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The *i vs. *ə alternation in the Sino-Tibetan word for ‘10’

Some generalizations for a start. Those Sino-Tibetan (ST) words for ‘10’ that end in a labial consonant have the widest distribution and almost certainly reflect the main PST etymon for ‘ten’. They come in two flavors: with vowels *i and *ə. The i-set is limited to Tibeto-Burman (TB). Its members either end in a stop: -ip, -ep, -iap: WB kyip, Limbu gip, Mikir kep, Geman Deng kiɑp/kyep, etc. or—if the stop has been lost— in the vowel preceding it: for instance in some rGyalrongic languages: Japhug sqi, Ergong (Daofu); (Huang and Dai 1992) zʁa ‘ten’, sqha (‘ten’ in ‘20’, ‘30’ etc., from earlier zʁe, sqhe, or zʁia, sqhia). The STEDT website reconstructs *gip ‘ten’, which is fine except that Japhug sqi and Ergong zʁa indicate a uvular initial. Under Matisoff, the STEDT ignores the ST distinction between velars and uvulars. WB kyip, on the other hand, seems to argue against a uvular, since PST uvulars normally go to zero/ʔ (depending on the transcription being used) in Burmese (Peiros and Starostin 1995). Here we probably see the original uvular anteriorized to a velar by the preceding s- in rGyalrongic, a closely related group according to Sagart et al. (2019). This points to a PTB *sɢip.

The STEDT does not give a reconstruction for the ə-vowel set. TB merges *ə into *a, thus the TB forms in this set usually have a low vowel. They include Proto-Tani *čam ‘tens’ (Sun 1993) as in Adi Bokar ʧam– ’10’ in numbers ‘20’ and above. The situation in rGyalrongic is more complex. As already mentioned, Japhug has sqi for ‘10’. In Jacques’s synchronic analysis (2021:236), ‘10’ as a formative in teens is is /sqa/ . Specifically in 11, 12, 13 and 16 it is immediately followed by a labial consonant before the unit number: 11 sqa-p-tɯɣ, 12 sqa-m-nɯz, 13 sqa-f-sum, 16 sqa-p-rɤɣ. The labial element is not inserted in 14 and 15, as the unit number already begins in a labial: sqa-βde, sqa-mŋu. No labial element is inserted in 17-19: sqa-ɕnɯz, sqa-rcat, sqa-nŋɯt. It is of course the lack of an inserted labial in 17-19 which motivates treating -p-, -m-, -f- as insertions: historically they are vestiges of an earlier *-p coda on ‘10’ (pre-Japhug *sqap) assimilated on the following numeral’s initial. Ergong (Huang and Dai 1992) is parallel to Japhug: along with zʁa and sqha, already mentioned for ‘ten’ and its exact multiples, one has ʁɑ in teens (notice the back vowel). The -m endings in Proto-Tani *čam ’tens’ probably also had their *-p ending assimilated on a following nasal: for an unknown reason the *-am forms displaced the *-ap forms. If we wanted to include Proto-Kuki-Chin *soom ‘ten’ (VanBik 2009) in the ə-vowel set, we would need a change ɢ > w, so that *sɢaap/m > swaam > soom. I am not aware of any evidence for that change (noyt that I would necessarily), so the reason for the vowel change may well lie elsewhere.

rGyalrongic holds clues to a solution to the two-flavor problem. Japhug and Daofu have a front vowel when ‘ten’ occurs at the end of a numeral expression—i.e. in ‘10’ and its multiples—vs. a low or back vowel when ‘10’ is non-final, being followed by a unit numeral—in teens. If PST numeral expressions were stressed on the last morpheme and non-final morphemes were unstressed, non-final ‘ten’ would have a more central vowel than word-final ‘10’ phonetically. This could eventually phonologize so that one would get a phonemic contrast between /sɢip/ and /sɢəp/. Only the latter’s ending would have the opportunity to assimilate on a following numeral’s onset—the former was never followed by a numeral. This will explain why the *p ending in the *i-set either remains or falls, but never assimilates, and why only the *ə-set can end in -m.

Tani has lost the i-vowel variant to an innovated form Proto-Tani *rjɯŋ ‘ten’. In all other contexts the ə-variant *čam ‘tens’ has prevailed, even in exact multiples of ten because the Tani order for these numerals is 10-multiplicator, e.g. Adi-Bokar tʃɑmɲi 10-2 ‘twenty’, tʃɑmum 10-3 ‘thirty’, tʃɑmpi 10-3 ‘forty’, tʃɑmŋo 10-5 ‘fifty’. Here we understand why.

Let us now turn to Chinese. The Baxter-Sagart OC reconstruction is *t.[g]əp > MC dzyip ‘10’. This is self-evidently part of the ə-vowel set.  *[g] is shorthand for ‘either *g or *ɢ’. Although after non-pharyngealized onsets OC *-ip and *-əp are indistinguishable—both MC -ip—we are confident that in Old Chinese ‘10’ had OC *-əp because c. 1300-1200 BCE the Oracle Bone inscription graphs for shí 十 ‘10’ and for zhēn //針 ‘needle’ are identical: a vertical stroke. In some bronze inscriptions one end of the stroke is blunt and the other is sharp: clearly a drawing of a needle. Both the loan to Vietnamese găm ‘bamboo or metal pin’ and the WB cognate word ap ‘needle’ are incompatible with *-ip/im. Baxter and Sagart (2014) reconstructed ‘needle’ 箴鍼針 as *t.[k]əm, where [k] is shorthand for *k and *q. Proto-Tai *qem ‘needle’ (Pittayaporn 2009) is a Chinese loanword whose *q- could reflect OC pharyngealized *kˤ-, but not plain *k-. This disambiguates ‘needle’ to OC *t.qəm. Thus ‘10’ and ‘needle’ were phonetically close: *t.ɢəp vs. *t.qəm. Normally the difference in endings would have stood in the way of equivalence in the script. Either ‘needle’ had a doublet with -p (as in WB ap, WT khab, Japhug taqaβ), or ‘10’ had a doublet *t.ɢəm through assimilation on a numeral beginning in a nasal, as in rGyalrongic.

It is as yet unclear if the TB and Chinese preinitials: *s- vs. *t., are relatable. So for PST I suggest a doublet for ‘10’: expression-final *[t,s]V.ɢip, non-final *[t,s]V.ɢəp. Chinese has generalized the non-final form across the entire paradigm. As we saw, TB maintains the two and the context in which the PST vowel distinction first arose is only displayed by rGyalrongic.

References

Baxter, William H. and Laurent Sagart. 2014. Old Chinese: a new reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press.

Jacques, Guillaume. 2021. A grammar of Japhug (Comprehensive Grammar Library 1). Berlin: Language Science Press. http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/295

Huang Bufan and Dai Qingxia, eds. 1992. Zangmianyuzu yuyan cihui 《藏緬語族語言詞匯》[A Tibeto-Burman Lexicon]. Beijing: Central Institute of Minorities. Accessed via STEDT database <http://stedt.berkeley.edu/search/> on 2024-10-31.

Peiros, I., and S. Starostin. 1995. A comparative vocabulary of five Sino-Tibetan languages. 5 fascicles. Melbourne: Department of Linguistics and applied Linguistics, University of Melbourne.

Pittayaporn, Pittayawat. 2009. The phonology of proto-Tai. Unpublished Cornell U. dissertation.Laurent Sagart, Guillaume Jacques, Yunfan Lai, Robin J. Ryder, Valentin Thouzeau, Simon J. Greenhill, Johann-Mattis List. 2019. Dated language phylogenies shed light on the ancestry of Sino-Tibetan. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences May 2019, 116 (21) 10317-10322.

Sun, Jackson Tianshin. 1993. A historical-comparative study of the Tani (Mirish) branch in Tibeto-Burman. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.

VanBik, Kenneth. 2009. A reconstructed ancestor of the Kuki-Chin languages. STEDT monograph 8. Berkeley, University of California.

Web sites

STEDT database <http://stedt.berkeley.edu/search/> on 2024-10-31.

Numeral systems of the world’s languages. https://lingweb.eva.mpg.de/channumerals/

Mad dog, the first palatalization, and the k- prefix

There are in Middle Chinese lexica three obviously related words (and four characters) for ‘mad dog’ (狂犬). In the Baxter and Sagart (2014) reconstruction (referred to as ‘OCNR’ below):

0279g and 0287-, OCNR *ke[t]-s > MC tsyejH,

0279g OCNR *ke[t]-s > MC kjiejH.

0335d OCNR *k<r>e[t]-s > MC kjejH.

The reconstruction of a front vowel rhyme *-et-s in all three words, as opposed to *-at-s, was forced by the chongniu IV word kjiejH, which can only reflect a front vowel. In this vocalic context, the alternation between velars and palatals was treated as a case of the first palatalization, an early Han shift according to Schuessler, applying to an OC velar initial: MC tsye- was seen as reflecting OC ke-, while in kjejH, failure to palatalize was thought to be due to medial -r-, in this case an infix (since the root is r-less): *k<r>e-. The chongniu IV reading kjieiH was anomalous: its velar initial failed to palatalize despite the front vowel and absence of an intervening -r-. Bill Baxter and I thought that kjiejH reflected OC *ket-s in a non-palatalizing late OC dialect, a few forms of which are preserved in MC.

A passage in the Jing Dian Shi Wen points in a different direction. In the database Bill Baxter and I are maintaining, under , Bill noted this passage from JDSW 1353: “之瘈。吉世反 [kjiejH]。狂也{國狗之 無不}”. This supports a word-family connection between 噬 ‘to bite’ (OCNR *[d]e[t]-s > dzyejH) and 瘈 ‘mad (dog)’. The root would be *tet-s ‘to bite’: we would have this word-family, presented below with emended reconstructions between lenticular brackets and the original in blue for comparison:

root tet ‘bite’

噬 【*m-tet-s> dzyejH > shì ‘bite (v.)’ 0336c (OCNR *[d]e[t]-s > dzyejH)

狾 【*kə-tet-s> tsyejH > zhì ‘mad (dog)’ 0287- (OCNR *ke[t]-s > tsyejH)

瘈 【*kə-tet-s> tsyejH > zhì ‘mad (dog)’ 0279g (OCNR *ke[t]-s > tsyejH)

瘈 【*k-tet-s> kjiejH > jì ‘mad (dog)’ 0279g (OCNR *ke[t]-s > kjiejH)

猘 【*k-t<r>et-s> kjejH > jì ‘mad (dog)’ 0335d (OCNR *k<r>e[t]-s > kjejH)

In ‘to bite’, *m- is the ‘volitional’ prefix *m1a– (OCNR, p. 59). This is a highly common prefix in verbs whose subject is a volitional agent. It is responsible for the voiced initial in MC. The other words all have prefixed *k- or *kə-: these are short/tightly attached and long/loosely attached variants of the same prefix. OCNR (p. 54) states that

short (*C) and long (*Cə) variants that apparently had the same morphological functions,

but notes that

The conditions of occurrence of short and long variants are not understood; for the moment we treat them as free variants.

For a few years now since the publication of OCNR, I have regarded the loosely attached forms as basic, and the tightly attached ones as the result of unstressed vowel syncope in a second prefix, with late loss of the first prefix, thus:

stage 1: *Cə-Root > stage 2: *Cə-Root > stage 3: *Cə-Root

while

stage 1: *Cə-Cə-Root > stage 2: *Cə-C-Root > Stage 3: *C-Root

As far as preinitials go, the OCNR reconstructions represent the stage-3 situation. There are parallel developments in the evolution from Austronesian to Kra-Dai: Austronesian trisyllables lose their second vowel through unstressed vowel syncope (in preparation). The morphological function of the k- prefix in our examples will be discussed below.

On the phonological level, the emendations in our words for ‘mad dog’ explain the failure of kjiejH to palatalize despite the front vowel without supposing a non-palatalizing OC dialect: we only need to assume that the OC initial cluster *k-t- we reconstructed for OC was still present in western Han times in one shape or other (k-t- ? k-l- ?) , so that initial k- was shielded from the front vowel when the first palatalization of velars took place. Infixal <r> still accounts for the vowel in the kjejH doublet. The palatal initial in MC tsyejH, previously thought to go back to a velar stop, can now be recognized as the regular outcome of an OC alveolar stop. In principle an OC *tet-s without a velar prefix would be enough to give MC tsyejH, but the ‘mad dog’ semantics require the velar prefix, as we will see. Alternation between the two readings, tsyejH and kjiejH, of 瘈 ‘mad (dog)’ is now treated as loosely kə- vs. tightly attached k-: loosely attached kə- falls (as often), exposing t- > MC tsy-; while tightly attached k- forms a cluster with t-, simplifying to k- at some point between early Han and MC. This gives us a useful chronological indication on the simplification of clusters.

OCNR says the k- prefix added to verbal roots “derives nonfinite forms of the verb that can be used as nouns (…)” (p. 57). This seems to apply well to ‘mad dog’, except that //are not nouns: they are non-finite modifiers of the noun ‘dog’ in the compounds 【猘狗】(《吕氏春秋·首时》, 《汉书·五行志中之上》), and 【瘈狗】(《左传·襄公十七年》, JDSW 1156). This confirms the function of k- as non-finite verbs prefixes. This prefix is probably related to velar nominalization prefixes found

in Gyalrong languages (Jacques 2021:714, 811). Japhug examples from Jacques (2021:714-5):

kɯ-si

sbj:pcp-die

The dead one’ (many attestations)

ɯ-kɯ-ndza

3sg-sbj:pcp-eat

The one who eats it’ (many attestations)

By our analysis, then, the Chinese words for ‘mad dog’ are interpretable as ‘biting dog’.

Outside of rGyalrong, Konnerth (2009:101-107) finds that the derivational functions most often associated with the ‘gV-‘ prefix are participant nominalization, derivation of adjectival modifiers, action/event nominalization, and derivation of adverbs. These functions are consistent with non-finite derivations out of verbs.

Similarly, Matisoff (2003:138) writes that prefixed k(h)ə-, the reflex of his *g- in Tangkhul Naga, is highly productive, serving “for nominalizations (…) and relativizations, but does not appear with ordinary finite main verbs”. This combination of evidence supports a non-finite k- verb prefix at proto-Sino-Tibetan level.

Further, this ST prefix may be compared to the stative, non-finite ka- prefix of PAN (Zeitoun).

In closing, the exceptions to the Chinese first palatalization have MC kji-: they do not palatalize despite the front vowel. There are several sources, which either were not velars, or had an intervening segment other than -r- between the velar and a front vowel in western Han:

  1. C.qi- (type B, no -r-)

  2. k.m-ri (already kli- by western Han time)

  3. k.ti- cf. root to ‘bite’ below.

Removal of the ‘mad dog’ example does not disprove the ‘non-palatalizing dialect’ hypothesis, but it weakens it.

References

Baxter, William H. and Laurent Sagart. 2014. Old Chinese: a new reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press

Jacques, Guillaume. 2021. A grammar of Japhug. Berlin: Language Science Press.

Konnerth, Linda Anna. 2009. The nominalizing prefix gV- in Tibeto-Burman. PhD dissertation, University of Oregon.

Matisoff, J. (2003). Handbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.

“Out of Taiwan” and the history of Austronesian rice: a rejoinder.

I am aware of two reactions to my last post by authors of the Alam et al. paper:  Rafal Gutaker’s private reply to me, and Dorian Fuller’s reaction both rejected my claim that the very different histories of temperate and tropical japonica rices in the Austronesian world imply that different words for the two types of rice should exist in AN languages, instead of just one, as is the case; unless the early Taiwanese Austronesians carried temperate japonica south with them at the time of the Out-of-Taiwan event. Their reasoning—if I understand it well—seems to be that since the Austronesian word for the rice plant does not specifically refer to either tropical or temperate japonica, the issue I am raising is only apparent. They seem to be assuming that Austronesian speakers have in their mental lexicons a word for ‘rice plant’, whether they cultivate rice or not, and that they will give that name to whatever kind of rice they encounter in the course of their expansion.

Languages in the modern world can have a word for a domesticated plant without that plant being cultivated by its speakers—because we import it, buy it in shops, eat it, etc. Neolithic groups only have words for plants they cultivate. The Austronesians in Oceania have abandoned cereal agriculture: accordingly they do not have a traditional word for rice.

The Alam et al. paper presents the history of Austronesian rice as a pincer movement introducing temperate japonica from northeastern  Asia to Taiwan while tropical japonica was introduced from the south.  The role of Taiwan in this medel is to be a mere contact region between north and south. However the question arises as to whether, during the period of time tropical japonica had not yet reached Taiwan, Taiwanese temperate japonica had already been introduced to the south in the Out-of-Taiwan event; and whether there was interaction between the two south of Taiwan. Linguistics has useful hints there.

At the moment tropical japonica rice was introduced to the southern Austronesian world, the Austronesian people to whom it was introduced gave it the name *panjay. This means that they already cultivated rice. Otherwise, they would have had no name for it, and would either borrow the name used in the language of the group they were receiving it from, or coin a new name for it. Only by miracle would they come up with the same name that was used in Taiwan.

Further, and importantly, the local words for the rice plant that derive from *panjay exhibit the same pattern of phonetic variation, or sound laws,1 as a significant  part of the Austronesian vocabulary, simultaneously present in and outside of Taiwan.  Linguists assign that vocabulary to the ancestor of all known Austronesian languages. That this vocabulary—currently at least several hundred words—obeys the same set of sound laws must mean that it traveled as a package in the course of the Austronesian expansion. Moreover, that phonetic shared innovations [this is the linguistic equivalent of ‘synapomorphies’ in cladistics] of the non-Formosan Austronesian languages have been observed on this vocabulary leaves no doubt that the expansion went south from Taiwan.

Thus, whatever rice was present in Taiwan at that time was transferred south, together with its name. Most likely that was temperate japonica—what else ? That would certainly explain why it was so easily eliminated by tropical japonica.

In conclusion the finding that rice south of Taiwan is of the tropical japonica type does not argue agains the “Out of Taiwan” hypothesis. This hypothesis does not predict that modern Austronesian rices south of Taiwan should be temperate japonicas. It merely predicts that at the moment of the Out-of-Taiwan event, the Austronesians carried rice with them in their canoes and that they and their descendents grew it in the Philippines, Borneo, Malaysia, Indonesia… On linguistic evidence, such was indeed the case.

In closing I note the lack so far of reactions to my criticism regarding the far too recent date proposed in the Alam et al. paper for the  introduction of temperate japonica to Taiwan.

1 This table illustrates the regularity of sound correspondence in the words for the rice plant and other words in selected Austronesian languages in and outside Taiwan.

The Chinese name of the soybean

The soybean (Glycine max) is credited with having provided Chinese civilization with an abundant source of protein, but considering that it is “the  world’s foremost oilseed source” and that is “is widely used as cooking oil“, the primary reason behind its domestication may have been its high content in oil.

Soybean is called 荏菽 MC nyimX syuwk in ode 245〈大雅・生民〉of the Shi Jing:

蓺之荏菽。荏菽旆旆。

Legge’s translation of this passage:

“He fell to planting large beans.
The beans grew luxuriantly”

Legge’s “large beans” is 大豆, the common appellation of soya beans in Chinese culture.  The Mao commentary on the Shi Jing states that 荏菽 is the same thing as 茙菽, which was presumably how that thing was called when the Mao commentary was written. Zheng Xuan’s 鄭玄 (127-200) Maoshi jian 毛詩箋, a commentary on the Mao commentary, adds that both 荏菽 and 茙菽 refer to 大豆— the soybean. So we have two ancient names for the soybean: in MC pronunciation, nyimX syuwk  and nyung syuwk.

In a forthcoming paper, Ma Kun and I present evidence of a dialectal difference in Western Zhou times, manifested in particular in the treatment of the Old Chinese *-um rhyme: in western Old Chinese, *-um changes to *-uŋ, while in  eastern OC, it changes to *-əm. Middle Chinese continues eastern OC, with *-əm further evolving to MC -im after nonpharyngealized onsets. Western OC words also find their way into a limited layer of Middle Chinese: 茙 nyuwng and 荏 nyimX clearly form a doublet, western and eastern, of an OC *num(ʔ). We may reconstruct an early OC form *num(ʔ)-s-t(ʰ)uk, where *s-t(ʰ)uk means ‘bean’ and *num(ʔ) is its modifier. What did *num(ʔ) mean ?

Not ‘Glycine max’. 荏 MC nyimX also refers to 蘇, the plant Perilla, another source of oil. This suggests that *num(ʔ) was a name of vegetal oil in OC. I propose that 荏菽 and its western doublet 茙菽 originally meant ‘the oil bean’.

A number of western ST languages have a word num or similar to express the meaning ‘oil’: Tibetan snum, and similar forms in Lepcha, Cuona Menba, Boka’er.  Chinese *num(ʔ) and these western ST forms are evidently cognate.

There is no linguistic evidence to suggest that the soybean was a Sino-Tibetan domesticate, although it may have been used as a source of oil.

Tibetan sgro ‘large feather’—an epilogue

In an earlier post I discussed the Chinese connections of Written Tibetan (WT) སྒྲོ sgro ‘large feather, tail feather, quill’. I argued against the commonly held view that this word is cognate with OC 羽 *[ɢ]ʷ(r)aʔ > hjuX > yǔ ‘feather, wing’, proposing instead a connection to 喬 *[N-k](r)aw ‘lift, elevated, high’, 鷮 *[k](r)aw ‘kind of pheasant’ and to Jingpo ʃă31kʒau33 ‘to praise, extol’. My idea was to connect the TB word with the elevated tail feathers of pheasants.

A semantically more straightforward Chinese cognate has appeared: 翹 *[g]ew > gjiew > qiáo ‘long tail-feather’ (failure of the initial to palatalize is unexplained). The root in this word consists of a velar or uvular initial, possibly voiced, with rhyme *-ew. OC velars and uvulars go to velars in WT. As to the rhyme, Hill (2012:35) states that “Tibetan cognates have the main vowel -o- whenever Old Chinese has final -w, regardless of the main vowel in Old Chinese”.  We should therefore expect the WT vowel to be o. While the MC rhyme excludes medial -r-, Tibetan sgro has -r-: perhaps it is the Sino-Tibetan ‘multiple object’ <r> infix.  Alternatively we could suppose that the Chinese form also included medial -r- —that would explain the failure of the initial to palatalize before*e; but an OC *grew should give MC gjew, not gjiew.

The same character writes another word, homophonous with ‘long tail-feather’: 翹 *[g]ew > gjiew > qiáo ‘to raise’, which probably expresses the verbal root out of which ‘long [raised] tail feathers’ derives. Although 翹 in its two meanings has a different vowel from the cognates I had earlier proposed, ablaut between *a and *e is relatively common. I regard the *a and *e forms as ablaut variants in the meaning ‘lift, raise’, applied to the long tail feathers of birds like the pheasant.

This comparison is important because it illustrates a lexical innovation of western ST (‘TB’): once WT sgro is excluded, the numerous western ST cognates of 羽 *[ɢ]ʷ(r)aʔ ‘feather, wing’ all mean ‘bird’, or similar: the meaning ‘feather’ is entirely absent. See STEDT #1603 PTB *w(a/u) BIRD / EGG / WING / FOWL. We are in the presence of a PST word meaning ‘feather, wing’, changed to ‘bird’ via ‘feathered game’ or ‘winged game’ in western ST.

Reference

Hill, Nathan W. (2012) The Six Vowel Hypothesis of Old Chinese in Comparative Context. Bulletin of Chinese Linguistics 6.2: 1-69

West-coast Walu-Siwaish (master post)

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(jump up one level to Walu-Siwaish)

The West-coast Walu-Siwaish languages are Papora and Hoanya, two extinct languages, each of them significantly diverse. Their last speakers were interviewed mainly by Japanese linguists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We possess short vocabularies for a number of locations in rough phonetic transcriptions. Tsuchida (1982) includes a collection of these forms,  now in part accessible online through the Hoanya and Papora pages of the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database (ABVD; here and here) of Greenhill et al. (2003-).

Tsuchida (1982) gave two shared lexical innovations of Papora and Hoanya (i.e., Proto-Western Walu-Siwaish): [*S]i[]u ‘salt’ and *mari ‘sour’.  Another lexical innovation relates to the word for ‘fire’.

The Papora and Hoanya forms for ‘fire’ given by Tsuchida are: Papora tapū (1-1), dapū (2), dapu (1-3), lapu (3), la’pu (1-5), rapun (1-6); Hoanya dzapu (1-1 a), zapu (1-1b, 1-2, 1-3), zapū (1-8), rapū (2c), rappu (5), lapu (1-1c, 2, 3-1b, 3-le, 3-2), latpo (Chulo-hsien). Alphanumeric codes between parentheses refer to different data sources. Blust’s Austronesian Comparative Dictionary assigns these words to PANBlust *Sapuy ‘fire’. However Blust’s PAN *S goes to s- in both Hoanya (*Sikan ‘fish’ > sikan, *Suaji ‘younger sibling’ > suazi, *Sepat ‘4’ > supat) and Papora (*Siwa ‘nine’ > siya, *daqiS ‘forehead’ > ddes). Conversely none of the other Hoanya-Papora words with the same correspondence as ‘fire’ in Tsuchida (1982) goes back to PAN *S:

  Hoanya #1-1a Hoanya #1-8 Papora #1-3 Papora #2 
  dz z d d
fire
dzapu zapū dapu dapū
rain mudzas _
modad _
road, path dzalan _ dalan  
black mabidzu mavizū abidu avedoo

‘Rain’ and ‘road, path’ go back to PAN *z, and judging from Mongondow mo-bidu ‘blue’, ‘black’ is ambiguous for *d and *z. The Hoanya and Papora forms for ‘fire’ in Table 4 are evidently cognates of another word: PMPBlust *dapuR ‘hearth’, even though this form had not hitherto been identified outside of Malayo-Polynesian. *dapuR ‘hearth, cooking fire’ existed in AN before PMP, replacing PANBlust *Sapuy ‘fire’ in Papora and Hoanya and nowhere else. For the final consonant, Papora-Hoanya examples of PAN final *-R are few, but *-R falls in Hoanya #1-1b matulu ‘to sleep’ < *ma-tuduR (this etymon is not found elsewhere in Papora or Hoanya).

references

Blust, Robert A. and Stephen Trussel. Austronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD). Online at http://www.trussel2.com/acd/

Tsuchida, S. (1982) A Comparative Vocabulary of Austronesian Languages of Sinicized Ethnic Groups in Taiwan, Part I: Western Taiwan. Memoirs of the Faculty of Letters, No. 7, University of Tokyo. Tokyo, Japan.

 

 

Favorlang-Taokas

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(jump up one level to Pituish)

A monophyletic Favorlang-Taokas subgroup is supported by these innovations:

1. an innovative numeral for ‘6’: Favorlang and Babuza nataap, Taokas tahap, tákap , takkap (sets #26 and 28 in the ABVD).   These are additive forms based on a 1+5 prototype (*sa-RaCep), different from Saisiyat and Pazeh where ‘6’ is 5+1.

The Favorlang-Babuza form nataap  is composed of natta ‘1’ and achab [ahab] < *RaCep  ‘five’ reduced to [ab]. natta in turn reflects PAN *sa ‘one’ with na- prefixed marker of a derived series of numerals of uncertain functions: na-rroa ‘two’, na-torro-a ‘three’, na-spat ‘four’, na-chab ‘five’, na-taap ‘six’.

Taokas tahap, tákap , takkap ‘six’ is composed of ta- < *sa ‘one’ plus hap, kap, kkap in different dialect points. Initial h, k, kk reflects PAN *R. PAN *C should give Taokas s: here it is lost, presumably after *RaCep was reduced to Rasp through syncope.

2. An innovative word for ‘dog’. Favorlang mado, Babuza mato/malu/mado/malok (dialects), Taokas mato/maro/mazok/marox/malok etc. (dialects), all ‘dog’ (set #9 in ABVD). These forms go back to *ma[d]uq and displace PAN *asu, u-asu ‘dog’.

A Favorlang-Taokas subgroup is common to my phylogeny and to Blust’s.

Reference

ABVD (Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database). Online at https://abvd.shh.mpg.de/austronesian/. Accessed June 19, 2020.

Southern Austronesian *sa-puluq-at in numbers 10 to 19

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Jump to Southern Austronesian master post

This post returns to a subject discussed in a 2010 conference paper (here). New facts are presented and the interpretation is slightly modified.

Several Philippine languages belonging to the South-Central Cordilleran subgroup in northern Luzon: Kankanay, Kalinga, Bontok, Ifugao, Balangaw, Inibaloi, have a conjunction reflecting Proto-South-Central Cordilleran *et [ət] ‘and, and then’. In the Central Luzon group of Philippine languages, Kapampangan, not in direct contact with the Cordilleran languages, has at ‘and’, reflecting either *et [ət] or *at. Tagalog, a Central Philippines language, has at ‘and’, which can only reflect *at, unless it is a loan from neighboring Kapampangan at ‘and’ (personal communications from L. Reid and R.D. Zorc, April 2007). Kapampangan is known to be a source of loanwords to Tagalog. Among the Central Cordilleran languages reflecting *et ‘and’, Isinai, Kalinga and a few others use a phonologically reduced form of that morpheme between pulu ‘ten’ and a following unit numeral. Thus in Kalinga, ‘ten’ is simpulu < *sa-n(g)a-puluq, but ‘eleven’ is simpu:lut osa (Tryon et al. 1995, Vol. 4, 43-45). That last form is analyzable as /sin-pulu=t osa/, where /=t/ ‘and’, /osa/ < *əsa ‘one’. Similarly, ‘twelve’ is simpu:lut duwa /sin-pulu=t duwa/, where /duwa/ < *duSa ‘two’ and /=t/ ‘and’. Kapampangan, the only Central Luzon language with a reflex of *et, does not use it in compound numerals. Although Tagalog may have borrowed the conjunction from Kapampangan, it does use a reduced form of at in compound numerals above ‘20’, in a very similar way to Kalinga and Isinay:

dalawampu

twenty’ < *daduha ‘two’ + nasal linker + *puluq ‘ten’

dalawampút isá

twenty-one’ < *daduhatwo’ + nasal linker + *puluq ‘ten’ + =(a)t ‘and’ + *esa ‘one’

dalawampút dalawá

twenty-two’ < *daduhatwo’ + nasal linker + *puluq ‘ten’ + =(a)t ‘and’ + *daduha ‘two’

The puluq-t-numeral form cannot easily have been borrowed from Cordilleran into Tagalog, as the languages are not in contact: if Tagalog borrowed the conjunction from Kapampangan, Tagalog shows a development parallel to Cordilleran in its use of the conjunction.

There are two possible accounts of the development of the conjunction itself in the Philippine languages. In the first, the conjunction’s oldest form in the Philippines was *et [ət], regularly evolving to at in Kapampangan, and loaned to Tagalog as at. Under that account, the conjunction, inherited only in the South-Central Cordilleran and Central Luzon groups, reconstructs to the northern clade of Philippine languages in the phylogeny of Gray, Drummond and Greenhill (2009), which this post follows for Malayo-Polynesian. Use of the conjunction between *puluq and a following numeral in Cordilleran and in Tagalog must be the result of parallel innovations.

In a second account, the conjunction’s oldest form in the Philippines was *at. Kapampangan and Tagalog inherited it in that shape, while in the Cordilleran languages the presumably unstressed vowel underwent centralization, to [ət]. Under that account, Tagalog being part of the southern clade, both *at ‘and then’ and the *puluq=at+numeral construction reconstruct higher, to the ancestor of the southern and northern Philippine clades, that is node 28, Proto-Philippines, in Gray, Drummond and Greenhill (2009).

Whether as *et or *at, the Philippine conjunction is reminiscent of the form ato ‘and, with’ in Amis (central Amis: Fey 1986, Namoh 2013) and of the conjunction katu in Paiwan. In Nataoran Amis (Nataoran Amis: Bril fieldwork), atu may occur in numeral expressions (Isabelle Bril, p.c., 11 February 2014):

a cacay-en atu la-tusa ku ni-pabeli itakuan-an tu pawli

HORT one-UV and half NOM PERF.NMZ-give me-OBL ACC banana

Give me one and a half banana (lit. ‘let it be one and a half the giving a banana to me’)

Both Namoh (2013:136) and Bril treat ato~atu as originally composed of a ‘and’ plus =to ‘oblique common noun marker’, drawing a parallel to aci ‘and + personal noun’ (<a ‘and’ + =ci ‘personal noun marker’). The oblique common noun marker to itself is analyzable into t- oblique and u or o common noun marker.

In a northern Amis numeral system recorded by Tsuchida (here), tu, a shortened form of atu, serves in numerals between 11 and 19 as a linker between the locally innovated word for ‘ten’: sabaw , and the following unit number, e.g. sabaw tu tulu ‘13’, sabaw tu lima ‘15’.

Similarly, in a Paiwan dialect recorded by Chang Hsiou-chuan (here), a conjunction katu occurs between *sa-puluq and a following unit number, e.g. tapuluʔ katu ʔunəm ‘16’. katu is analyzeable as katu ‘and-oblique noun marker’, or possibly kaatu ‘andoblique noun marker’.

While *sa-puluq, the Puluqish word for ‘10’ ends in *-q, which corresponds to -k in Kra-Dai, the Kra-Dai word for ‘10’ ends in *-t, as if it came from *pulut: Proto-Kra (Ostapirat 2000) *pwlot ’10’; Proto-Hlai (Norquest 2015) *fu:t ’10’. The languages of the Kam-Tai branch have replaced the inherited form with a Chinese loanword.

The Philippine developments suggest an explanation. The following scenario is based on the hypothesis that the oldest Philippine form of the conjuction was *at. It is also possible to explain the facts under the view that it was *et, but the explanation is slightly more complex.

Comparison of Amis and Paiwan leads one to posit a conjunction *atu ‘and’ between *sa-puluq ‘10’ and a following numeral. In PSA the presumably enclitic conjunction was reduced to *at through syncope. Proto-Malayo-Polynesian and Proto-Kra-Dai, the direct daughters of PSA, inherited both *at and the compound numeral construction with it. Proto-Malayo-Polynesian in turn transmitted these to its immediate daughter Proto-Philippines, but the conjunction and construction were lost in Malayo-Polynesian outside of the Philippines. For this to occur, a single loss is required as such a node is supported with 98% posterior probability in Gray, Drummond and Greenhill (2009). Soon after Kra-Dai branched off, and independently from developments in the Philippines, *at ‘and’ was further reduced to /t/, and the resulting *sa-puluqt was reduced to *sa-pulut in PKD. This then evolved to Proto-Hlai *apu:c, Proto-Kra *pwlot. The outcome in Proto-Kam-Tai is unknown because these KD languages have abandoned Austronesian numerals for Chinese ones.

Reference

Gray, R.D., A.J. Drummond and S. Greenhill (2009) Language Phylogenies Reveal Expansion Pulses and Pauses in Pacific Settlement. Nature, 323, 479-483.

Norquest, Peter. 2015. A Phonological Reconstruction of Proto-Hlai. Brill.

Ostapirat, Weera. 2000. Proto-Kra. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 23.1:1-251.

Southern Austronesian lexical innovations

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Each of the lexical innovations listed below associates a Malayo-Polynesian form with reconstructions from one or more Kra-Dai branches. The MP side of the comparison either has no Formosan cognates, or cognates with different semantics.

1. PSA *baqbaq ‘mouth’.  Tsuchida’s *ŋuθuq ‘mouth’ (1976:130) is identical with Blust’s *ŋusuq ‘mouth’ and Wolff’s *ŋucuq ‘snout, beak’. This is the highest-reconstructing  Austronesian etymon for ‘mouth’ (humans and animals). It is reflected in Tsouic, Batanic and Oceanic (cognate set #2 here). In MP  *baqbaq ‘mouth’ (cognate set #1 here; see also here) is more widespread. In Taiwan Wolff recognized its precursor in Bunun vaqvaq ‘chin’ (2010:757); Bril (p.c., April 13, 2020) mentioned northern Amis babaq ‘jaw’. The most likely scenario, then, is that *baqbaq, a word for ‘chin’ or (lower ?) ‘jaw’ in a Formosan precursor of PMP, shifted to ‘mouth’ in PMP, competing with *ŋuθuq, ultimately displacing it in Cebuano, Malagasy, Old Javanese and other languages.

A reflex of *baqbaq is the word for ‘mouth’ in the Kam-Tai branch of Kra-Dai: Proto-Tai (Pittayaporn) *pa:k D, Proto-Kam-Sui (Thurgood) *pa:k 7, Proto-Ong-Be *ɓa:k D1.  For the  correspondence of PAN *-aq to Kam-Tai *-a:k, compare ‘otter’, PAN  *Sanaq : Proto-Tai *na:k.  Normally a singleton PAN *b in word medial position ought to evolve to Kam-Tai initial *b or *ɓ, not to *p: *p- in this word p actually corresponds to PMP *b devoiced in the word-internal *-qb- cluster.

2. PSA *biRáq ‘kind of taro’.  An etymon *biRaq occurs in Formosan languages in two meanings: ‘leaf’ and ‘taro/wild taro’. Evidently these are related, as the taro’s leaf is remarkable for its size. Blust reconstructs the meaning as ‘taro’ (here) but as the cognate set assembled by Wolff (2010:768) shows, Saisiyat bilaʔ, Tanan Rukai bia, Kavalan biɣi, Puyuma bira, all mean ‘leaf’. In MP,  the meaning ‘leaf’ has disappeared: all languages indicate ‘taro’ or a meaning derivable from ‘taro’. Specialization as ‘taro’ is innovative.

In the Kra-Dai languages, *biRaq appears as ‘taro’, never as ‘leaf’: Proto-Kra *p-ɣak D (Ostapirat), Proto-Hlai (Norquest) *ra:k, Proto-Tai (Pittayaporn) *prɯək, proto-Kam-Sui (Thurgood) *ɓra:k 7.  The voiceless initial in Proto-Kra and Proto-Tai again suggests a reduplicated AN prototype *biRaq-biRaq, cp. Kankanaey bila-bíla ‘Alocasia sp.’. The vowel in the Proto-Tai form points to a precursor with penultimate stress, as in most Philippine languages.

3. PSA -ŋel ‘deaf’. Blust reconstructed PAN * Culi ‘deaf’ (here), Wolff *tilu ‘id’. This word persists in MP, but MP languages add words for ‘deaf’ having root *-ŋel (here), possibly somehow connected with *deŋeR ‘hear’ (Puyuma, Paiwan, MP).

The Kra-Dai languages reflect *ŋel: Proto-Kra (Ostapirat) *ŋel C ‘deaf’.

4. PSA *píntu ‘door’. A PMP word for ‘door’: Malay pintu, Tagalog pinto, pintu-an reconstructs to PMP as *pintu. The cognate set is not recognized by either Blust or Wolff, probably due to the risk that the Tagalog form might be a loan from Malay. Formosan words for ‘door’ often include root *-Neb ‘close’ (Blust; here) so if *pintu reconstructs to PMP,  it is clearly innovative—though note the partial similarity to Thao pitaw ‘door’, regarded as chance convergence by Blust.

The Kra-Dai word for ‘door’ is related to PMP *pintu. Buyang, a Kra language, has ma tɔ  A2 ‘door’, where ma is the expected reflex of an Austronesian first syllable beginning in a labial (e.g. *walu > ma ðu ‘eight’, *buŋaH1 > ma ŋa C ‘flower’, *maCa > ma ta A ‘eye’), and   A2 reflects an unstressed *-ntu, i.e. a paroxytone PSA prototype *píntu. ‘A2’ is the low variant of tone A: it shows that initial t– went through a voiced stage, as it evolved out of  PSA *-nt-. PSA plain medial *-t- would evolve to Buyang t- with a high-series tone. Compare PSA *taŋkup ‘to cover’, PMP *ta(ŋ)kup or *tuŋkup id., Buyang ta qup D2 id. Proto-Lakkja (Theraphan) also has a low tone in ‘door’: *tɔ: A2.

5. PSA *qizúR ‘sputum, saliva’. The earliest recontructable Austronesian form for ‘sputum’ or ‘saliva’ is Proto-Walu-Siwaish *ŋalay, a form reflected in Rukai-Tsouic, Amis, Puyuma and Bashiic (Tsuchida 1976:230). The corresponding reconstruction in Blust’s system: *ŋajay is erroneous, as the medial consonants in Paiwan ŋadjay and –h– in Yami ŋahay are not regular outcomes of PAN *-j-. In MP *ŋalay is not found except in several Bashiic languages (Yami, Itbayaten, Ivatan…). In KD, Proto-Tai *la:j A, Proto-Lakkja *lei A reflect *ŋalay. Unaware of the Austronesian comparison, Ferlus (1996) nevertheless reconstructed the Proto-Kam-Sui initial as *ŋl-.

PMPBlust *qizuR ‘saliva, spittle’, reflected in the Philippines (Ibaloi, Southern Cordilleran), Toba Batak, Javanese is also found in the Kra branch of Kra-Dai : Buyang qa tu B. PSA *-R : KD tone B is regular, see Sagart (2019). Reflection of PSA *z as t- in Buyang is also regular: compare PSA Cazém ‘sharp, of a point or blade’ (PANBlust *Cazem), Buyang qa tam B/C ‘blade of a knife’. Thus *ŋalay and *qizuR are in competition in Philippine and KD languages, and nowhere else.

6. PSA qa-sáuŋ ‘canine tooth’. The highest reconstructable word for ‘canine tooth’ is *waqit (Blust, ACD), a Formosa-only etymon reflected in Atayal and Puyuma. Another word: *bangeliS (Also Blust, ACD), with reflexes in Kavalan and MP, is specifically a word for ‘tusk’. As ‘canine tooth’, *sáuŋ  displaced *waqit in Philippine languages. This same *sáuŋ became the word for ‘tooth’ in the Kra branch of KD: Proto-Kra *C-tʃuŋ A ‘tooth’ reflects *sáuŋ with a prefixed element, which Buyang qa ɕɔŋ 54 ‘tooth’ shows to have been a velar or uvular: *ka-sáuŋ or *qa-sáuŋ.

7. PSA *sapeléd or *sapelét ‘astringent’. Blust (ongoing) reconstructed *qasepa ‘astringent’, reflected in Puyuma and MP, and thus assignable to Puluqish. Only in Puyuma is the meaning ‘astringent’: all MP forms (Iban, Malay, Javanese) mean ‘stale’, ‘insipid’, ‘tasteless’. Subsequent to this semantic shift, the Puluqish word was displaced by a new word: PMP *sapeled or its disjunct *sapelet ‘astringent’, with reflexes in the Philippines, Malay and Mongondow (reconstructed in Blust, ongoing). A stative ma-prefix is in evidence in Bikol, Hanunoo. In Kra-Dai, Buyang phat 54 ‘astringent’ reflects a prefixed variant of *sapeled, possibly *ma-sapeled. The Buyang vowel points to a stressed vowel in the PSA prototype, thus *(ma)-sapeléd. Austronesian  vowels except for the last one are  lost in the evolution to Kra. For the reduction of the -pl- internal cluster to -p- in Buyang, compare PSA *sa-puluq-Vt ‘ten’, Buyang put 54 id. Buyang voceless aspirated stops originate in voiceless stops preceded by a voiceless obstruent, here /sp/. Proto-Tai *ʰwɯət probably has the same origin as Buyang phat. Of the two words for ‘astringent’, it is the later one which occurs in KD.

8. PSA *buŋáH1 and *bujak ‘flower’.  Which was the earliest Austronesian etymon for ‘flower’ ? Despite Blust (ongoing) and Wolff (2010), not *buŋaH1—I reconstruct final H1 in this word based on the correspondence between Aklanon final -h and Proto-Kra-Dai tone C. When examining the semantics of *buŋáH1 one must evidently leave aside languages (Atayal, Seediq, Thao, Amis, Puyuma, Thao) where the referent is ‘sweet potato’, a south American domesticate spread across the Pacific in prehistoric times. Such forms are in all likelihood loanwords, spread from an unknown source. This leaves only the two Southern Tsouic languages Kanakanabu and Saaroa. Inherited reflexes of *buŋaH1, not meaning ‘sweet potato’,  have been reported to occur there. During fieldwork on Saaroa in 2014 by myself and Hsu Tzefu, I elicited vuŋavuŋa < *buŋa-buŋa as ‘ear of foxtail millet’ (here). Wolff (2010) gave Saaroa vuu-vúŋa < *buu-buŋa ‘flower’. For Kanakanabu we have conflicting evidence. Wolff (2010 sub *buŋa) cited vuŋávuŋu, which seems to be vuŋ < *buŋ reduplicated, with final echo vowel; he notes a variant vuŋávuŋ. This does not reflect  *buŋa well—where is final *-a ? more probably it reflects *buŋ-a-buŋ. A root connection to Proto-Philippine *sabuŋ ‘flower’ (here) is possible. Blust (here) cited Kanakanabu buŋa-buŋa ‘flower’, the language source hyperlinked to Tsuchida (1976), but I could not find that form there.  Reconstructing Proto-Southern Tsouic (PST)  from Blust’s Kanakanabu buŋa-buŋa ‘flower’ and my Saaroa vuŋavuŋa ‘ear of foxtail millet’ one obtains PST *buŋa-buŋa ‘outgrowth of a plant’. The meaning ‘flower’ is too narrow.

‘Outgrowth of a plant’ also characterizes the meaning of *buŋáH1 in Philippine languages well: ‘fruit’, ‘seed’, ‘sapling’, ‘outgrowth’, ‘result’ are common meanings. ‘Flower’ is not among them, evidently because *buŋáH1 as ‘flower’ was displaced by *bujak (here). In MP languages from Malagasy to Oceanic where *bujak has not become the word for ‘flower’, the meaning of *buŋáH1 has narrowed down to ‘flower’.

What, then, was the earliest AN word for ‘flower’ ? very probably *buRay, a reconstruction of Dyen’s accepted by Blust   (here). This is based on Saisiyat and Paiwan forms, with the possible addition of Atayal and Kavalan.   In the post-Formosan phase of Austronesian history, *buRay was displaced as ‘flower’ by innovative *bujak and a semantically narrowed version of *buŋáH1. The former took hold in the Philippines, the latter in the rest of Malayo-Polynesian. Kra-Dai reflects both *buŋáH1 and *bujak.

A direct cognate of *buŋáH1 is seen in the Kra branch: Buyang ma ŋa 11 (tone C) ‘flower’, Proto-Kra (Ostapirat) *hŋa C id.. Preinitial ma in Buyang is regular for any labial initial in PSA. *h in Ostapirat’s reconstruction *hŋa C serves to account for the high-series tones in certain Kra varieties, but a reconstruction with *pŋ- or *ɓŋ- would serve the same purpose (the KD reflexes of PSA *b and *d are high-toned in KD), while accounting better for the Buyang pre-initial.

Proto-Tai *ɓlo:k (Pittayaporn) ‘flower’ is a cognate of *bujak .  PSA *j merges with PSA *d as PT *ɗ: *mújiŋ ‘nose’, PT *ɗaŋ A id. ; *púja ‘navel’, PT *ɗwɯ A. When forming a cluster with a preceding labial stop (as inside a trisyllable, where syncope of the second vowel occurs), the stop is retained and *ɗ (like *t-) lenites to l-: PSA *(Pfx-)punti ‘banana’, PT pli: A ‘banana blossom’; PSA *qapejúH2 ‘gall’ : PT *ɓli: A id. (change of *u to *i after *j is regular).

In order to have cognates of both *buŋáH1 and *bujak, KD needs to have branched off at a time when both words were in competition. That would have been the case between the moment when  *buRay was displaced (by *buŋáH1 and *bujak) and the separation between Proto-Philippines and the rest of MP: in other words, around the time of the out-of Taiwan event, c. 2000 BCE.

9. PSA *báNaS ‘husband’. Blust (ACD, here) reconstructs *baNaS ‘male (of animals)’, with Formosan reflexes in Pazeh, Saisiyat, Seediq and Paiwan.  This word was transmitted to PMP regularly as *banah, but the PMP meaning shifted to ‘husband’, while the earlier meaning was lost. There is a Kra-Dai cognate: proto-Hlai *alɨ A ‘husband’, with the same semantic shift as PMP.  The semantic displacement of ‘male’ by ‘husband’ is an innovation of PSA.

10. PSA *sedút ‘to suck’. Austronesian etyma for ‘to sip, suck’ assignable to pre-MP times are mostly onomatopoetic forms that begin in a sibilant and end in -p: Blust’s PAN *SiRup, *sepsep, *supsup, Wolff’s *siɣup, *cep, *cepecep , *cipecip, etc.  Blust’s PWMP *sedut ‘to sip, suck’ is a minor form with a  patchy but geographically widespread distribution in Sarawak, Lombok and New Guinea.

Kra-Dai has a cognate of *sedut: Proto-Hlai (Ostapirat) *iru:c ‘to suck’, Saek du:t 6, Siamese du:t 2.

References

Dyen, Isidore. 1995.Borrowing and inheritance in Austronesianistics. In Paul Jen-kuei Li, Cheng-hwa Tsang, Ying-kuei Huang, Dah-an Ho, and Chiu-yu Tseng, eds., Austronesian studies relating to Taiwan:455-519. Symposium Series of the Institute of History and Philology, No. 3. Taipei: Academia Sinica].

Ferlus, Michel. 1996. Remarques sur le consonantisme du proto kam-sui. Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale 25: 235-278.

Norquest, Peter. 2015. A Phonological Reconstruction of Proto-Hlai. Brill.

Ostapirat, Weera. 2000. Proto-Kra. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 23.1:1-251.

Pittayaporn, Pittayawat. 2009. The phonology of proto-Tai. Unpublished Cornell U. dissertation.

Theraphan L.-Thongkum. 1992. A preliminary reconstruction of Proto-Lakkja (Cha Shan Yao). Mon-Khmer Studies 20: 57-89.

Thurgood, Graham. 1988. Notes on the reconstruction of Proto-Kam-Sui. In Jerold A Edmondson and David B. Solnit (eds) Comparative Kadai: Linguistics studies beyond Tai, 179-218. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington publications in Linguistics.

Tsuchida, S. (1976) Reconstruction of Proto-Tsouic phonology. Tokyo: Study of languages and cultures of Asia and Africa monograph series N° 5.

Wolff, John U. (2010) Proto-Austronesian phonology with glossary. 2 vols. Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia program publications.

Conflated cognate sets in the STEDT II — ‘to spit’

This post continues a previous one on the ST word for ‘excrement’ (here) as represented in the STEDT database.

The STEDT set #601 PTB *m/s-tu:k SPIT (here) is another example of a STEDT etymon conflating two phonetically and semantically similar cognate sets. One has vowel *u (column I in the below table), the other has *a (column II). The form with *u is reflected in e.g. Lushai thuk ‘to spit’, Lepcha tyuk id. Dulong duʔ⁵⁵ ‘vomit’; the etymon with *a by Lushai chhâk ‘to spit’, Atong dak id., Tangkhul (khā) tok ‘mucus’; perhaps also by Nocte a tʰoak ‘to spit’, Chang Naga tok id.

Some Lushai etyma with initial chh- [tsh-] reflect an earlier root initial *t- in a specific condition, perhaps when prefixed with *s- (compare the STEDT reconstructions PTB *s-twak ‘go out’, *s-tu ‘vagina’, Lushai chhuak, chhu). Lushai chh- also corresponds to Old Chinese *t- in chhûng ‘the inside of anything’, OC 中 trjuwng < *truŋ ‘center’.

Thus Lushai chhâk ‘to spit’ is likely from *[s-]ta:k, rather than from the first etymon. That word had earlier been made part of set #601: but it is now (June 2019) placed under #540 PTB *k(r)aːk phlegm / sputum / mucus. On the one hand that decision solves a problem with the vowel correspondence, since Lushai -âk could not plausibly reflect an earlier *-u(:)k; at the same time making chhâk a reflex of *k(r)a:k is phonologically unlikely because (1) that etymon is already present in Lushai, as khâk ‘phlegm’, and (2) there are no good parallels for Lushai chh– having evolved out of an earlier *kr-.

There is no clear semantic difference between the two sets. In Lushai, where both occur, the semantic difference appears to relate to the amount of saliva being spat out. The following glosses are extracted from Lorrain’s 1940 dictionary:

1) chhâk (p. 73) chhâk, v. to spit, to expectorate, to spit out, to spit on or upon, to spit at; to put out (as tongue).

2) thuk (p. 488) thuk, v. to spit, to expectorate; to spit out, to spit at, to spit on or upon. (Unless an intensive adverb is used with this word it generally signifies spitting a very small quantity of saliva.)

The second set is in all likelihood cognate with the Chinese word for ‘spit’: 吐 thuX/H < *tʰˤaʔ, *tʰˤaʔ-s. Sagart (2017) shows that one source of OC *-ʔ is PST *-q, which merges with *-k outside of Sinitic.

We are thus able to posit a PST monosyllabic etymon #tʰaq ‘to spit’. That etymon in turn can be compared with PAN *untaq ‘to spit’ (Sagart 2005). The comparative picture is shown below:

 III
Lushaithukchhâk
Lepchatyuk 
Dulongduʔ⁵⁵ 
Atong dak
Tangkhul (khā) tok  ‘mucus’
Old Chinese 吐 *tʰˤaʔ ‘to spit’
Proto-Austronesian *untaq ‘to spit’

Table 1: two etyma within the STEDT set #601 PTB *m/s-tu:k SPIT, with Chinese and Austronesian cognates.

References

Lorrain, J. Herbert (1940) Dictionary of the Lushai language. Calcutta : Asiatic Society.

Sagart, L. (2005) Sino-Tibetan-Austronesian: an updated and improved argument. In L. Sagart, R. Blench and A. Sanchez-Mazas (eds) The peopling of East Asia: Putting together Archaeology, Linguistics and Genetics, pp. 161-176. London: RoutledgeCurzon.

Sagart, Laurent (2017). A candidate for a Tibeto-Burman innovation. Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale 46, 101-119.