Re: Apophony?

In a message dated 4/27/1999 3:38:30 PM, raybrown@CLARA.CO.UK writes:

>At 7:06 pm -0400 26/4/99, Steg Belsky wrote:
>>Just wondering....what is "apophony"?  I was glancing at a book on the
>>history of Hebrew today (a different one than before) and it said that
>>the Semitic "broken plurals" are considered by some to have something
>to
>>do with apophony.  But it didn't explain what apophony is, and none of
>>the dictionaries i looked at had it.
>>
>>So...what is it?
>
>A good question!   So where are the answers I and, I'm darn sure, Steg
>were
>looking forward to reading??
>
>I've met this word in connexion with Semitic broken purals and, searching
>the web in vain today for the _meaning_,  I found it in an article about
>"Proto-Nostratic"!  All very obscure.
>
>Like Steg, I can't find the word in any dictionaries - not even on
limguistics!
>
>And Greek is little help. I find in Classical Greek merely the verb, used
>as a legal term, 'aphpho:neo:' "I depose in evidence".  Doesn't seem to
>have much to do with broken plurals!
>
>So come on - one of you professional linguists must surely know the answer.
>Can't you help us amateurs  ;)
>
>Ray.
Well, I did some searching on the WWW and it seems to be just another word
for ablaut.

Josh (who is not a professional linguist, BTW)
http://members.aol.com/fuscian