Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[Kuchigakatai]

Never knew Dooley was sexist and ableist.

Take that out of the Linguistic Miscellany Thread and put it into Ephemera's Random thread?

---

The other day I happened to be reading something about the development of Proto-Germanic verbs. Germanic "strong" (irregular) verbs are divided into seven classes, depending on their path of development (mostly based around the structure of the root, except for class #7).

After poking around the origin of the irregular verbs of modern English for a while, I discovered that, as it turns out, modern English does still have at least one good example from each of the seven Proto-Germanic strong verb classes!

class 1 (-y- [j] inside PIE root):
Proto-Indo-European *Hreydh- > Proto-Germanic *rīdaną *raid *ridun *ridanaz
> Old English rīdan rād ridon (ġe)riden
> ModEng ride rode ridden

class 2 (-w- [w] inside PIE root):
Proto-Indo-European *prews- > Proto-Germanic *freusaną *fraus *fruzun *fruzanaz
> Old English frēosan frēas frūron (ġe)froren
> ModEng freeze froze frozen

class 3 (sonorant [m n r l] + consonant at PIE root end):
Proto-Indo-European *dhre(n)g- > Proto-Germanic *drinkaną *drank *drunkun *drunkanaz
> Old English drincan dranc druncon (ġe)druncen
> ModEng drink drank drunk

class 4 (bare sonorant at PIE root end, or sonorant + laryngeal at PIE root end):
Proto-Indo-European *gwem- > Proto-Germanic *kwemaną *kwam *kwēmun *kumanaz
> Old English cuman cwōm cwōmon (ġe)cumen
> ModEng come came come

class 5 (stop or oral fricative at PIE root end):
Proto-Indo-European *h1ed- > Proto-Germanic *etaną *ēt *ētun *etanaz
> Old English etan ǣt ǣton (ġe)eten
> ModEng eat ate eaten

class 6 (laryngeal h2 or -o- inside PIE root):
Proto-Indo-European *sleh2k- > Proto-Germanic *slahaną *slōh *slōgun *slaganaz
> Old English slēan slōg slōgon (ġe)slæġen
> ModEng slay slew/slayed slain/slayed

class 7 (reduplicated stem surviving in Proto-Germanic 2nd and 3rd principal parts):
Proto-Indo-European *ghreh1- > Proto-Germanic *grōaną *grerō *grerōun *grōanaz (i.e. grō- > gregrō > grerō)
> Old English grōwan grēow grēowon (ġe)grōwen
> ModEng grow grew grown

(Yes, I know modern English doesn't exactly come from good ol' Standard West Saxon, but the correspondences are strong nevertheless.)

[Vijay]

Never knew Dooley was sexist and ableist.

Take that out of the Linguistic Miscellany Thread and put it into Ephemera's Random thread?

It was in response to the link I posted regarding Raphael's question.

[alynnidalar]

tīnxī > tinxe [ˈtinʃe] (form of tingere > teñir 'to dye [sth]')
cīnxī > çinxe [ˈtsinʃe] (form of cingere > ceñir 'to gird on [clothes, a sword]'
> influenced: tetigī > tanxe [ˈtsanʃe] (of tangere > tañer 'play [a musical instrument]')
(Modern outcomes: all regularized to teñí, ceñí, tañí.)

oof these words are precisely in line with my aesthetic preferences right now.

[Linguoboy]

I realised I have *excellerate for accelerate. That is, the initial vowel is [ɪ] or [ɛ], but not ever [ə] or [æ]. (Cf. accession.)

[Salmoneus]

Do you not have the weak vowel merger anyway?

[Travis B.]

I realised I have *excellerate for accelerate. That is, the initial vowel is [ɪ] or [ɛ], but not ever [ə] or [æ]. (Cf. accession.)

I have [ɘ] in both of those words. (Of course I do have the weak vowel merger.)

[akam chinjir]

Are there languages with 'plain' apical alveolar approximants? I mean without retroflexion or pharyngealisation/uvularisation/bunching or rounding.

Update. I shouldn't have posted without checking at least the obvious. PHOIBLE has just one language contrasting ɹ and ɻ; the Reichard grammar indicates that at least one of these is trilled, though (if she's got a clear statement of the difference then I haven't found it); the Teeter grammar has just r, but describes it as a pharyngealised approximant ("glide").

[Xwtek]

Why is Tagalog nonconfigurational?

Why we can't use this analysis as deciding the subject?
Bumilí ng saging ang lalaki sa tindahan para sa unggóy. => ng saging
Binilí ng lalaki ang saging sa tindahan para sa unggóy. => ng lalaki
Just because they're both mean "The man bought the banana at the store for the monkey.
"
Like the subject of "He is killed by a famous serial killer" is "he", not "a famous serial killer"

[Nortaneous]

Are there languages with 'plain' apical alveolar approximants? I mean without retroflexion or pharyngealisation/uvularisation/bunching or rounding.

Update. I shouldn't have posted without checking at least the obvious. PHOIBLE has just one language contrasting ɹ and ɻ; the Reichard grammar indicates that at least one of these is trilled, though (if she's got a clear statement of the difference then I haven't found it); the Teeter grammar has just r, but describes it as a pharyngealised approximant ("glide").

PHOIBLE has Bardi as contrasting /ɻ̺ j j̻/, whatever those are supposed to be, and has a few languages with /j̪/, whatever that is. Xumi allegedly contrasts ʐ ɹ.

[akam chinjir]

Those first few examples break my IPA. But will risk checking further.

Checking Xumi quickly finds that /ʐɹ̩ / is a possible syllable (^RPlɐ-ʐɹ sleep; RP is a "right-prominent" tonal melody). (Chirkova et al, Upper Xumi.)

[akam chinjir]

Some more checking. The Bowern grammar of Bardi doesn't hint at what those might be. j̪ appears to be a laminodental approximant in the Pama-Nyungan languages I was able to check (e.g., in Blevins's grammar of Nhanda). The wikipedia page on alveolar approximants has a bunch of false positives, and I've given up checking.

[zompist]

Got a Yiddish question...

Awhile ago I read Sholom Aleichem's book "The Adventures of Menahem-Mendl." In one of the stories, perennial ne'er-do-well Menahem-Mendl sets himself up as a matchmaker. He and another matchmaker arrange a marriage together, everything goes well up till the day of the wedding, at which it's discovered that they didn't bother to check the sex of their clients— both are girls.

My question is, how does this work linguistically? There may be clues in the story, or perhaps German speakers can make a good guess. How could you refer to the girls, for weeks of negotiation, without any gendered noun or pronoun?

In French, it would surely be difficult, as one would refer to their client or cliente. But perhaps not in the 1910s, or perhaps there's a word like personne which is used with its lexical gender ignoring that of the referent.

[Pabappa]

i know standard German does have words like Mädchen which, because they are in the diminutive, always behave as neuter, but Im not sure that that would carry over to using neuter personal pronouns too. I could see this book being very entertaining to read, but difficult to translate .... with English you could use "their" and the women's given names (if gender-ambiguous like Pat, Chris, etc), but I suspect such a trick would require less effort than in Yiddish as you say.

[Vijay]

I'm not sure I even understand how that works in real life...Don't they at least each see their own client face to face? I'm kind of curious as to what the relevant conversations look like even in English.

[Pabappa]

Im interested in a list of sound changes from Sanskrit to Prakrit languages, particularly the fast-evolving ones like Jain that seem to have shifted /prākṛta/ > /pāua/ in a few hundred years. In that word we've lost two rhotics (one simple, one syllabic), and two word-internal voiceless stops. I remember reading a long time ago that this was typical and that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharashtri_Prakrit is even more extreme. But I havent foudn an easily accessible list of sound changes anywhere except perhaps a partial list here, and even though it says i could register for an account Im not sure it would be worrh the troubel for just a partial list in one language.

Thanks for any help.

[Vijay]

I think The Indo-Aryan Languages by Colin Masica is available somewhere online, isn't it? That should have a pretty good list, unless I'm misunderstanding what you're looking for.

[Pabappa]

I think The Indo-Aryan Languages by Colin Masica is available somewhere online, isn't it? That should have a pretty good list, unless I'm misunderstanding what you're looking for.

Very nice, thank you. Yes, I found it.

Page 181 is where the magic happens, but the other shifts are interesting as well, such as ... āsphālayati ---> apphālēi. br̄haspati ---> bihappai. ātman ----> appā. lōptra "loot" ----> lutta, and apparently later on into English.

But yes, it seems that what he's calling Prakrit got rid of almost all intervocalic stops (and I think also sibilants), so that words often begin with a stop but then internally you only find /j h w l r/ and a lot of hiatus. Hence avalōkita ----> ōlōia and many other examples. Geminates are exempt, and I assume that the geminates shifted to singletons shortly afterward.

He mentions a word yoggā "exercise" ... that's not what it looks like, right? I remember reading long ago that English yoga is a direct loan from the Sanskrit word for yoke, and every dictionary I've looked at it agrees with that. And the earlier etymology of yoggā is such that it doesn't seem likely that it could even be cognate, let alone identical to the original.

He also mentions that the Prakrit chapter is just an overview, so I know more detailed information is out there somewhere ,but I was just interested in this for its own sake, .... it's neither for a conlang nor anything academic where pinpoint accuracy matters .... so this PDF satisfied my needs. Again, thank you.

[Vijay]

My pleasure!

He mentions a word yoggā "exercise" ... that's not what it looks like, right?

Well, no, but they're related. Sanskrit words usually have a lot of meanings, and that word for 'yoke' you mention can also mean 'exertion' and the Hindu philosophical school of the same name (among many other things).

[zompist]

Pali yoggā is Sanskrit yogyā. English yoga is from Skt. yoga.

(By convention we borrow Sanskrit roots... the nominative is actually yogas. But the -s was lost in the Prakrits anyway.)

[Vijay]

Right, of course. In case it wasn't clear, I just meant that Sanskrit yoga is related to Sanskrit yogyā.