From: JAREA@UKCC.UKY.EDU
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Controversial notions:  was correlations of length
Date: 27 Jan 93 01:40:10 GMT
Organization: University of Kentucky

In article <C1FH0s.9uA@spss.com>
markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
 
>
>Simply put, I took your original posting to be sarcastic, and responded in
>the same way you had once responded to me (in the selfsame sci.lang).
>
 
Rereading my post referred to, I find nothing that seems or seemed then
sarcastic to me:  of course, beauty and other things are in the ey of the
beholder.  Tone of voice is not transmittable on Usenet, and elegance of
style is often a goal not reached in posts here.  One should, thus not
read into a post more than it's surface meaning (I use this term not
as it s used in Cambridge MA).  I do recall aiming a bit of sarcasm at
a different mark (!) in a one-liner, but that should have been transparent.
 
>>I can, of course, provide a few controversial
>>notions of my own, especially in things Latinic and Romance to unconstipate
>>the too conservative when the mood is on me.
>
>Would you care to provide an example?  (Metacommunication: no irony here,
>only honest curiosity.)
 
I believe I have already given on, expressed lightly but seriously, on my
reading of 'anglais' in "Il parle anglais," as an adverb.
 
For one a bit more controversial, thus slightly longer let's try the
following, which is at the moment undergoing parturition, and therefore
not yet able to stand on its own.  _Helpful_ comments accepted from the
knowledgeable, others rejected with an oath.
 
   Many IE languages show reflexes of a root I shall write  dhV:  in which
V represents an unspecified vowel (if you don't know why unspecified, skip
to the next post), and  :  represents length, or perhaps a laryngeal: which
is unimportant here.  This root crops up in English in 'do' where /d/ is the
normal reflex of IE dh (whatever that sound may have been: again this is not
important to my argument).  The 'o' could have come from either a long /a:/
or a long /o:/  of IE, I believe.  Sanskrit, with its fuller inflection and
bag of tricks has a first singular (Skt 'first singular' =  don't worry
about it, it's an "in" joke) 'dadhami', where the -mi is the ending, and the
da- a reduplicative prefix with the expected deaspiration.  Greek has a
similar (I transliterate) 'tithe:mi', ('th' for theta)  with a similar ending,
similar reduplication and deaspiration, but with a clear /e:/ (eta) in con-
trast to the /o:/ of Germanic, and the ambiguity of Sanskrit, where any non
high viewel (except schwa, if you want to call that a vowel) appears as /a/
(Typists note:  I should have spelt the Sanskrit 'dadha:mi' of course.)
 
In the corresponding Latin verb, however, we find throughout a /k/, thus
'facio', 'fe:ci', 'facere', etc.  This extension (actually a /ky/ where a
vowel follows), survives into Romance yielding Spanish 'hacer', for instance.
In French the first singular 'fais' is a normal development from /faky-/,
as is 'faire' from 'fac're', and so on.  (The unwary need to be warned that
the "Early Latin" fibula in your textbooks with the word 'fhefhaked' supposed
to represent a reduplicated perfect is very likely, as on writer has put it,
"fhaked".)   Has it not been for this /ky/ extension we might have expected
Latin forms like, say, '*fo' '*fas' '*fat' reminiscent of 'do', 'das', 'dat'
in the verb 'dare' meaning 'give', rather that the 'facio', 'facis', 'facit'
etc., which we actually have.
 
     Italian, to, has 'faccio' and 'facciamo', and other similar forms (the
gemination is normal for consonant plus /y/ developments into Italian.But.
 
     In dialects, unlike in the "standard" we find such forms as 'fo', 'fai',
'fa', and even 'famo'.  In fact, the in the third singular 'fa' has replaced
an earlier Tuscan 'face'.    The textbook explanation is that this verb has
been remodled in dialects (and partially in the standard) on the pattern of
verbs like 'dare', which go 'do', 'dai', 'da', etc. (and similarly 'stare').
The ridiculous suggestion I would make is, perhaps in the dialects we have
a survival of forms we should have expected all along, forms which in those
dialect areas the /ky/ extension didn't catch on.
 
We of course need to remind ourselves of the edited and 'purified' nature of
our Latin text, where for the most part non urbane variants have been buried
y centuries of scholarship.
 
Will this do as a hasty example of a controversial notion.  As I say, I am
typing this (unskillfully) without open books, scholarly apparatus, and only
the aid of a rather dry martini to match my wit (actually only half a martini)
and should be forgiven minor sloppiness of presentation.  Tell 'em you heard
it here first.