Re: Ancient writing systems
- From: "Douglas G. Kilday" <fufluns@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 12:18:30 -0700
On Jun 14, 3:03 pm, António Marques wrote:
Douglas G. Kilday wrote:
[perfect stems in hexameters snipped]
That is good, but not definite proof that it worked that way outisde
verse (though the consistence makes it look likelier). Doesn't the
Aeneid have a couple of verses with the wrong meter, btw? (not that
that's particularly relevant here.)
Spondaic lines, as Richard mentioned. Their low frequency does not
vitiate the other reasoning.
As for a vast conspiracy of ancient poets to confound modern scholars
by intentionally misrepresenting the phonemic system, I might buy into
that if I listened to as much loony-lefty talk radio as Peter, but I
don't.
What do you make of the vast conspiracy of ancient writers of any kind
who intentionally abstained from any commentary on the diverse nature of
those so different sounds?
Sheesh. We don't even have Books 11-20 of Livy, Cato's _Origines_, or
Varro's _Antiquitates_. And you expect commentaries on marginal
phonemic oppositions to be preserved? You remind me of those
creationists who insist that if Darwin were right, our museums would
contain specimens of every conceivable transitional form between known
species. (And Darwin already addressed this matter.)
Of what? I'm saying that [wolwit] only contrasts with [woluit] if you've
already established that they have different phonemes.
They have different phonemes, and I did establish that.
So you're saying they have different phonemes because they contrast, and
the proof that they constrast is that they have different phonemes?
The proof that they contrast is in the scansion, and if you can't
follow scansion by now, I can't help you.
You're saying that, hearing VOLVIT in isolation, a native speaker would
have known for certain what it meant. I'm disputing that.
I didn't say that. [wolwit] could be 3sg. present or 3sg. perfect.
[woluit] in isolation without an object would likely prompt "Quid?
Quid voluit?".
Yes, you're just saying what I claimed you said.
Where did you claim I said anything like that?
I don't presume to have the competence to do original analysis, not even
for my language. I'm just not at all convinced that such a far-reaching
conclusion can be gotten from your evidence, as I think that the
evidence is not overwhelming or solidly unambiguous and that the
resulting analysis is probably not the most useful. In other words,
should ('classical') Latin have had contrasting /u/ and /w/, I expect
we'd have seen more of it. I'd put it as 'there may be evidence that at
one stage latin may have had an opposition between inherited syllabic
/u/ followed by /i/ and the inherited diphthong /wi/ (this opposition,
if it existed, would disappear later on and has no relation to the
romance developments)'.
Why do you expect to have seen more examples of the contrast? Have
you ever heard of "low functional load", or the English example of
"Rosa's roses" which is one of very few explicit contrasts between /@/
and /+/ in English?
This far down, it should be obvious that that's not what's at stake.
Your example is fundamentally different from that of russia's / rushes,
in that the latter is an instance of a phoneme having been traditionally
overlooked due to its relatively low frequence, general absence from
roots, phonetical closeness to well established phonemes and occurence
in unstressed position. Whereas you are arguing for a distinctive sound
which apparently could occur everywhere and was present in 'important'
words, yet has not left offspring nor merited some ink all those centuries.
No, this opposition between /u/ and /w/ in Latin does _not_ occur
everywhere, and that is what is interesting about it, and worth
discussing, as it sheds some light on phonetic changes occurring in
pre-classical Latin and otherwise poorly documented. Unfortunately
Peter's boneheaded insistence on pontificating about things he fails
to understand has prevented the discussion from reaching the
interesting stage, and you have placed your money on the boneheaded
nag in this race.
As for offspring, see below; as for ink, see above.
If you talk about "syllabic /u/" you are merely arguing in a circle,
and it might be a good idea to look at Tuscan and other "minority"
Romance languages before making blanket statements about Romance
developments.
What circle exactly, and where are the romance reflexes of your putative
contrast?
The circle is your assumption that [w] is merely "syllabic /u/", and
hacking around to conclude that [w] is merely "syllabic /u/".
Dante has <volle> regularly from Lat. <voluit> (cf. <ebbe> from
<habuit>, <tenne> from <tenuit>), and he also has <volve> from
<volvit>. Thus you and Peter can argue either that [l] and [v] are
allophones in Tuscan, or that Tuscan magically created a real phonemic
distinction where Latin had only an apparent one (due to the
conspiratorial right-wing poets' society). In favor of the latter,
folks do say that Tuscany is an enchanting, magical place. So order
another bottle of wine, and an extra phoneme drenched in olive oil!
.
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