tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6092202804301639769.post4385622597508396619..comments2023-08-25T03:19:21.216-06:00Comments on Stæfcræft & Vyākaraṇa: "Path of Fire" and other dangerous paths: a translation of Bachchan's अग्नि पथ and some philological discussion (including Proto-Germanic *paþaz)be_slayedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02920742528327860445noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6092202804301639769.post-9263926046625409892009-11-30T08:55:25.977-07:002009-11-30T08:55:25.977-07:00@John: Yes, I recall that glottalic-theory argumen...@John: Yes, I recall that glottalic-theory argument (though I still think it's problematic, given that then we have to assume that Germanic and Armenian are the more conservative languages w.r.t. to the change; and that the other language families (Italic, Greek, Indo-Iranian etc.) all coincidentally underwent the same change...)<br /><br />@theswain: The lack of <i>p</i>-initial words in Germanic can be attributed to the scarcity of <i>*b</i> in PIE. Though there are plenty of words in Germanic which don't have good PIE etymologies, so, yes, there is evidence for some sort of substratal influence in Germanic -- but Germanic is still clearly a PIE language. (Email sent, by the bye, to your gmail address).be_slayedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02920742528327860445noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6092202804301639769.post-40285527478950531102009-11-26T02:07:19.882-07:002009-11-26T02:07:19.882-07:00I think one of the best bits of evidence for the g...I think one of the best bits of evidence for the glottalic theory is precisely this constraint against roots with two ejectives. It's hard to articulate <i>*p'ent'-</i> (the glottalic spelling of traditional <i>*bend-</i>), because you have to change the airstream direction twice in one syllable. Reinforcements are its greater typological normality and the rarity of <i>p'</i>, which is the rarest ejective stop.<br /><br /><i>invite Tandy Warnow as one of our keynote speakers</i><br /><br />Coolness! She's actually principal author on the papers that are CS rather than linguistics (me, I can handle both, despite having no degree in either).John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6092202804301639769.post-60892369695157578952009-11-25T21:31:27.168-07:002009-11-25T21:31:27.168-07:00Thanks, that's very interesting stuff. I'...Thanks, that's very interesting stuff. I've read in recent years that some linguists think that Germanic was not a PIE language or was more heavily influenced by indigenous languages in areas they settled in part on account of the relative lack of initial p words. Could you drop me an email? n I'd like to talk to you about doing something in The Heroic Age and for an encyclopedia.theswainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05919025515524894537noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6092202804301639769.post-30288610468605231672009-11-25T07:15:44.154-07:002009-11-25T07:15:44.154-07:00@theswain:
Initial *p- in Germanic, if inherited, ...@theswain:<br />Initial *<i>p</i>- in Germanic, if inherited, would have to derive from PIE *<i>b-</i>, a sound which is very rare in PIE, and in any case there are no other reasons to posit a PIE root *<i>bend</i> (and anyway there appears to have been a morphonological constraint in PIE against roots with two voiced,unaspirated consonants which would rule out *<i>bend</i> anyway).<br /><br />Another apparent Iranian loan into Germanic, again with initial <i>p-</i> is attested by Gothic <i>páida</i> "jerkin, coat", also OE <i>herepād</i> (<i>Bwf.</i> 2258).be_slayedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02920742528327860445noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6092202804301639769.post-89390180109591973792009-11-24T17:47:08.966-07:002009-11-24T17:47:08.966-07:00Thanks, very interesting stuff.....I seem to remem...Thanks, very interesting stuff.....I seem to remember reading somewhere that Germanic path was of unknown origin....could you expand on that part a little? IN any case, a very interesting post, thanks.theswainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05919025515524894537noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6092202804301639769.post-15173066036173433072009-11-24T10:27:50.006-07:002009-11-24T10:27:50.006-07:00Hi John. Thanks - I know Ringe et al.'s work o...Hi John. Thanks - I know Ringe et al.'s work on IE trees. In fact, on the basis of my interest in this work, I put in a (successful) request to invite <a href="http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/tandy/" rel="nofollow">Tandy Warnow</a> as one of our keynote speakers (she's one of the co-authors in some of the Ringe et al. papers on IE trees) for the <a href="http://ills.linguistics.illinois.edu/current/speakers.html" rel="nofollow">2nd annual ILLS conference to be held here at UIll this summer</a>.be_slayedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02920742528327860445noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6092202804301639769.post-81035276713065442122009-11-24T10:09:43.001-07:002009-11-24T10:09:43.001-07:00Oops, forgot to link Ringe & Co. The key pape...Oops, forgot to link <a href="http://www.cs.rice.edu/~nakhleh/CPHL/" rel="nofollow">Ringe & Co.</a> The key papers are #10 (Ringe et al. 2002) for the basic tree and #4 (Nakhleh et al. 2005) for the three contact edges.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6092202804301639769.post-86759348272088076612009-11-24T10:06:33.950-07:002009-11-24T10:06:33.950-07:00Ah, yet another bit of evidence for the Eastern or...Ah, yet another bit of evidence for the Eastern origin of Germanic. Don Ringe & Co. found that the best IE <i>Stammbaum</i> looks like this: Anatolian splits off first, Tocharian next, and Italo-Celtic next. Then comes Germanic, then Armeno-Greek, then Balto-Slavic, and lastly Indo-Iranian. (The evidence for Armeno-Greek is slender but quite solid.) Albanian is effectively irresolvable because the diagnostic morphology is gone and the lexicon is layer upon layer of borrowings from other IE languages, except that it can't be a sibling of any of the first three families.<br /><br />But that doesn't explain everything: the resulting tree is still inconsistent. It can be made consistent, however, by postulating three lexical borrowing interchanges (no way of knowing which way the borrowing went): one between Proto-Italic and Proto-Germanic, a later one between Proto-Germanic and Proto-Baltic, and finally a weak one between Proto-Greco-Armenian and Proto-Italic, which looks very odd geographically until we realize that Proto-Italic wasn't necessarily spoken in Italy at all.<br /><br />(Actually, I have no idea whether or not 'path' is already in the Ringe/Taylor database of IE lexical changes.)<br /><br />The other useful bit of evidence is the word <i>Harvaða-fjollum</i> in an old and mysterious bit of verse in the <i>Saga of King Heidrek the Wise</i>, which when you run it back through Grimm's Law turns out to mean "Carpathian fells" (with regular f > v in ON), shows that the Germanics spent time in South Central Europe.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.com