14
votes
Apparent sound crespondences between Eurasian, Trans-New-Guinean, Pama-Nyungan and Burushaski
I don't see any regular correspondences in the data you've presented.
A regular correspondence involves a series of forms in which, whenever language A has sound X, language B has sound Y. For example,...
- 10.9k
11
votes
Accepted
Advances in Glottochronology
(This was going to be a comment but it got too long. I hope it is useful nonetheless.)
I can speak for Austroasiatic linguistics (a fairly large family with a small core of researchers actively ...
- 707
10
votes
Limits of historical linguistic reconstruction
You might be interested in Beyond lumping and splitting: probabilistic issues in historical linguistics by Baxter and Ramer (1999). From their abstract:
In this paper, we argue that the temporal ...
- 64.1k
9
votes
Accepted
What are the different schools of PIE reconstruction?
I know that this question has remained unanswered for over four years, but I have decided to revive it considering that it's currently the unanswered question with the most upvotes here on Linguistics ...
- 216
9
votes
Accepted
What is Proto-Semitic *x̣?
One page further (p. 587), Huehnergard gives as one of the changes from Proto-Semitic to Old Babylonian:
Common Semitic *ḫ and *x̣ merged to ḫ (Huehnergard 2003):
*ḫamisum > ḫamšum ‘five’; *...
- 3,768
9
votes
Accepted
Why is the proto-italic reconstruction of "corpora" "*korpezā"?
The e in the oblique stem seems to go back to Proto-Indo-European: compare the Germanic cognate, nom sg *hrefaz, nom pl *hrifizō.
Even if the PIt form had been **korpozā, -e- would be the expected ...
- 64.1k
8
votes
Can we make a case for Eurasiatic numerals for one and two?
Definitely not.
Two words only aren't enough to establish any kind of relationship.
The best you can do with it is to use them as seeds for possible sound relations and look of regular sound laws ...
- 29.8k
8
votes
Is Austronesian the closest relative to PIE?
Usually the most close relative to PIE among other Eurasiatic languages is considered Chukchi-Kamchadal family.
You probably know this already, but the idea of a "Eurasiatic" language family isn't ...
- 64.1k
8
votes
If *h1 were a glottal stop, and virtually all German word initial vowels have an implicit glottal stop
In German, a glottal stop is inserted before a vowel-initial morpheme, when that morpheme does not come immediately after a consonant. It never forms minimal pairs, and its distribution is completely ...
- 64.1k
7
votes
Can computational techniques solve historical problems that couldn't otherwise be solved?
You say "... some critics say that these methods have not brought anything new ..." From my recollection of some old results (well outside my areas of expertise), I would say the problem is rather ...
- 12.4k
6
votes
Understanding the reflexes of PIE *ǵneh3- in Sanskrit, Latin and Greek
In Indo-Iranian both *eh₃ and *n̥h₃ become *ō, which then becomes ā. In Skt jānāti there is an infix *-ne- before the last consonant of the root, in this case the laryngeal. Thus the zero-grade root *...
- 23.8k
6
votes
Potential gaps in the pIE phonological system?
In particular, what is the proof the pIE didn't have retroflex stops? Or that it lacked affricates? In general, can we be sure that there are no major gaps in the pIE phonological system?
It turns ...
- 64.1k
6
votes
Accepted
When was Proto-Austronesian spoken?
This map from Wikipedia assigns dates to the Austronesian expansion, and Proto-Austronesian on Taiwan dates back to before 3000 BC. The line below the map says that the dates are coming from ...
- 29.8k
5
votes
Accepted
internal reconstruction before comparative method
Yes, and internal reconstruction has been used to great effect in IE studies. Saussure's laryngeal theory was discovered using internal reconstruction, at a time when no direct reflexes of the ...
- 12.4k
5
votes
What are some of the most divergent cognate word forms?
Divergent cognates are going to be a feature of any language family (as pointed out in this paper by Larry Trask used in the answer to this question about "mama" and "papa" words), and because of this ...
- 439
5
votes
Accepted
How would've the Old Novgorodian language looked like?
The best reference on Old Novgorod is Andrey Zaliznyak's 2004 monograph, Древненовгородский диалект (Drevnenovgorodskij dialekt, 2nd ed.), freely available online https://inslav.ru/publication/...
- 8,695
5
votes
Apparent sound crespondences between Eurasian, Trans-New-Guinean, Pama-Nyungan and Burushaski
Below are my comments on the Eurasiatic data, and why I think @Anixx's forms are not Proto-Eurasiatic numerals. As I am not a specialist of Burushaski, Trans-New-Guinean, or Pama-Nyungan, I cannot ...
- 159
4
votes
What is the oldest language that we know enough about to construct a plausible sentence in it?
Sumerian and Egyptian are attested in texts from about 3000 BC onwards. These are real languages, not reconstructed ones like PIE.
- 23.8k
4
votes
Why Is It That Ancient Greek Reconstructed Pronunciation Is Always Used For Koine?
Much simpler reason. The teaching of Koine Greek is dependent on the local tradition for the teaching of Classical Greek: Classical Greek is more prestigious in language teaching, and is how most ...
- 3,286
4
votes
If *h1 were a glottal stop, and virtually all German word initial vowels have an implicit glottal stop
there's no particular significance to finding words among them that are reconstructed with the laryngeal.
This is exactly the case. The presence of a glottal stop at the start of German words is not ...
- 17.8k
4
votes
Did PIE *h3 cause voicing in any other words than the "drink" word?
Turns out there's at least one other suggested, but controversial, case of voicing by *h3, involving the "Hoffmann suffix" *-Hon- or *-h3on-. Piotr Gąsiorowski discusses it here. The same suffix may ...
- 10.9k
4
votes
Understanding the reflexes of PIE *ǵneh3- in Sanskrit, Latin and Greek
@fdb's answer addresses the Indo-Iranian forms, so this one will address the Greek and Latin ones.
In Greek, there are two relevant sets of sound changes:
PIE *eH > Gk V̄. That is, *e followed by ...
- 10.9k
4
votes
Can computational techniques solve historical problems that couldn't otherwise be solved?
One thing that computational technology might in principle be useful for is managing huge amounts of data. This could be useful if all of the sudden we discovered word lists for a thousand ...
- 82.2k
4
votes
Advances in Glottochronology
One of the core assumptions of lexicostatistics, the constant word replacement rate, was questioned be Daniel Nettle (1999) who suggests different rates of language evolution depending on the size of ...
- 29.8k
3
votes
Accepted
Proto-Indo-European *nepōts cognate in Old English
It sounds like this is meant as a puzzle of some sort. So I'll tell you right away—the information you've given isn't sufficient to know where the stress is. Stress in PIE isn't always predictable, so ...
- 64.1k
3
votes
Could Proto-Indo-Uralic be reconstructed?
Nope
We have only two proto-languages to compare, and the list of attested roots is already sparse. The set of potential cognates is even sparser and leaves not enough material for reconstruction. It ...
- 29.8k
3
votes
What is Proto-Semitic *x̣?
Today´s consensus is that the emphatic sounds were realized as glottalized (as, e.g., in Akkadian), not as pharyngalized (cf., e.g., Arabic). Therefore, one for a root, no more (in Akkadian, known as ...
- 31
3
votes
What's the reconstruction of the word for fire in proto-Australian?
Unfortunately, there's no real consensus on any sort of "Proto-Australian" reconstruction. Some linguists like Dixon proposed "Australian" as an actual language family, with a ...
- 64.1k
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