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REGULARSOUNDCORRESPONDENCES AND LONG-DISTANCE GNE COMPARISON

BERNARD CORIE University / Southe Califoia

1. Nostratic and Altaic pronons, 1 Linguists advocating wide-ranging genetic affiliations of languages are divided into two groups their attitde to one of the mainstays of traditional comparative linguistics: the reglarity of sound change, the so-called NeoGrammarian hypothesis. the one hand, Joseph . Greenberg and his followers denied the irnportance of reglar sound correspondences in formulating hypotheses about genetic relatedness; see, for instance, chapter 1 of Greenberg (1987). contrast, lingists of the Moscow School of comparative linguistics adhere to the same criteria of reglar sound correspondence in their work wide-ranging genetic hypotheses like Nostratic as when they work
Indo-Eropean and its branches

certainly in principle,

if not always

in

practice; see, for instance, review of Starostin 1991 (Comrie 1993). One of the staunchest proponents of the Neo-Grammarian hypothesis in long-range comparison is Alexander Vovin, and it is his contributionto this volme that has inspired to the present reflections. More specifically, there is one particularpoint of Vovin' s paper that seems to to of great methodologica1importance. As will clear, 1 disagree with the conclusion that Vovin himself draws, but 1 that even those who side with Vovin rather than with will find it useful to work through reservations, to clarify our respective positions. Scholars who noted similarities among Indo-European, Uralic, and Altaic languages usually commentedin particu1ar the similarities in the personal pronouns. And as Vovin shows, in particular for the first and second persons singular, there are striking similarities: For '1' Proto-Indo-Europeanand Proto-Uralic initia1*, while Proto-Altaic has an alternation of initia1 * and *. For 'thou', Proto-Indo-Europeanand Proto-Uralic initia1*t, while Altaic shows split between Proto-Mongolic with initia1*t versus Proto-Trkic and Proto-Manchu-Tunguswith initia1*s. But Vovin goes to show that the Proto-Altaic forms cannot related reglar sound change to those of Proto-

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Indo-European or Proto-Uralic: In the ft person, the voiced plosive is the origina1form in Altaic, and is not regularly relatable to the nasa1 of Proto-IndoEuropean and Proto-Ura1ic.In the second person, the initia1*s is not relatable to the initia1 *t of Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Ura1ic, and indeed even the initia1*t of Proto-Mongolic is perhaps not regularly relatable to the initia1 *t of Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Ura1ic. (1 will, incidenta11y,for the sake of argument assume the tnss of the Indo-European-Ura1ic-Altaiccognates ssu).d Vovin and the.sound changes relating them.) conclusion that Vovin draws from this is that, unequivoca11y,the Altaic forms are not genetically related to those 01 Indo-European and Ura1ic. here are, however, other conclusions that one might conceivably draw. First, one might conclude that the similarities are stillsufficiently striking to justify maintaining that the pronouns are cognate in all three groups of languages, and let the iglarity in sondsndns pass; this is the position that 1 cold imagine Greenbergian taking. Second, one might say that it is impossible to reach conclsion the basis of the evidence available: he forms are sfficiently similar that they might related, bt the lack of reglar sndn throws some dobt at least this claim. In section 2, 1 ana1yze similar set of forms in two langages separated very sha110wtime depth, namely Old and Modem English, arging that here the weight of additiona1 considerations favors maintainingthat items are cognates even in the absence of perfect sound sndns - the first of the two a1tematives suggested in this paragraph. In section 3, 1 sggest that the second a1temative, namely agnosticism, is the most we can safely assme for the data presented Vovin, even accepting the basic tnss of the Nostratic hypothesis. 2. Old Eglish ad Moder Eglish proous For comparison, 1 will consider the etymology of the persona1 pronons of Modem English, in comparison with those of Old English. (Most of the crucia1 changes had taken place iddle English, so it is tall the passage from Old to iddle English that is at issue.) forms to considered are set ot in table 1. Note that the Old English forms do not necessarily snd exactly in function to the Modem English reflexes, since 1 am taking for granted morphologica1and semantic shifts that do not affect the sond changes involved, such as the fact that Old English w is accsative-dative plura1 while Modem English "" is case- and nmber-netra1,or that Old English s is tall demonstrative rather than persona1pronon. For the same reason, the clearly ana1ogica1Modem English genitive "its" is not inclded.

ic w s hit

Old En lish m wr him his hire

Modem En lish your him his her

s them. or their

1: Old Eglish ad Mode Eglish persoal proous l..et s now sbject these forms to the kind of ana1ysis Vovin proposes for the Altaic pronouns. he question is simple: Do the Modem English forms derive from the Old English forms? 1 will exclde the third person plura1forms from frther consideration, since it is widely accepted that they are loans from Old Norse, or at least been inflenced in their forms Old Norse, and therefore indeed do not descend directly from their Old English sndnts. Exarnination of acconts of the history of English would sggest that of the other Modem English pronons has traditiona11ybeen taken to derive etymologica11yfrom the Old English sndnt given in table 1. Bt if we impose the requirementthat such relationships mst shown to consistent with established reglar sond changes, the pictre changes. he following forms derive reglarly: "", "", "yor", "", "him", "his", "her", "we", "or"; for the development of wt "", compare that of Old English ow ( homophone) to "yew" and of Old English w to "ewe", even if Modem English spelling has rather sccessfully disgised the three-way homophony in Modem English. his leaves five Modem English forms that do not derive reglar sond change from their Old English etyma. he fina1 of Old English ic shold not dropped to give Modem English "'; compare the Modem English placename ending "-wich", deriving from Old English wIc 'abode'. In the case of Old English In, reglar sond change will delete the [1 , which survives, of course, in "mine", with the same etymologica1 origin. Modem English "she" does not derive reglarly from s; compare the reglar development of the same initia1 seqence in Old English s] to Modem English "seethe". No reglar sond change will delete the word-initia1h of Old English hit to give Modem English "it". (In dia1ects that drop word-initia1 h reglarly - and this incldes most regiona1dia1ectsof England - there is the reslting impression that "it" is reglar reflex of Old English hit. Bt of corse

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, i,

even here this is illsory: loss of the initia1consonant of the pronon hit is earlier than the genera1 loss of word-initia1h in the regiona1 speech of England.) In the case of Modem English "s", the short vowel cannot derive reglarly from the Old English long vowel, which has, incidenta11y,its reglar reflex in the possessive adjective "or". In other words, if we take reglar sond correspondences to essentia1 for establishing cognates, we wold forced to conclde that these for Modem English forrns are not ty1010gi11 related to the Old English correspondents in table 1. This is precisely the conclsion that Vovin reaches in comparing the Altaic and Nostratic persona1pronons:''hs, the inescapable conclsion is that [roto-]A[ltaic] pronons are nrelated to Indo-Eropean or Ura1ic personal pronons." 1 noted above that the traditiona1view of the five etymologica11yanoma1os Modem English pronons is that they do indeed develop historica11yfrom their Old English correspondents in table 1. And 1 think this traditiona1 view is correct. nmber of factors conspire to lead to this conclsion. First, the Modem English forrns are only minima11y different from what wold have been the otcome of reglar sondchange, and the differences are readily describable in terrns of plasible isolated changes. Pronons are often nstressed, which cold accont for the shorteningof the vowel of "s" and the loss of initia1h in hit. In "she" we have plasibly shift in the ncles of the diphthong from the first to the second component fol1owed the freqent a11egrophenomenon of /sy/ becoming /8/. When "" is matched with "rnine", and this pair para11eled the archaic "thy" - "thine", when one observes that in earlier stages of the langage the difference between the members of pair was phonologica11y, rather than morphologica11y conditioned,para11elingthat between preconsonantal "" and prevoca1ic "an", one is ready to take the slight leap stil1 remaining to relate the Modem English and Old English forms. ic to '', shift is perhaps somewhat less readily explainable, thogh it is para11eled the development of the adjective sffix "-ly" from Old English li/. Second, a1thoghwe have good knowledge of the langages that rnight plasibly have been expected to
a1temative sorces for the etymologically irreglar pronons

ptative branches of Nostratic, namely Indo-Eropean and Ura1ic? only honest answer 1 can give is: 1 do not know. Their relatedness is certainly cast into dobt the lack of reglar correspondence, assrning that the relevant reglar correspondences are established the basis of large enogh nmber of lexica1 items. he differences, however, are not that great phonetica11y: Both sets of first-person singlar pronons have an initia1voiced labia1, thogh it is plosive in Altaic and nasa1 in Indo-Eropean and Ura1ic. Both sets of second-person pronons have an initia1voiceless denta1obstrent, thogh it is fricative in Altaic (except Mongolic) and plosive in Indo-Eropean and Ura1ic. So the sirnilarities are actayqite striking. However, it is difficlt to see any plasible reason why sch discrepancy in nasa1izationor plosion shold have
arisen

bt even if there were some motivation, it is not nlikely that the great

Norse and French - these langages do not provide plasible etyma.

in particlar, Old

3. Nostratic ad Altaic proos, 2

In the case of these English pronons,then, their etymologica1relatedness to their Old English correspondents seems incontrovertible. Bt let s now retm to the Altaic and Nostratic pronons discssed Vovin. r the Altaic pronons (exclding Mongolic) relatable etymologica11yto those of the other

time depths involved wold have obliterated trace of the conditioning mechanism. One can certainly with speclative scenarios that wold give the crrent distribtion, e.g. that the differing initia1s were origina11y morphologica11y conditioneda1temantswithin the common proto-langage, with different branches genera1izing different a110morphs.We don't know enogh of the details of other langages that rnighthave been arond at the time to know if there are plasible non-Nostratic etymologies. So we certainly cannot say with any degree of certainty that the Altaic and other Nostratic pronons are genetically related, not even with the degree of certainty with which we clairn the genetic relatedness of the Indo-Eropean and Uralic forrns. Bt eqal1y, 1 don't see how we can say that the Altaic pronons are definitely ltd etymologicay to their Indo-Eropean and Ura1ic conterparts. Indeed, additiona1evidence (which is, a1as, nlikely to forthcorning)rnight we111ead s to accept their genetic relatedness, jst as we accepted the traditiona1accont of the etymology of the Modem English pronons. Bt the evidence that is available to s jstifies position stronger than agnosticism. At this point, 1 can see an advocate of wide-ranging genetic comparison accsing of doble standards. 1 simply a110wexceptions to proposed reglar sond changes to stand in the case of sha110wtime depths, withot affecting the acceptance of hypotheses of genetic relatedness. Bt as the time-depthincreases, exceptions to proposed reglar sondchanges are reason at least for agnosticism ( position, while for Vovin they are reason for rejecting proposed etymologies). Bt 1 think the differing positions simply reflect the different weight of evidence in the two kinds of cases. With shallow time-depths, sch as that'separating Old English from Modem English, where there is an abndance of clear-ct evidence for genetic relatedness that does fol1ow reglar sond changes, the few irreglarities do not sbstantia11y a1terthe pictre: Modem

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English basic vocabulary derives primarily from Old English; where there are apparent slight exceptions to regular sound changes, the most reasonable solution - after considering the a1tematives (often there are ), and especia1ly where phonetic plausibility can invoked for the deviations from regular sound change - is to hypothesize that indeed the item in question derives, a1beitirregularly, from its Old English counterpart. But where the evidence is less substantia1, whether for the regular sound changes or for perturbingfactors that might upset those regular developments, it will often impossible to decide whether close similarity is perturbed cognate or freak coincidence. h wide-ranging genetic hypothesis is of course either true or fa1se. he pity is: There is guarantee that we will ever know.

REFERENCES
Comrie, Bemard. 1993. Review of Starostin (1991). Language 69.828-832. Greenberg, Joseph . 1987. Language in the Aericas. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Starostin, Sergei . 1991. Altajskaja problea i proisxoideie japoskogo jazyka. Moscow: Nauka.