[Histling-l] word equations

[Nathan Hill]

Dear Martin,

Thanks for your message. I thought of Wortgleichung, but to my ear it has a
slightly different ring. If I put a Sanskrit sigmatic aorist next to a
Greek root aorist, formed from historically the same root, that is still
Wortgleichung, isn't it? Where at least in the recent Anglophone work a
word equation has to have same root, same suffix, and same desinence,
barring minor analogical noise.

So far the clearest earliest thing like this I have found is Watkins 1962
talking about Kuryłowicz 1958

``The formula for the correspondence has found its expression in the
alleged threefold equation  Skt. *avākṣam* = Lat. *uēxī* = Ch. Slav. *vĕsŭ*
all three reflecting IE **wēgh-s*-." \citep[27]{Watkins1962}

Of course Watkins is arguing against this comparison, since he does not
think the sigmatic aorist had lengthened grade; the comparison goes back to
Brugmann times.

best,
Nathan

--
Dr Nathan W. Hill
Reader in Tibetan and Historical Linguistics
Head of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
SOAS, University of London
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On Mon, Oct 8, 2018 at 6:46 AM, Martin Joachim Kümmel <
martin-joachim.kuemmel at uni-jena.de> wrote:

> Dear Nathan,
>
> the German term would be Wortgleichung. Unfortunately, this appears to be
> used in other disciplines, too. So a first search was not immediately
> helpful.
>
> Best,
> Martin
>
>
> -------- Originalnachricht --------
> Betreff: [Histling-l] word equations
> Von: Nathan Hill
> An: histling-l at mailman.yale.edu
> Cc:
>
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> I am trying to look into the variation notions of cognancy (partial
> cognate, oblique cognate, root cognate, etc.) and believe that 'word
> equation' is the strictest notion of cognacy. It is a term that is very
> common in Indo-European. I find it in effectively every work since 1990.
> The trouble is that Indo-Europeanists take the idea so for granted that
> they never say where it comes from. The earliest I have found is Szemerényi
> 1962, but there too he says nothing of consequence about it. Of course part
> of the problem is that the internet finds very old and newer works easier
> to find than things published between 1930 and 1960.
>
> The other problem is I don't know how to say 'word equation' in French and
> German so am less able to trace the idea. Oddly, despite its importance in
> IE 'word equation' as a notion doesn't make much appearance in the usual
> general handbooks (Campbell, Crowley, etc.).
>
> I would be very grateful for any tips than anyone can offer about the
> history of this term and any early articulations of it as an idea.
>
> thank you very much,
> Nathan
>
>
>
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