments. In addition, accidents (such as borrowing or chance
resemblance) on occasion create an appearance of alternation: _cat,
kitten; ill, ailing; choose, choice; bed, boudoir; strap, strop;
whole, hale_.
</quote>
I find it very interesting to learn that the alternations listed all
come from separate patterns, and am especially impressed with his
list of chance resemblances (which I had already read could lead to
novel alternations in the minds of speakers, but had never seen a
list of such words in English).
AFMCL, I made up a list of root words with definitions once, and it
turned out that three of the roots for body parts ended in /?/, quite
by accident! -- a situation which could certainly cause speakers to
infer that /?/ is a body part suffix. If I had instead coined words
with /?/ inside, my speakers might instead have intuited that /?/ to
be an infix.