Search found 510 matches

by Tropylium
Wed Oct 14, 2015 2:58 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Oscan Reconstruction
Replies: 66
Views: 36322

Re: Oscan Reconstruction

A question: de Vaan in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic languages presents a very brief outline of the historical phonology of Latin. However, he does not comment at all on the other Italic languages. Given his list of innovations, which of them can we clearly confirm per Oscan ...
by Tropylium
Mon Oct 12, 2015 4:47 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 529637

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

1) There are no examples of root-final *-sT-, but about five of *-sD-. There are in fact 7 listed, 5 with final *-sd- and 2 with *-sg-. Virtually all of them are suspect in one way or another: *masd- probably does not exist, *rasd- is Italo-Celtic only, and may well be a compound, *pesd- is onomato...
by Tropylium
Fri Oct 09, 2015 5:22 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 529637

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

So, on a whim I've extracted the list of PIE(ish) verb roots from LIV Looking thru the root-final clusters, a few Weird PIE Things: 1) There are no examples of root-final *-sT-, but about five of *-sD-. 2) Examples of root-final *-PH- are quite rare other than *-th₂- (which is common even in three-c...
by Tropylium
Fri Sep 25, 2015 5:55 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: The KneeQuickie still exists [Discussion]
Replies: 35
Views: 11758

Re: The KneeQuickie still exists [Discussion]

I'm guessing one problem ended up being that there never was a very clear division fo work between KQ and Frathwiki (and other places); they regardless had slightly different functionality etc., which in principle could have been leveraged. But at this point, it seems that that ship has sailed.
by Tropylium
Fri Sep 25, 2015 5:18 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Proto-Austronesian Phonology
Replies: 9
Views: 3306

Re: Proto-Austronesian Phonology

This looks like a Fully General Counterargument that doesn't actually allow distinguishing between different proposals. Whenever there's a set of reflexes that's as wide open as here, you can always single out something and point at it and go "but X > Y is not intuitive!". Of course it's not; there...
by Tropylium
Fri Sep 25, 2015 4:15 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Proto-Austronesian Phonology
Replies: 9
Views: 3306

Re: Proto-Austronesian Phonology

- as you say, approximants are weak sounds that are easily lost. So why would, say, an alveolar approximant turn into strong, hard sounds like *s (repeatedly!), Being easily lost doesn't mean it's the only thing they do. Perhaps the most common other sound change affecting /j/ is fortition to somet...
by Tropylium
Thu Sep 24, 2015 6:27 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Proto-Austronesian Phonology
Replies: 9
Views: 3306

Re: Proto-Austronesian Phonology

A recent proposal of Laurent Sagart's is that "*j" should be interpreted as *ɲ. (See also: presentation.)
by Tropylium
Thu Sep 24, 2015 5:33 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 529637

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

At best, there are possible instances of *tʰ, but none of the examples are clinching. Besides, there are clear indications that Greek and IIr. shared innovations (the verbal system, for one - all the other branches have rather different systems, iirc), so it's entirely possible that voiceless aspir...
by Tropylium
Thu Sep 24, 2015 5:02 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 529637

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

in my humble opinion, the trajectories from PIE to the daughter languages become more complex if one assumes the glottalic hypothesis to describe the latest stage of PIE. Hence, while I consider it plausible that it describes some stage of PIE, I don't think this stage is the latest before break-up...
by Tropylium
Thu Sep 24, 2015 4:34 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Palatalization of ejectives
Replies: 22
Views: 6222

Re: Palatalization of ejectives

This could prevent it from being palatalized since /q/ cant be palatalized.* I dont know how you;d poronounce /q_j/, because supposedly it is impossible, but a few languages seem to have it. I don't think it's impossible - at least I think I can pronounce [qʲ]. And as you said, it's at least presen...
by Tropylium
Wed Aug 26, 2015 1:17 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Whence aspirated stops and nasal vowels?
Replies: 70
Views: 20160

Re: Whence aspirated stops and nasal vowels?

about aspirated stops, if one way they can arise is through gemination, but most languages with aspirated stops and affricates don't have aspirated fricatives, what normally happens to the fricatives? Can they just turn into affricates? They just stay geminates in most cases, I believe. /pp/ is [pp...
by Tropylium
Sun Jun 21, 2015 2:30 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 529637

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

Germanic and Italic are unlikely to be more closely related than a common European subgroup, Interestingly enough, I've seen a recent talk handout that claims Italo-Germanic to be about as well-supportable as Italo-Celtic. This does not seem to be online anymore, but here is a list of some exclusiv...
by Tropylium
Sun Jun 21, 2015 7:25 am
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: The Correspondence Library
Replies: 568
Views: 311058

Re: The Correspondence Library

p pʷ k > β w ɣ bʷ g > kpʷ k Wait, what? Voiceless peripheral stops lenite to fricatives and voiced peripheral stops fortite to voiceless stops? IIRC it is more common yet across Oceanic for the stops to have a chainshift along the lines of *p *t *k > *f *θ *x, *b *d *g > *p *t *k. It looks like her...
by Tropylium
Sun Jun 21, 2015 7:10 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 529637

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

I chose nasalisation because it's known to have that effect (voicing adjacent stops), It is? I know of nasalization in nasal+stop clusters (which you could easily get from breaking of preeding nasal vowels), but not of voicing of stops before nasal vowels. if you assume the T series is also aspirat...
by Tropylium
Sat Jun 20, 2015 4:18 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 529637

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

Then some (unknown) vowel feature caused some Ts to attain voicing Perhaps some phonation difference? Seems more likely than Salm's idea of a nasalization contrast, at least. Kortlandt has also suggested in his paper Indo-Uralic consonant gradation more or less the same idea as here, but with stres...
by Tropylium
Sat Jun 20, 2015 1:08 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 529637

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

It would be nice to know what the difference between the "voiceless" and the "voiced" stops in Hittite actually was, as Anatolian may have branched off during that intermediate stage. As I said earlier, there are some scholars who assume that it was actually a difference in aspiration rather than v...
by Tropylium
Fri Jun 19, 2015 8:41 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 529637

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

• Proto-Sino-Tibetan is reconstructed with a *Pʰ *P *B system, which can still be directly attested as widely as e.g. Burmese, Classical Tibetan, and Cantonese. Cantonese has no voiced stops. Are you thinking of Wu? Whoops. Yes, correct. Judging by how almost no two IE branches have similar treatme...
by Tropylium
Thu Jun 18, 2015 2:33 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 529637

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

Do you think a stop system consisting of plain voiceless, plain voiced, and voiced implosive could exist? That seems even more unlikely than the traditionalist voiceless/voiced/voiced-aspirate setup. Voiceless/voiced/implosive is in fact relatively commonly found. Yes - they aren't really that rare...
by Tropylium
Wed Jun 17, 2015 4:48 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 529637

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

Do you think a stop system consisting of plain voiceless, plain voiced, and voiced implosive could exist? That seems even more unlikely than the traditionalist voiceless/voiced/voiced-aspirate setup. Voiceless/voiced/implosive is in fact relatively commonly found. Martin Kümmel has the following qu...
by Tropylium
Wed Jun 17, 2015 8:04 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 529637

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

On the other hand there are several factors why PIE *h : ɦ was ultimately opted, viz. 1. The traditional notation for the series bh dh gh is wrong (still so in IPA). The proper notation is actually *bɦ dɦ gɦ (with a voiced glottal fricative) which makes them in terms of PIE as clusters b+ɦ, etc. wi...
by Tropylium
Wed Jun 17, 2015 6:36 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Languages with Nouns/Adjectives/Verbs of ONLY Two+ Syllables
Replies: 11
Views: 3392

Re: Languages with Nouns/Adjectives/Verbs of ONLY Two+ Sylla

Aren't most reconstructed stems for Proto-Uralic bisyllabic. I can only remember a couple of monosyllabic roots, but most of the ones I've seen are two syllables long. Granted, though, Proto-Uralic reconstructions have a fairly limited lexicon, so that the best example ever. This carries over to th...
by Tropylium
Mon Jun 08, 2015 6:41 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 529637

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

PIE is by definition the last common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, not the "most regular" common ancestor stage. If a rule exists in identical shape in every descendant, and is not preceded by any developments that only apply to some branches, it is necessary to consider it to have alrea...
by Tropylium
Mon Jun 08, 2015 7:25 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 529637

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

Yes, the "modern" trilaryngealism uses both the Neogrammarian vowels and the three laryngeals, thus being the weakest and the most incoherent of all theories in existence. This sounds like you are optimizing the wrong thing. The measure of a reconstruction's strength is not merely the number of pro...
by Tropylium
Mon Jun 08, 2015 6:35 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 529637

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

I'm however somewhat concerned that you only cite data for this root from Hittite, Greek and Umbrian, which sounds like that there is a risk that rather than common PIE inheritance, it is a loanword from Anatolian to Greek (and perhaps thence to Umbrian, or perhaps that word is not related at all)....