[Histling-l] word equations

[Martin Joachim Kümmel]

Dear Nathan,

does "word equation" in English really require an exactly identical word 
form? The main problem here is of course the term /word/Wort/ which 
could mean either lexeme or word form (in German, it may even mean a 
whole utterance). Forms from the same verb root could be argued to be 
lexematic word equations, but for different nouns from the same root 
nobody would say they represent the same "word", and thus they could not 
represent a "word equation". For verbs I would also be reluctant but in 
this case, different stems can belong to one paradigm and thus to one 
"word".

I have looked into some older German Indo-Europeanist literature and 
tried to find out if they speak of "equations" but most of them 
apparently do not use the term while presenting quite some equations. 
But the works I have consultd so far were not from the earliest times 
and may have taken that for granted already.

Best wishes,

Martin


Am 08.10.2018 um 08:16 schrieb 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
> Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG, UK
> Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4512
> Room 396
> --
> Profile -- http://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff46254.php
> Tibetan Studies at SOAS -- http://www.soas.ac.uk/cia/tibetanstudies/
> --
>
> On Mon, Oct 8, 2018 at 6:46 AM, Martin Joachim Kümmel 
> <martin-joachim.kuemmel at uni-jena.de 
> <mailto: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 <mailto: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
>
>
>

-- 

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Martin Joachim Kümmel

Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Philosophische Fakultät

Institut für Orientalistik, Indogermanistik, Ur-und Frühgeschichtliche 
Archäologie

Seminar für Indogermanistik

Zwätzengasse 12, D-07743 Jena, Germany

Tel. +49-(0)3641-9443-81 Fax -82 Sekretariat -80

E-mail: martin-joachim.kuemmel at uni-jena.de 
<mailto:martin-joachim.kuemmel at uni-jena.de>

Homepage: http://www.oriindufa.uni-jena.de/k%C3%BCmmel_martin.html

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