The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

[Valdeut]

Are there any cross-linguistic parallels to its ablaut system, for instance?

I think Proto-Kartvelian (Proto-South-Caucasian) is reconstructed with a system of ablaut quite similar to PIE. I'm far from an expert on Kartvelian linguistics and I haven't been able to find that much information on Proto-Kartvelian (I'm interested in some good resources if anyone has any), but the ablaut seems quite IE-y with both qualitative and quantitative ablaut and resonants (*i *u *r *l *m *n) often becoming syllabic in the zero grade.

These two articles might be of interest:
http://www.science.org.ge/2-2/Gamkrelidze.pdf
https://www.academia.edu/4118909/Qualit ... Kartvelian

If you have access to JSTOR, also check out:
Gamkrelidze, Thomas V., A Typology of Common Kartvelian, Language, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1966), pp. 69-83
Lehmann, W. P., Review of: The System of Sonants and Ablaut in Kartvelian Languages: A Typology of Common Kartvelian Structure by Th. V. Gamkrelidze; G. I. Machavariani, Language, Vol. 44, No. 2, Part 1 (Jun., 1968), pp. 404-407

The reviewed book itself is as far as I'm aware only available in Georgian and Russian (neither of which I can read) but it might be of interest to someone who is able to find it.

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Of some interest also, I think Northwest Caucasian has traces of ablaut aswell with a-grades, ə-grades and zero-grades (remember that these languages are often analyzed as only having two vowel phonemes /a/ and /ə/). This might be most visible in Abkhaz-Abaza.

[CatDoom]

Wiktionary, on the other hand, gives it as *éǵh₂, but doesn't cite a source. The monosyllabic reconstruction would, I think, help to explain the Gothic ik, at the very least.

The Germanic forms can also go back to something ending in a short vowel, as many of those were dropped word-final in Proto-Germanic.

That's true... *eǵoH and *eǵHom would in theory have become *ekō and *eką in Proto-Germanic, but the shift from PIE *e to PG *i implies that the entire word was treated as unstressed in pre-Proto-Germanic, so the loss of the second syllable could be an irregular change related to that.

[Valdeut]

That's true... *eǵoH and *eǵHom would in theory have become *ekō and *eką in Proto-Germanic, but the shift from PIE *e to PG *i implies that the entire word was treated as unstressed in pre-Proto-Germanic, so the loss of the second syllable could be an irregular change related to that.

Many PG pronouns had both stressed and unstressed variants. Usually both stressed *ek and unstressed *ik are reconstructed. Same for *mek ~ *mik, *þek ~ *þik etc. Old West Norse ek must reflect the stressed form whereas, if I'm not mistaken, the Old English pronoun go back to the unstressed form. Gothic ik could probably reflect either.

Runic Norse actually has a disyllabic form eka och ika (it's usually clitized at the end of a verb, I'm not sure if this form is attested free-standing) and this is attested in Old High German ihha and Low German /ikә/ (form according to Ringe) as well. Maybe Old East Norse jak with vowel breaking also go back to this form, I'm not sure. Ringe reconstructs *éǵh₂ for PIE and about the disyllabic form in Germanic, he writes (Ringe, Donald (2006), From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic, p. 137):
"Because the final vowel in the disyllabic forms of ‘I’ survives in High and Low German, it must have been a PGmc long vowel (cf. Feist 1939 s.v. ik), not a short vowel reflecting a laryngeal; perhaps the likeliest explanation is that it reflects a particle optionally cliticized to the pronoun."
So this form could not reflect PIE *eǵHom but I'm note sure why it couldn't reflect *eǵoH. However, I believe all Germanic languages with a disyllabic form also have an alternative monosyllabic form and Gothic ik can't go back to a form with a final long vowel in PG.

[Neon Fox]

Well, PIE as we reconstruct didn't exist.

My personal opinion is that if someone knew the current best reconstructions cold and got dropped in the PIE area right before the first "real" split...no matter where the time-traveller hit, se'd be able to make hirself understood with reasonable ease, but everyone would think se was from somewhere else.

[CatDoom]

Well, PIE as we reconstruct didn't exist.

My personal opinion is that if someone knew the current best reconstructions cold and got dropped in the PIE area right before the first "real" split...no matter where the time-traveller hit, se'd be able to make hirself understood with reasonable ease, but everyone would think se was from somewhere else.

Hmm... if the time traveler was a linguist with a keen ear, they might be able to learn to correct their speech in order to make themselves understood, but I tend to think that initially they would, at the very least, have an absolutely impenetrable accent. For one thing, their pronunciation of the vowels and laryngeals would probably be noticeably off, and their production of the phonation differences in the stop series might be completely wrong as well.

[Neon Fox]

Well, PIE as we reconstruct didn't exist.

My personal opinion is that if someone knew the current best reconstructions cold and got dropped in the PIE area right before the first "real" split...no matter where the time-traveller hit, se'd be able to make hirself understood with reasonable ease, but everyone would think se was from somewhere else.

Hmm... if the time traveler was a linguist with a keen ear, they might be able to learn to correct their speech in order to make themselves understood, but I tend to think that initially they would, at the very least, have an absolutely impenetrable accent. For one thing, their pronunciation of the vowels and laryngeals would probably be noticeably off, and their production of the phonation differences in the stop series might be completely wrong as well.

Yeah, most likely it'd take a fair bit of adjustment of pronunciation; that's what I meant by "reasonable ease". But everyone they talked to would be like, "Wow, what does that form of that word mean?" and stuff, even once accent was ironed out. It's just that it would be different forms in different places. :)

[Salmoneus]

Well, PIE as we reconstruct didn't exist.

My personal opinion is that if someone knew the current best reconstructions cold and got dropped in the PIE area right before the first "real" split...no matter where the time-traveller hit, se'd be able to make hirself understood with reasonable ease, but everyone would think se was from somewhere else.

That might depend. Would xalagashonge insist on removing gender distinctions throughout xalagashonger's use of PIE? If so, some PIE speakers might react with some antipathy and/or confusion to xalagashongem.

[Neon Fox]

That might depend. Would xalagashonge insist on removing gender distinctions throughout xalagashonger's use of PIE? If so, some PIE speakers might react with some antipathy and/or confusion to xalagashongem.

Really, Sal? That's what you're getting from this, an objection to an epicene 3s pronoun? There are other areas of this very forum for that shit. I think "themself" looks stupid, I'm not trying to make a political statement.

Jesus. At least Usenet had a goddamn killfile.

[Salmoneus]

EDIT: edit #7, let's try stripping this down to the essence:

OK, so my pointing out the irony was only gentle ribbing, but perhaps I shouldn't have joked with you without being sure you didn't take yourself too seriously. In fact I was just coming here to apologise when I saw your escalation.
But do you not think that your own response was perhaps a teensy bit excessive? At social events, when people prick your vanity do you instantly shout out swearwords and reach for a 'killfile'? I'm sure you don't, so why do you have to here?

After all, when you decide to pick up an affectation, you know it's going to attract attention - I think IRL you'd get a lot more wug one ironic poke if you started making up your own function words. In particular since making up pronouns has such an established ideological meaning and in 99.9% of cases is a political statement. Even wiktionary makes sure to warn people that using a novel pronoun is likely to be seen as 'forcefully politically correct'. [Although the political side is irrelevant to my point here, which was to note the irony - in fact, I'd have been even more likely to josh you about it if I'd realised it were purely a personal affectation].

So, can we shake hands and agree we were both a bit prickly and move on?

[CatDoom]

One would presumably use "themself" if one were using "them" as a gender-neutral singular pronoun, as I did in my last post in this thread. I've personally gotten into the habit of avoiding gendered pronouns when referring to a subject of indefinite gender mostly because it feels impolite to me to make assumptions about the gender identity of people I don't know. I have a lot of trans and non-binary friends, and while they're generally understanding of people classifying them based on their appearance, I know that it can be uncomfortable and disheartening to them, so as a courtesy I've tried to train myself to avoid going to "he" or "she" by default.

Incidentally, Salmoneus, do you say "I'ld" out loud? Not passing judgement; I'm just not sure I've ever actually heard that

[Salmoneus]

One would presumably use "themself" if one were using "them" as a gender-neutral singular pronoun, as I did in my last post in this thread. I've personally gotten into the habit of avoiding gendered pronouns when referring to a subject of indefinite gender mostly because it feels impolite to me to make assumptions about the gender identity of people I don't know. I have a lot of trans and non-binary friends, and while they're generally understanding of people classifying them based on their appearance, I know that it can be uncomfortable and disheartening to them, so as a courtesy I've tried to train myself to avoid going to "he" or "she" by default.

Incidentally, Salmoneus, do you say "I'ld" out loud? Not passing judgement; I'm just not sure I've ever actually heard that

The normal reflexive of 'they' is 'themselves'.

And yes, I'ld say "I'ld" - in that the 'l' is just as ennunciated as it is in 'would', 'could', and 'should'. I.e. it isn't.

[vokzhen]

The normal reflexive of 'they' is 'themselves'.

I'm not sure that holds any more water than saying the normal singular is with -self, though. Themself looks really wrong printed out, but spoken sounds fine to me and I'm pretty sure I use it fairly frequently.

[Nortaneous]

Does actual speech use 'themself' or 'themselves' for the singular? I don't think I'd say 'themself' ever, but I have h-dropping and that's an obvious confounder.

(I wouldn't have expected a linguistics board not to realize that, in languages with gender systems, it's not uncommon for indeterminate-gender use-cases to be mapped to one of the two existing genders. There are some languages, maybe Papuan?, where the feminine is the default.)

[Sleinad Flar]

To bring this thread back on track (Ephemera is over there, people): the PIE 3rd person reflexive pronoun *swe- (clitic *-se-) himself, herself, itself, themselves was genderless and numberless. So this whole pointless "discussion" is moot anyway.

[Astraios]

maybe Papuan?

Or even Arabic...

[Richard W]

Does actual speech use 'themself' or 'themselves' for the singular?

'Themself' has the good precedent of 'yourself'. Keep the disdain for the use of 'they' etc. as singular like singular 'you'. I have caught myself using the reflexive 'themself'. (Informant is a reactionary British WASP, not yet retired.)

[Neon Fox]

I would totally use "thee/thou" if it wouldn't make everyone think I was a Quaker. :)

[2+3 clusivity]

I find it funny that people hate the use of grammatically plural "they" for logically singular situations and who then get further bent out of shape when people start rationalizing the grammatically plural form by using logically singular formants such as "themself."

Diachronic number does not command present usage.

Hindi is a great example of the mismatch between the use of grammatical(/diachronic?) and logical uses: <tum> the grammatically second personal plural is used for both logically singular and plural situations with grammatically plural verb agreement. The escalation of grammatical plural is also seen with <hum> the first personal plural in some dialects, where it is used with plural verb agreement (i.e. is grammatically plural) yet applies to both logically singular and plural situations. See for example the Bollywood movie <hum tum> or "you and I." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hum_Tum. Even better, the grammatically third person plural form <a:p> is used as a singular (and plural?) second person Vous pronoun with grammatical third person plural agreement.

Many of these forms are now being rationalized by adding <log> "people," to clarify plurality. For example <tum log> "you people/y'all."

Languages change. And, SUPER SCARY, keep in mind this is the PIE thread. A little change happened there -- often very quickly.

"Oh wow! what did the person over there do!" "They hurt themself." Wrong? Just wait. Hahahaha.

[Nortaneous]

there is no difference between hindi and english, grammaticality judgments are uniform, and anyone who thinks something is ungrammatical must just be Scared Of Change

[CatDoom]

I would totally use "thee/thou" if it wouldn't make everyone think I was a Quaker.

I think you're thinking of the Mennonites; I've known quite a few Quakers, and they pretty much talk and dress like everybody else. Fun fact: president Richard Nixon was raised a Quaker.

[Nortaneous]

Nixon, the legend goes, became convinced that Whittaker Chambers was telling the truth about Alger Hiss when Chambers recalled to him that Priscilla Hiss used the plain speech (i.e. "thee/thou") in private conversation with close relatives.

[Civil War Bugle]

I would totally use "thee/thou" if it wouldn't make everyone think I was a Quaker.

I think you're thinking of the Mennonites; I've known quite a few Quakers, and they pretty much talk and dress like everybody else. Fun fact: president Richard Nixon was raised a Quaker.

Quakers used thees and thous longer than a lot of people but did give it up by I think the mid or late 1700s at the latest - can't affirm the exact date.

[Zaarin]

I would totally use "thee/thou" if it wouldn't make everyone think I was a Quaker.

I think you're thinking of the Mennonites; I've known quite a few Quakers, and they pretty much talk and dress like everybody else. Fun fact: president Richard Nixon was raised a Quaker.

I live in a heavily Mennonite area. They don't use "thee/thou" and are probably less likely to use the KJV than conservative Baptists. They don't really dress differently either. Most of the older Mennonite women still wear skirts and doilies, but many of the younger Mennonites are wearing blue jeans, dropping the doilies, or both.

[WeepingElf]

Thank you for hijacking this thread.

[Hallow XIII]

threadjacking as forum life metric: a quantitative study of topic relevance correlation to social activity on internet bulletin boards