(L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]

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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Ælfwine »

shimobaatar wrote: 10 Oct 2018 00:02
CarsonDaConlanger wrote: 09 Oct 2018 23:40 Could anyone link me to a resource on Proto Norse and/or Proto Germanic language? I need phonology, grammar and lexicon if they're available.
I honestly just look at Wikipedia and Wiktionary for the most part.
Wikipedia is pretty bad for Proto Norse. It lists mostly generalities.

I'm doing my own reconstruction of PGmc > Old Norse, and it's fairly difficult. I have a general idea of what the major sound laws are and when they happen, but I'd always appreciate a solid chronology.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by shimobaatar »

Ælfwine wrote: 10 Oct 2018 01:23
shimobaatar wrote: 10 Oct 2018 00:02
CarsonDaConlanger wrote: 09 Oct 2018 23:40 Could anyone link me to a resource on Proto Norse and/or Proto Germanic language? I need phonology, grammar and lexicon if they're available.
I honestly just look at Wikipedia and Wiktionary for the most part.
Wikipedia is pretty bad for Proto Norse. It lists mostly generalities.

I'm doing my own reconstruction of PGmc > Old Norse, and it's fairly difficult. I have a general idea of what the major sound laws are and when they happen, but I'd always appreciate a solid chronology.
Oh, whoops, sorry, I totally missed "Proto Norse" while reading the question.

I do think that Wikipedia and Wiktionary are pretty good resources for Proto-Germanic, though.
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Post by Tristan Radicz »

CarsonDaConlanger wrote: 09 Oct 2018 23:40 Could anyone link me to a resource on Proto Norse and/or Proto Germanic language? I need phonology, grammar and lexicon if they're available.
Stuff that is easy to find on the internet in English:

Winfred P. Lehmann, A Grammar of Proto-Germanic;
Don Ringe, A History of English, vol. 1: From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic;
Vladimir Orel, A Handbook of Germanic Etymology;
Guus Kroonen, Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic (Leiden's take on Proto-Germanic and the source of most of wiktionary's PG etymologies).
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by All4Ɇn »

shimobaatar wrote: 10 Oct 2018 01:29I do think that Wikipedia and Wiktionary are pretty good resources for Proto-Germanic, though.
I've made an entire Germlang using just those two. It's pretty amazing how great of a resource they are for it.



Speaking of proto-Germanic what is the origin of the -t in the neuter definite articles in Icelandic eitt, Swedish ett, etc? Apparently it's even the origin of the t in German's etwas so it seems to be something that predates Old Norse.
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Post by Tristan Radicz »

All4Ɇn wrote: 10 Oct 2018 04:36 Speaking of proto-Germanic what is the origin of the -t in the neuter definite articles in Icelandic eitt, Swedish ett, etc? Apparently it's even the origin of the t in German's etwas so it seems to be something that predates Old Norse.
Uncertain, as far as I know. It has been compared to the first element in Bulgarian edi koj 'someone unspecified, anyone who' (< Proto-Slavic *(j)ede kъjь), as well as in Latin ecquis (if from *ed-quis, though that etymology is obsolete, I gather).
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Omzinesý »

Tristan Radicz wrote: 09 Oct 2018 14:56
Omzinesý wrote: 08 Oct 2018 23:08 I read an Wikipedia article on Old High German declension. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_High_ ... declension
Does anybody know what the alternate forms (?) tages (-as), tage (-a) etc. are? orthographic differences, dialectal differences, a real sub-declension?
The latter endings are sparsely attested prior to 9th century. They might be influenced by Old Low German - there, e and a merged into a (or sometimes e) in final syllables. It's also the regular development in the Bavarian version of OHG, iirc.
Thanks!
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Post by CarsonDaConlanger »

Thanks for all the info! I have another(unrelated) question:

There are traits that are correlated with various word orders (SOV langs are usually head final, with postpositions, and are exclusively suffixing.) What traits are common with the other orders like SVO and VSO?
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Aevas »

Ælfwine wrote: 10 Oct 2018 01:23
shimobaatar wrote: 10 Oct 2018 00:02
CarsonDaConlanger wrote: 09 Oct 2018 23:40 Could anyone link me to a resource on Proto Norse and/or Proto Germanic language? I need phonology, grammar and lexicon if they're available.
I honestly just look at Wikipedia and Wiktionary for the most part.
Wikipedia is pretty bad for Proto Norse. It lists mostly generalities.

I'm doing my own reconstruction of PGmc > Old Norse, and it's fairly difficult. I have a general idea of what the major sound laws are and when they happen, but I'd always appreciate a solid chronology.
How well do you read Scandinavian?
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Aevas »

CarsonDaConlanger wrote: 10 Oct 2018 19:30 Thanks for all the info! I have another(unrelated) question:

There are traits that are correlated with various word orders (SOV langs are usually head final, with postpositions, and are exclusively suffixing.) What traits are common with the other orders like SVO and VSO?
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=1454
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Post by CarsonDaConlanger »

Aszev wrote: 11 Oct 2018 10:38
CarsonDaConlanger wrote: 10 Oct 2018 19:30 Thanks for all the info! I have another(unrelated) question:

There are traits that are correlated with various word orders (SOV langs are usually head final, with postpositions, and are exclusively suffixing.) What traits are common with the other orders like SVO and VSO?
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=1454
Thanks! That's very informative!
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Ælfwine »

Aszev wrote: 11 Oct 2018 10:38
Ælfwine wrote: 10 Oct 2018 01:23
shimobaatar wrote: 10 Oct 2018 00:02
CarsonDaConlanger wrote: 09 Oct 2018 23:40 Could anyone link me to a resource on Proto Norse and/or Proto Germanic language? I need phonology, grammar and lexicon if they're available.
I honestly just look at Wikipedia and Wiktionary for the most part.
Wikipedia is pretty bad for Proto Norse. It lists mostly generalities.

I'm doing my own reconstruction of PGmc > Old Norse, and it's fairly difficult. I have a general idea of what the major sound laws are and when they happen, but I'd always appreciate a solid chronology.
How well do you read Scandinavian?
Poorly, the only reason I can read snippets is due to sheer familiarity with the Germanic *corpus*
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Post by Omzinesý »

English and Swedish often have v while German has b.
Have, ha (va), haben; live, leva, leben etc. What sound change explains them?
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by shimobaatar »

Omzinesý wrote: 13 Oct 2018 21:05 English and Swedish often have v while German has b.
Have, ha (va), haben; live, leva, leben etc. What sound change explains them?
Might this be what you're looking for?
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by GrandPiano »

shimobaatar wrote: 13 Oct 2018 21:31
Omzinesý wrote: 13 Oct 2018 21:05 English and Swedish often have v while German has b.
Have, ha (va), haben; live, leva, leben etc. What sound change explains them?
Might this be what you're looking for?
How do we know that it shifted from [β] to [b]? How do we know Old High German didn't retain a [b] that lenited to [β] in the other West Germanic languages?
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by spanick »

GrandPiano wrote: 13 Oct 2018 22:27
shimobaatar wrote: 13 Oct 2018 21:31
Omzinesý wrote: 13 Oct 2018 21:05 English and Swedish often have v while German has b.
Have, ha (va), haben; live, leva, leben etc. What sound change explains them?
Might this be what you're looking for?
How do we know that it shifted from [β] to [b]? How do we know Old High German didn't retain a [b] that lenited to [β] in the other West Germanic languages?
Because of Verner's Law.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by shimobaatar »

GrandPiano wrote: 13 Oct 2018 22:27
shimobaatar wrote: 13 Oct 2018 21:31
Omzinesý wrote: 13 Oct 2018 21:05 English and Swedish often have v while German has b.
Have, ha (va), haben; live, leva, leben etc. What sound change explains them?
Might this be what you're looking for?
How do we know that it shifted from [β] to [b]? How do we know Old High German didn't retain a [b] that lenited to [β] in the other West Germanic languages?
Well, I didn't write the article, of course, but in historical linguistics, it's generally assumed that a single change in one direction (in this case, [β] > [b] in OHG) is more likely than a number of identical changes in another direction (in this case, [b] > [β] in Old English, Old Saxon, Old Dutch, etc.).

Of course, it's hard to really know anything for certain when we're looking at the past, but as spanick said, this conclusion fits better with things like Verner's Law, and we can make an educated guess. That's what makes sense to me, at least.
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Post by Salmoneus »

Nobody knows whether proto-germanic had stops or fricatives. Indeed, it may well have been that these phonemes had both realisations, or that there may always have been regional or other variation.


It's all very well saying 'oh, but B>b in German is better than b>B in all the other languages', but that overlooks the rest of the language. For instance, we then need to have D>d in all contexts in all West Germanic languages (and D>d after /l/ and /z/ in North Germanic, iirc), and B>b and G>g after nasals in all Germanic languages, and also when geminated, and for /B/ (and maybe /G/) also initially. The idea of a lenition of /G/ that also spreads to /B/ in the southern dialects isn't really much more farfetched.

It also needs to be remembered that we're not really talking about different languages - we're talking about a west germanic dialect continuum with old high german at one extreme. So no change really needs to be thought of as happening independently in any one branch - changes could progress from one branch to the next.

So I don't think any firm conclusions can be warrented.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by shimobaatar »

My intention was just to explain some of the likely reasoning behind the claims made on Wikipedia. I don't know enough on the subject to really make or support a claim either way myself.
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Znex »

Does anyone know how common retracted [s̠] is in the world's languages as a or the main allophone of /s/ or /ʃ/ (whether expressed apico- or lamino-alveolar)? I understand it was fairly common in medieval mainland European languages, where in some cases it was kept distinct to denti-alveolar /s/ and postalveolar /ʃ/, as opposed to some neighbouring countries:

eg. Middle French /s/ in loanwords > English /ʃ/ (eg. pousser /pusser/ > push /pʊʃ/; passion /passjɔn/ > /pæʃən/)
compare Middle French /ts/ in loanwords > English /s/ (eg. accepter /aktsɛpter/ > /əksɛpt/; notice /nɔtits(ə)/ > /nəʊtɪs/)

Middle High German /s/ in loanwords > Polish /ʂ/ (eg. kosten /kɔstən/ > kosztować /kɔʂtɔvatɕ/; sur /su:r/ > żur /ʐur/)
compare Middle High German /ts/ in loanwords > Polish /s/ (eg. loz /lo:ts/ > los /lɔs/)

Old Spanish /s/ in loanwords > Nahuatl /ʃ/ (eg. patos /patos/ > /patoʃ/)
Nahuatl /s/ perceived as similar to Middle Spanish /s̠/ (hence aztecatl rather than astecatl)
Spanish undergoes sibilant chain shift: /s̠/ > /s̺/ ( > /θ/)
Old Spanish /ʃ/ becomes /x/

And of course it's still the case in Northern Spain, as in Basque which retains a dental-retracted-postalveolar sibilant distinction (<z> /s̻/ vs. <s> /s̺/vs. <x> /ʃ/), and in Modern Greek (the main allophone of /s/ is typically retracted).

I must say I've never heard quite of such a sibilant distinction outside of Europe, but I know more of the prevalence of another three-pronged sibilant distinction: alveolar-retroflex-palatal.

How common is the retracted sibilant simply?
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Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Creyeditor »

This is a difficult question, because many grammars just describe the only sibilant in a language as simple /s/ no matter how it is realized. I would think it is fairly common. Some Indonesian varieties seem to have [s̠]. I especially noticed that when they were learning German and often neutralized /s/ and /ʃ/ to something that sounded like [s̠] to me.
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