Zompist Bboard Again

I need ideas for sound changes that can condense the following numerals into tri- or quadraliteral roots If you want them to be different from each other , trying to leverage the stress-based reduction would probably go far. (Some umlauts are also always a good option.) After applying your stated c...

Travis B. wrote: ↑Thu Nov 08, 2018 4:46 pm Some people here have restored /ju/, or shall I say, [i̯ʉ] or even [i̯y] in words like new and stupid through fronting and breaking of /u/ after a coronal.

This would then presumably include also words like too, do, noose?

I only hear "money" with the vowel of "bunny" ... never heard it with /O/ or /A/. Oh, it's one of those. Someday I would like to see a reasonably good list of them really… (You know, with o for /ᴧ/ due to medieval spelling problems: above dove glove love , done none son , monk m...

My L2 English these days seems to have a "nonstandard LOT-CLOTH" split – with the LOT set having /ɑ/, but the CLOTH set having /ɔ/. This is distinct from /ɔː/ in THOUGHT or NORTH. (This is regardless phonemic, at minimum since my STRUT also ends up as /ɑ/, which is phonetically a somewhat ...

Here's an online Estonian–Udmurt dictionary.

*h₂ is, per recent results from Kümmel (though I'm still waiting to see the full paper), retained in SW Iranian as /h/~ /x/. Given also the Anatolian evidence, I think this nails this down as a voiceless back fricative pretty conclusively. Let us know when the paper comes out and where to find it. ...

Glaire [gla.iɾə] (I may have posted some of this on the old board) Inventory: /p t k G R i ı a/ T will be a cover symbol for /p t k/. Syllable structure: (T,G)(R)V(G,R). Surface codas only occur in final syllables. Allophony /G/ → [ʒ] in syllables with /i/ [g] word-initially before /ı a R/ [w] in c...

Voiceless semivowels for laryngeals sounds dubious in light of how the "vocalized" versions generally result in *a (most langs), *e *a *o (Greek). Only Indo-Iranian has *i, nothing has *u or diphthongs. Non-semivowel approximants could work… I kinda like the *ɹʷ idea on first earful. *h₂ i...

One additional thing to note is that Blench is usually not the most trustworthy source for detailed phonological reconstruction. For starters, he mixes here different systems of reconstruction in the Austronesian and Hlai proto-forms. In AN *e, *C, *S and *ə, *ʈ, *ʂ, in Hlai *b, *əy and *ɓ, *əəy are...

Nasal reflexes of a lateral are not "doubtful" at all. If we look at the different branches of Austronesian, they overwhelmingly represent lateral reflexes for that particular proto-phoneme. Cognates no, the reconstruction, yes. You might be aware that Blench also proposes that the primar...

He also says that the classical reconstruction of 'child' for PAn is *aNak, but instead the evidence prefers a root *-lak. But anyone with even a trivial knowledge of Austronesian historical linguistics knows that the symbol *N describes a lateral; The regular correspondence however seems to be Aus...

Blust, writing in 2009, says that a "historical connection" between Austronesian and Tai-Kadai "now appears virtually certain", but that whether it's genetic or just extensive borrowing remains "a point of contention". Though given that the borrowing would involve at l...

Speaking of the devil, here is a new "thanks, I hate it" paper according to which *h₃…Kʷ results in Hittite š , Lydian s , Luvian-Lycian-Milyan t/d (an intermediate Proto-Anatolian *dž is proposed). The Anatolian Dissimilation Rule Revisited So on one hand that sure sounds like labializati...

Austro-Tai is fait accompli by now, even if many details are still to be worked out (I suppose including even: whether Austronesian and Kra-Dai are two separate branches at all, or just two geographic areals within the family). Here are two brand-new works from Blench: – Tai-Kadai and Austronesian a...

I feel that the fact (…) that velar stops do not (consistently) colour vowels (words with *a next to a plain velar stops, with no *h2 anywhere near are IMHO late loanwords) speak against *h2 being velar. Velar fricatives, maybe particularly voiceless ones, can have stronger vowel coloring effects t...

Greek, Armenian and probably Anatolian moved this way, but in Neolithic times and earlier, most traffic on this route seems to have been in the other direction. Also, as you observe, none of the three branches of IE that moved from the Balkans into Anatolia ever went further into Mesopotamia or the...

So the Neolithic Near East probably was more diverse than the Bronze Age one. Sure. However, the Near East (NB: in which term I include Mesopotamia — and definitely do no include the Balkans, an usage that is completely alien to me) is mostly not a refugee zone where we can expect multiple isolates...

[I know, Tropylium's going to come in and yell at me for impugning the white european credentials of the finns. Whatever.] I had a joke I thought of adding at this point, but maybe I'll rather agree with gach that this barb seems unproductive. Unwarranted, even. On Tambov et al. re: Finnic peoples,...

"I must stress, first of all, that the study of macrofamilies is not a quilt…"

As Tropylium has written here , Indo-Uralic could be a research project that supports several linguists' entire careers Yes, that's kind of the point I'm getting at here. We have no guarantee at all that something like Indo-Uralic is "just beyond" the horizon of what current historical li...