Wiktionary talk:About Proto-Indo-Aryan

Retroflexes

What exactly are the origins of the retroflex consonants in Indic? Were they already contrastive in PIA, or was their occurrence predictable? If they contrasted, what triggered the contrast? —CodeCat 17:47, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

RUKI before *t results in ṭ, and a following laryngeal can result in ṭh. Not sure about ḍ though. —Aryaman ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 19:56, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

These instances are still predictable, though. The t just assimilates to the preceding sibilant, or equivalently, RUKI affects the entire cluster. —CodeCat 19:57, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

w:Substratum in the Vedic language#Phonology Maybe they aren't reconstructed for PIA if the Mittani treaties don't have them? Or perhaps Hurrian cuneiform simply didn't differentiate between retroflex and dental consonants. —Aryaman ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 20:03, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

"proto+indo+aryan"&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-tovq2p3VAhWBHD4KHVPqDFwQ6AEINTAF#v=onepage&q=proto%20indo%20aryan&f=false This has some more info —Aryaman ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 20:21, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Lubotsky reconstructs retroflex consonants in PIIr, see Indo-Aryan six. —Aryaman ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 15:40, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Noun lemma forms

Which form should be chosen as the lemma form for nouns and adjectives? Should we use the nominative singular as in PIIr or the stem as in Sanskrit? —CodeCat 19:51, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

I think the nominative singular. Even Avestan uses the stem form here but Proto-Iranian uses (or is supposed to use) the nom. sg. —Aryaman ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 19:58, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Ok, then the next question... was it still -s or already -ḥ? And did ḥ occur elsewhere? —CodeCat 20:01, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

-s was still preserved sometimes in Vedic, so yes I think it's -s. —Aryaman ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 20:22, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Outcomes of ĵh and ǰh

@Aryamanarora What is the outcome of these sounds in PIA? In Sanskrit they merge as h, but PII *ĵʰžʰ apparently survives as jh in Middle Indo-Aryan. This suggests that there was still a palatal obstruent of some kind there in PIA. Also, if the palatal aspirates merge as h in Sanskrit, where does Sanskrit get jh from? —CodeCat 13:39, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Middle Indo-Aryan mostly develops (k)kh. E.g. the Indo-Aryan source of क्षम् (kṣam) (IIr *ĵʰžʰam) develops into Prakrit khamā. However, alternative forms do exist, e.g. chamā (ch is interchangeable with jh here), which leads me to agree that there was a palatal obstruent in PIA. The kh forms are probably later developments to conform with Sanskrit. Still not sure about Sanskrit jh though. —Aryaman ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 14:35, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Weirdly, not a single word in CAT:Sanskrit terms derived from Proto-Indo-European contains झ (jha). Also @CodeCat —Aryaman ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 14:43, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

I was going by what Wikipedia has to say on the subject: w:Proto-Indo-Aryan. —CodeCat 15:15, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Laryngeal removal

@CodeCat, I'm not sure you've shown sufficient proof to remove all these laryngeals. You are basically running on your own opinion in contravention of multiple Indo-Aryanists who reconstruct a glottal stop in Vedic (Lubotsky, for instance). Please undo all your removals. @Aryamanarora, Victar. —JohnC5 15:21, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

I too think that the laryngeal should be retained. Apparently, laryngeals preceding certain consonants can result in plosives in Sindhi (a modern Indo-Aryan language), see Glottalic consonants in Sindhi and proto-Indo-European. The laryngeal had to have been there in PIA for this kind of change to happen. —Aryaman ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 15:33, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

@Aryamanarora: Shall I begin rolling this back? —JohnC5 19:40, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

@CodeCat: a warning: you're going to get a whole lot of rollback messages pretty soon. —JohnC5 19:43, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

@JohnC5: I think so, most, if not all, modern Indologists reconstruct the laryngeal. —Aryaman ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 20:27, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

@Aryamanarora: Also, I'm very unsure why CodeCat chose to use *bh over *bʰ for the aspirates. I don't see any particularly good motivation for this decision. —JohnC5 21:29, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

@JohnC5: Probably to conform with our Sanskrit translit. The moves were done hastily IMO :/ —Aryaman ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 21:31, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm moving them all back.

/w/ in PIA

According to Kümmel, /w/ was still retained in PIA, and not yet realized into /ʋ/. @Aryamanarora, JohnC5, Rua, what are your thoughts? --Victar (talk) 22:27, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

@Victar: Interesting, I would love to know what the evidence for this would be, but I would probably prefer a /w/ in either case as it is the broader form and more easily motivated than /ʋ/ in PIA.

Yeah, I wish he elaborated. Works on PIA phonology are pretty slim pickings, though. I'm also partial to using /w/. --Victar (talk) 01:06, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

On another note, I was reading Fortson (2nd edition) which made an interesting point about the fact that PIE *R̥ and *R̥H in the neighborhood of a labial results in uR and ūR (as in *pl̥h₁nós > पूर्ण (pūrṇá)): This is also conditioned in Sanskrit by labiovelars (as in *gʷr̥h₂ús > गुरु (gurú)). This resonant rounding does not occur in Iranian, which means that labiovelars must have remained distinct in PIIr. at least before syllabic resonants. So our PIIr. reconstruction must be *gʷr̥Húš. —JohnC5 23:12, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Fascinating. I've been obsessing over these two papers:

http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/etd/ucb/text/Cathcart_berkeley_0028E_15168.pdf

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01333448v3/document

--Victar (talk) 01:06, 21 October 2017 (UTC)