Re: s->h
- From: "Dušan Vukotić" <dusan.vukotic@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 28 Feb 2007 02:47:34 -0800
On Feb 25, 8:48 pm, Keith GOERINGER <verbiv...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Dus^an,
In article <1171730047.946672.125...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"Dušan Vukotić" <dusan.vuko...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Keith, I hope, you are going to continue this discussion:
In Russian moss is 'moh' (Ą}ĄÄĄá; Serbian 'maho-vina'); we must decide
which of the voices /s/ or /h/ is the "older" one. The truth is that
in Russian adjective 'mossy' sounds Ą}ĄäĄyĄÉĄĄĄćĄz (mišistiy mishistiy)
but
it seems obvious that it is not akin to RUKI rule, because we have
here the h > š sound change. The adjective of Serbian
'mahovina' (moss) is 'maho-vinast' and it means that the sound /h/ in
this word remains unchanged.
Again, this is what I described originally. You can and do get /x/ >
/s^/ as a result of the palatalization of velars -- but this is after
the effects of the ruki rule. The velar remains in Serbian/Croatian
because there is no reason for it to undergo palatalization -- the
adjective is built off the stem <mahovin->. In Russian, you have <mox>
(which would have looked something like *mUxU in Common Slavic. You're
then adding an adjectival suffix <-IstU-> onto it, so you wind up with,
approximately, *mUxIstU --> *mxIstU --> *ms^istU. Step one presumably
existed for a couple minutes. Then Havlík's Law got rid of the first
jer, the front jer caused /x/ to palatalize into /s^/, and the jer
became fully vocalized. No smoke and mirrors, no rules that only apply
once -- just regular phonological processes that are seen again and
again...
I look forward to seeing your justification for how /v/ shifted to /b/
in this case -- can you give other examples of this shift? According to
Vasmer, all of Slavic, plus Baltic and Sanskrit, show /v/ in the cognate
words. If *BRG were the root, you'd expect a /b/ to show up somewhere.
And this isn't even addressing the issue of how your root /g/ magically
changes to /x/ in Slavic. Vasmer again gives cognates for <bereg> such
as Avestan <bar@zah-> 'mountain, height' or Irish <brí> 'mountain' --
all with initial /b/, not a /v/ to be found.
From a historical perspective, it makes more sense to take the I-E root
as being something like *urs-u-, as you suggest but discard. This would
yield something akin to *vIrx-u in Common Slavic, via the ruki rule.
This then allows an easy path to the modern Slavic reflexes -- Russian
<verx>, Czech <vrch>, Serbian <vrh>, and even Polish <wierzch>, with
some extra steps. Very easy, no messy /b/~/v/ to account for, the same
pattern holds for <mox> (and all the aorist forms I mentioned in my
earlier post, and the prepositional/locative plural forms in most of
Slavic [Croatian/Serbian being an exception, with the generalization of
the instrumental ending to dative and locative]). I think this is a
nice example of Occam's razor...
Cheers,
Keith
Thanks Keith,
Have I understood well? You are saying that Russian 'Ą}ĄÄĄá'(moh)
originally sounded as 'mos' and you proposed the fallowing sound
changes: mos => moh => (RUKI rule) mišistiy (palatalization); am I
right?
More or less -- I'm saying that the word <mox> 'moss' in Russian is the
reflex of a word that would have looked something like *musus in
Indo-European (though my I-E has gotten quite rusty...), and like *mUsU
in Common Slavic. And the modern adjectival form is <ms^istyj> -- no
vowel between the <m> and the <s^>.
Let us first see, do we understand the same thing under "ruki-rule"
notion? The RUKI rule describes the diachronic shift in the satem
group of Indo-European languages in which Proto-Indo-European (PIE )
*s (dental or alveolar) following */r, u, k and i/ became /ļ/ (palato-
alveolar) in Baltic and Iranian, / x/ (glottal) in Slavic and
retroflex /Ņ/ in Old Indic.
From what I recall, the ruki rule had different impact in different
families -- in Indo-Iranian it was different than in Slavic. Other
satem languages I don't know about (though I seem to recall that things
were different in Baltic as well).
<UM-GON part snipped...>
Now we shall see that the Serbian word 'mek' or 'mekan' has the
meaning 'soft', and it becomes clear that 'mek' was the source of
'moh' (mah, moss). Nevertheless, what the Serbian word 'mek' (soft;
cf. English 'meek' "meek as a mouse") has to do with the above-
mentioned UM-GON, might and mental power? At first sight, it seems
nothing but if we had considered this matter more carefully we would
have realized that Serbian 'mek' is related to the verb
'umakati' (immersion; cf. above 'umiti' wash face) and 'mečiti' (Serb.
'umečiti' imprint, impress, make an impression on a soft surface as if
of plasticine, mud, gum etc.). In fact, the Serbian verb
'umečiti' (imprint, impress) is the same word as 'maknuti' (move,
remove, dislocate) and it is completely transparent down to the UM-GON
basis.
It's nice to come up with creative ways of explaining things, but again,
I would say you need to be able to justify your theories empirically and
in a way that can be replicated without resorting to impressionistic
semantics. To take just one example from the mass above, you're linking
<mek>, <mah>, <mak->, and others by a rather tenuous semantic
correlation. Do a similar analysis on, say, 5-10 other word groupings,
and you might be on to something. But I would say now that you wouldn't
be able to do it, because the phonological evidence just isn't there.
(For example, to look at just the <mek> part, there is a historical
nasal vowel that modern Croatian/Serbian has lost, but reflexes of which
are visible in Polish and Russian...)
More b > v examples: Serb. obala (coast) => 'uvala' (valley),
'obaliti' (cast, hurl) => 'valjati' (roll, waltz!, Serb. valja se =
valse?), 'z-boriti' (speak) => go-voriti' (speak), 'bariti' (poach,
cook) => variti (weld, digest, cook), 'oblačenje' (clothing) =>
'uvlačenje' (indenting, prowl; this prowl is close to the Serbian
'provl-ačenje' (getting by, escape potentially unpleasant
consequences); 'sabijati' (compress), 'savijati' (flexure, bow) etc.
I can't say for all of them, but for the <obala> and <obaliti>, I would
submit that, originally, there was a /v/ there, which was assimilated by
the more robust /b/. So you had *ob-vala and *ob-valiti...and I suspect
similar processes are at work in the others.
Cheers,
Keith
Dear Keith,
There is no problem with h > š palatalization; it is quite
understandable and beyond any doubt.
I know you are the expert in Russian and it means that you must be
familiar with Serbian too.
Serbian 'mahanje' (Russian махать/махнуть mahat/mahnut) has the
meaning "wigwag, wag, sway, shake". Obviously, this word is related to
the Serbian word 'maknuti' (move), 'micanje' (movement, progression),
'umaknuti' (run a way), 'po-maknuti' (move forward), 'po-
mak' (progression), 'po-mično' (shifting, movable) and to the Greek
μηχανή, English 'machine'. I hope you are going to accept above
statement as an undisputable fact.
If you have agreed that Serbian 'micanje', and 'maknuti' are cognates
of English 'machine' or 'mechanic-s' than you will see that the
Serbian word 'mušica' ('muha'; fly, gnat; Skt. maksa, Lat. musca) also
stemmed from the basis UM-GON; i.e. from the same source from which
the words 'machine', 'micanje', mahanje' and 'maknuti' originated. The
fly is constantly shifting to and fro or up and down in front of our
eyes (nose). It may be compared to the hand-waving (Serb. mahanje) at
close range from our face. Now, if you have realized what I was
pointed at, you would understand why 'muscle' was named
'mišica' (mišić) in Serbian and you would grasp that the Serbian word
'maknuti' (mahnuti, micati - move, shift) must be older than mouse,
fly or muscle in such a hierarchy of UM-GON (or MA-GON) basis. In
reality, mahnuti (maknuti) was a progenitor of miš, mušica and mišica
(mouse, fly and muscle).
In addition, please observe closer the Russian word макать/макнуть
(makat, maknut; Serb. umakati, u-močiti immerse) and you would be able
to imagine that 'umakanje' (immersion) had been understood as
'umaknuće' (Serb. 'umaknuti'), run a way like the fish that immersed
under the water surface. Naturally, it is impossible to immerse into a
hard (solid) media; such environment must be 'mekan' (soft). Logical
consequence of 'umaknuća' (runing a way, flinch; does not matter what
has run away, fish, animal or enemy) would be a period of a complete
silence (Serbian 'muk', 'umuknuti' shut up).
DV
.
- References:
- Prev by Date: Re: About the name Rasputin...
- Next by Date: Re: Venom-spitting from a safe distance - Cybalist cave! (Abdullah's stupidity)
- Previous by thread: Re: s->h
- Next by thread: Re: s->h
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
