Spoken Yamna Style: Atman's guide to Proto-Indo-European

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atman
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Re: Spoken Yamna Style: Atman's guide to Proto-Indo-European

Post by atman »

Talk like an Indo-Europeanist
Atman's entirely serious guide to IE technical vocabulary, phrases and jargon


INDO-EUROPEANISTS

kʷékʷlos klan: the Indo-European studies research community

American PIE: several eminent IEists are based in the United States

feeling lost like a laryngeal: a common situation for the beginner in IE studies

easy as PIE: on the other hand, experienced Ieists don't think the reconstructed language is that hard to work with

who ate all the PIEs?: some IE researchers happen to be overweight

RUKI: beginner student of Indo-European

wáy!: damn, another budget cut for our IE linguistics department!

a heck of a lot of wérǵom: putting together a new etymological dictionary of PIE is hard work

h3égʷʰim égwhent (he slayed the serpent): used when an Indo-Europeanist manages to finish a new book after working on it for years

h3nómn̩-ḱlutós (name-fame): things in IE studies carry the name of their discoverers forever (Narten ablaut, Caland system, Grassmann's law...)


RECONSTRUCTION ISSUES

fifty shades of h1rudhrós: it's not easy to reconstruct PIE color terms

love of the Kurgan people: sex, marriage and family in PIE times

it's a long way to Dnipropetrovsk: it took a lifetime to find the PIE homeland

PIE in the sky: fascinating but unproven hypotheses like Indo-Uralic, Nostratic, Eurasiatic, the Old European Hydronymy...

PIE in the face: some ideas are just laughable

no matter how you slice the PIE: on the contrary, other things are pretty uncontroversial

have your PIE and eat it too: beware of the dangers of overreconstruction

eat humble PIE: mistakes happen in IE studies

shepherd's PIE: why are Indo-Europeanists always talking about sheep in a plain?

have one's fingers in many PIEs: when one can't settle for a specific reconstruction

the éǵhs-files: in moments of desperation, some people think PIE is too complicated to be a mere Earth language; it must come from somewhere else

the dark side of the PIE: the history of IE studies is full of political arguments, racism, and features things like Nazi German intelligence agencies and Soviet researchers lost in the steppe never to be heard of again...

comparative method: white magic

internal reconstruction: black magic

applying the comparative method to forms obtained by internal reconstruction: don't try this at home, kids!

putting the wóǵʰom before the h1éḱwom (putting the cart before the horse): doing things backwards (thanks Lambu)


INDO-EUROPEAN SCHOLARLY ARTICLES

First of all, always remember that Indo-Europeanists love German words: ablaut, umlaut, auslaut, anlaut, Gruppenflexion, Stammbildung...

And Sanskrit ones: tudati presents, svarabhakti vowels, set and anit roots, tatpurusha and bahuvrihi compounds...

AND HOW TO COMMENT ON SAID ARTICLES

can't tell laryngeals from laryngitis: the author is incompetent

too much médhu: the author must've been drunk

h1m̩m̩m̩: at times it's hard to pick an etymology over another

kʷód?: you can't be serious, can you?

lewkóm!: brilliant!

ḱléwos n̩dhgwhitóm (eternal glory): congratulations!

h3gʷʰr̩r̩r̩r̩r̩: I suspect your methodology might not be quite sound

pace: dude, I don't think you got it right this time

contra: well, we'll agree to disagree, I suppose

unsupported: bullshit

idiosyncratic: bullshit

certainly premature: bullshit
Երկնէր երկին, երկնէր երկիր, երկնէր և ծովն ծիրանի.
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HinGambleGoth
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Re: Spoken Yamna Style: Atman's guide to Proto-Indo-European

Post by HinGambleGoth »

Whenever in doubt about the origin of an unexpected vowel in some old IE-language, just say "must be some other ablaut-grade" and move on.
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loglorn
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Re: Spoken Yamna Style: Atman's guide to Proto-Indo-European

Post by loglorn »

If PIE had postpositions and some descendants have prepositions, and these prepositions actually come from the PIE postpositions, how come those adpositions just changed place?
Diachronic Conlanging is the path to happiness, given time. [;)]

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Re: Spoken Yamna Style: Atman's guide to Proto-Indo-European

Post by Znex »

loglorn wrote:If PIE had postpositions and some descendants have prepositions, and these prepositions actually come from the PIE postpositions, how come those adpositions just changed place?
Because I don't think they were true postpositions anyway, I think they were supposed to be some sort of auxiliary verb as well or something.
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Re: Spoken Yamna Style: Atman's guide to Proto-Indo-European

Post by eldin raigmore »

Don't more adpositions descend etymologically from adverbs than from any other single part-of-speech? (Though, if I understand correctly, not from all other parts-of-speech taken together.)

And don't more case-endings descend etymologically from postpositions (or at least from adpositions) than from any other single etymological source? (Again, AIUI, not from all other sources taken together.)

A verbal auxiliary needn't be a verb nor even act like a verb.
An auxiliary-word is a verbal auxiliary if it tells at least one of: aspect, modality/mode/mood, polarity, tense, and/or voice; of the main verb, possibly along with other information.
Verbal auxiliary words which inflect, usually act syntactically as if they are verbs which have the main verb as their object.
Verbal auxiliary particles -- words which don't inflect -- have idiosyncratic syntactic behavior.

A modifier which can modify a verb or a verb-phrase or a clause or a sentence, is (one kind of) adverb.
(Any modifier which isn't an adjective is an adverb; if it modifies anything other than nouns and noun-phrases -- for instance, verbs or adjectives or other adverbs -- it's an adverb. But right now I'm only interested in ad-verbal adverbs, not ad-adjectival adverbs etc.)
There tends to be semantic and grammatical overlap between ad-verbal adverbs and verbal auxiliary-words.

Could some of these "postpositions" have been better-classified, or at least also-classified, as adverbs or as verbal auxiliary-words?
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Re: Spoken Yamna Style: Atman's guide to Proto-Indo-European

Post by Ephraim »

I think it's often said that PIE "adpositions" were more like adverbs. Beekes writes:
"PIE did not have preverbs or pre- or postpositions, only adverbs (which became pre-verbs, etc., in the individual languages)." (Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, 2nd ed. p. 173)

It's never been quite clear to me exactly what this means. I'm not sure what the difference would be between a postposition and an adverb that is placed after a noun to describe it. But perhaps they were different in some sense:
1. They could be positioned away from the noun.
2. They didn't govern any particular case. The choice of case was more semantically conditioned (as I believe it is in Vedic still).

In any case, there's nothing strange about postpositions becoming prepositions. This happened in Germanic for example. Early Germanic had mostly postpositions (and I think they were true postpostions) but later languages obviously have mostly prepositions. Both positions were possible for a long time. These changes happened together with many other changes in word order.
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Re: Spoken Yamna Style: Atman's guide to Proto-Indo-European

Post by Lambuzhao »

loglorn wrote:If PIE had postpositions and some descendants have prepositions, and these prepositions actually come from the PIE postpositions, how come those adpositions just changed place?

On a smaller diachronic scale, just take a look at the Italic languages. Oscan and Umbrian used postpositions (presumably from PIE), while (Old Latin) used some post-positions as well, while virtually non survived into Classical Latin, save -cum (e.g. mecum, tecum, nobiscum). Though not technically prepositions, the conjunctions
-que and -ve might form a sixter taxon.

On a somewhat similar note, the freaky-deaky ADJ + PRP + NOUN that exists in Latin might also be some kind of weird vermiform-appendix/coccyx holdover from PIE (e.g. quam ob rem, magna cum laude, etc.).

which see-
http://www.academia.edu/2134498/The_wor ... _Sabellian


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¡Justo y necesario!
[xP]
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atman
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Re: Spoken Yamna Style: Atman's guide to Proto-Indo-European

Post by atman »

Lambuzhao wrote:Talk like and Indo-Europeanist

¡Justo y necesario!
Thank you! But I'm not done yet...

Talk like an Indo-Europeanist - Addendum

The Indo-European Big Three: Latin, Greek and Sanskrit. Learn 'em, you've got no choice.

The Indo-European Significant Seven: Hittite, Tocharian B, Avestan, Gothic, Classical Armenian, Old Irish, Old Church Slavonic. Studying one or two of these doesn't hurt either.

feeling productive like a r/n heteroclite: when you can't get anything done

feeling productive like a thematic stem: when you're really on fire

PIE for breakfast: the best reconstruction ideas come in the morning

passim: read the whole paper, lazy ass!

Festschrift: birthday PIE for noted Indo-Europeanists

steppe by steppe: Indo-European studies should be approached gradually

a larger share of the PIE: Indo-European studies would deserve more attention and respect these days

freshly-baked PIE: recent theories likely to have a bright future (the h2e-conjugation, the a/o ablaut series...)

late PIE: what... do you mean my revolutionary new theory on Indo-European was already proposed, discussed and debunked in Freiburg in 1973?

nuclear PIE: some pseudo-researchers would deserve total annihilation

the other side of the PIE: it is strongly forbidden to perform séances in order to learn more about the phonological and morphosyntactical details of Proto-Indo-European
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Re: Spoken Yamna Style: Atman's guide to Proto-Indo-European

Post by Ahzoh »

kʷékʷlos klan...
I see what they did there...
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Re: Spoken Yamna Style: Atman's guide to Proto-Indo-European

Post by qwed117 »

sangi39 wrote: The front velar vs. back velar approach has been suggested as a possible solution which might also more easily explain the merger of traditional * and *k into *k with some members of this board and the ZBB suggesting that /c/ > /k/ is somewhat unlikely, although others have used Hawai'ian's /t/ > /k/ as a possible counter-example.
But Hawai'ian's t->k is a manifestation of a larger chain shift more precisely (In X-Sampa) /t/>/k/>/?/>...Image
Still, it wouldn't explain a decent amount of info, like why doesn't k>? If we were to compare it to Hawai'ian. PIE is crazier than all of us, it seems
Edit: This is 4/8/16... I have no idea what this post is. Maybe I'm saying if /c/ moved back to /k/ then /k/ would've triggered the loss of the laryngeals. 2sketchy4me/
Last edited by qwed117 on 09 Apr 2016 05:00, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Spoken Yamna Style: Atman's guide to Proto-Indo-European

Post by Lambuzhao »

*[óynos kʷékʷlos dʰreǵeti sm̥peh₂ntn̥s ⁞ h₁régʷesu-kʷe ‎ bʰendʰeti]
Spoiler:
I kno. I took the low road here. 'draw' and 'bind'. But, to redeem myself, I used a steampunked ἁπάντᾰς = all.ACC.PL, and then used the grandmom of Erebus/røkkr/riqis/‎rajas, plus the clitic 'and'. The reconstruction *h₁régʷesu was the genesis of this lil couplet. As for ring, I wanted to retrofit Gothic figgragulþ, but alas, which to use: 'fiver' or 'pointer' ‽‽‽ I enjoy how the word for "all (of them)" hangs in the middle of this conundrum; one could add the 3PL pronouns, but I like their absence. languages are so damn fun. [:S]

Has someone already translated the One Ring poem into PIE somewheres
:?:
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Re: Spoken Yamna Style: Atman's guide to Proto-Indo-European

Post by Lambuzhao »

Woops! Completely forgot a gloss

NUM-NOM.SG circle-NOM.SG pull-PRS.3SG COLL=all-ACC.PL darkness-LOC.PL=CNJ tie-PRS.3SG

[:)]
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Re: Spoken Yamna Style: Atman's guide to Proto-Indo-European

Post by atman »

Lambuzhao wrote: Has someone already translated the One Ring poem into PIE somewheres
No, and I'm busy with a couple of tango translations into Atlántika (Caminito, A media luz), but let's try:

óynos kʷékʷlos sm̩péh2ntn̩s dʰréǵeti, h1régʷeskʷe tóns bʰéndʰeti.

kʷékʷlos for 'ring' is very inappropriate, but I don't know what else one might use
sm̩péh2ntn̩s may be just right for an emphatic form of 'all' ('every one of them')
dʰréǵeti can be the SBJV of the verb associated to the root dʰréǵ- only if it inflected as a root present; let's hope so
h1régʷeskʷe using the endingless locative of the singular I saved one syllable
tóns I gave up and added the pronoun
bʰéndʰeti Don Ringe says the root bʰéndʰ- did make a root present (bʰéndʰmi-bʰéndʰsi-bʰéndʰti...bʰn̩dʰénti); bʰéndʰeti is the associated SBJV, remembering that PIE subjunctives were basically future indicatives with additional modal uses I've used two of them for this translation.
Lambuzhao wrote: Woops! Completely forgot a gloss
In IE studies nobody uses glosses anyway (at most, etymological notes are given and very difficult passages are translated); for the most part everyone is expected to know every language already. [:)] [:x] [:'(]
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Re: Spoken Yamna Style: Atman's guide to Proto-Indo-European

Post by Ephraim »

atman wrote:kʷékʷlos for 'ring' is very inappropriate, but I don't know what else one might use]
According to Mallory/Adams (The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European...), there are extremely few IE terms for terms for ornaments and they are largely limited to regional isoglosses. They give one word for ring, *ānos (or *h₁eh₂no- with a laryngealized form taken from Wiktionary), but it is limited to a few branches. It is attested in Lat. ānus (and the derived word ānulus), OIr áinne and possibly Old Armenian անուր (anur). Martirosyan thinks that it may be a substrate word.

The Latin word anus has of course been borrowed into English and many other European languages in a more limited sense.
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Re: Spoken Yamna Style: Atman's guide to Proto-Indo-European

Post by Lambuzhao »

One anus to rule them all! :roll:

Sure gives new meaning to "draw them all and bind them"
in the throes of painful constipation

Twas cheeses, my Precious! Cheese's what did it!
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Re: Spoken Yamna Style: Atman's guide to Proto-Indo-European

Post by Lambuzhao »

Edit: óynos h₁eh₂nos sm̩péh2ntn̩s dʰréǵeti, h₁régʷeskʷe tóns bʰéndʰeti.

I can roll with that.
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Re: Spoken Yamna Style: Atman's guide to Proto-Indo-European

Post by pittmirg »

Ephraim wrote:
atman wrote:kʷékʷlos for 'ring' is very inappropriate, but I don't know what else one might use]
According to Mallory/Adams (The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European...), there are extremely few IE terms for terms for ornaments and they are largely limited to regional isoglosses.
It is to be expected, imo, as fashion changes are efficient at eliminating old such terms and bringing in new ones. Just like clothing terms are often rather divergent even between closely related languages.
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Re: Spoken Yamna Style: Atman's guide to Proto-Indo-European

Post by qwed117 »

Lambuzhao wrote:One anus to rule them all! :roll:

Sure gives new meaning to "draw them all and bind them"
in the throes of painful constipation

Twas cheeses, my Precious! Cheese's what did it!
One image to rule them all : Goatse.
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Re: Spoken Yamna Style: Atman's guide to Proto-Indo-European

Post by Lambuzhao »

Okie-day! My give up! My give up!

http://cdn1.sciencefiction.com/wp-conte ... banner.png

Meesa muy muy give up!!!

[>_<]
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Re: Spoken Yamna Style: Atman's guide to Proto-Indo-European

Post by qwed117 »

Lambuzhao wrote:Okie-day! My give up! My give up!

http://cdn1.sciencefiction.com/wp-conte ... banner.png

Meesa muy muy give up!!!

[>_<]
We've gotten from 3-H to a falcon's speed in distance units. I congratulate the Universe
Spoiler:
My minicity is [http://zyphrazia.myminicity.com/xml]Zyphrazia and [http://novland.myminicity.com/xml]Novland.

Minicity has fallen :(
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