One of the sources of the alternation between stop and nasal codas—the '陽入對轉' of traditional Chinese phonology—is assimilation of a final stop to the nasal initial of the following word. An example is the expression zhēng yuè 正月 'first month of the lunar year'. The earliest secure occurrence of 正月...

Labial fortitions in Kra-Dai

Billets de blog

Laurent Sagart (15 mai 2020)

Billets de blog

In his study of Proto-Kam-Sui (PKS) initials, Ferlus (1996) tentatively reconstructed initial *ˀl- based on a set of four comparisons with high-register tones, including ‘wasp’ and ‘boar’: Dong Shui Maonan Mulao wasp la:u A1 lu A1 du A1 -lu A1 boar lai B1 -la:i B1 -da:i B1 -la:i B1 The probable Aust...

*nanum, an Eastern Walu-Siwaish innovation for 'water'.

Billets de blog

Laurent Sagart (23 avr. 2020)

Billets de blog

(Up one level to Eastern-Walu-Siwaish) The PAN word for water was *daNum (Blust, ACD), *D2aNum (Tsuchida 1976), *daɫum (Wolff 2010). It is well attested all over Taiwan, including on the west coast (Saisiyat, Pazeh, Papora, Favorlang). It evolves regularly into PMP *danum. Barring special circumsta...

The merger of PAN *S1 and *S2

Billets de blog

Laurent Sagart (5 avr. 2020)

Billets de blog

The merger of PAN *S1 and *S2 is an innovation of eastern Walu-Siwaish Working in the tradition of Dyen (1971), Tsuchida (1976:250, 308) distinguished two major PAN sibilant phonemes, *S1 and *S2. Examples of the former are many; Tsuchida (1976:250 and index) exemplified the latter with seven lexica...

Daicing gurun-i Doro eldengge-i orin ningguci aniya fulgiyan morin erin forgon-i ton-i bithe.[Da Qing Dao-guang er shi liu nian sui ci bing-wu shi xian shu 大清道光二十六年歲次丙午時憲書.]

Manuscrits

天主正教約徵Tian zhu zheng jiao yue zheng.

Manuscrits