User talk:Mellohi!/Reconstructions/Proto-Japonic

Some feedback
Stumbled across this. Thank you for pulling this together. Since this looks like a draft for a About Proto-Japonic page, I hope you don't mind a little feedback.


 * Examples


 * Where possible, adding examples makes things much clearer. For instance, you've included a list of Old Japanese terms with medial /o/, which is very helpful.  But then the description of regressive and progressive palatalization has no examples, requiring the reader to already be familiar with this distinction.  (I'm familiar with palatalization, but I don't know what regressive vs. progressive would mean here.)  Examples for the verb-forming suffixes would also be helpful.


 * Numerals


 * There are attested examples of people-counter suffix -ri for more than just one and two. See, for instance, the mitari reading for 三人 at Kotobank, likewise the yatari reading for 八人.


 * *Uta


 * The KDJ doesn't link おたはふ to 歌 at all. See the Kotobank entry from the KDJ.  It's probably worth mentioning this alternative view.
 * FWIW, doing a quick survey of the MYS text, I see two instances, book 14 poem 3409, and book 14 poem 3518. Both use the phonetic spelling.


 * *əmə- "to think"


 * Not necessarily germane, but I find it fascinating that this overlap with "heavy" could mirror English and  and older 🇨🇬.

Cheers! ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 19:34, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Transitivity flipper
Curious if you've encountered anyone exploring the apparent overlap with Korean causative / passive infix. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 02:20, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Here's something about it in Francis-Ratte's dissertation, with interesting references for further reading: . –Austronesier (talk) 20:58, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Interesting analysis. I confess some reservations; the end of that section (page 159 per the numbers shown on the bottom of the PDF pages) includes a list of verbs in English all in UPPERCASE, presumably as examples of verbs with cognates in Korea and Japanese, and presumably all having vowel stems.  I'm not sure which JA verbs the author intends for some EN verbs, and some JA also are derived from quadrigrade roots.
 * ABANDONS — persumably ? See also intransitive
 * ACCOMPLISHES — presumably.
 * Not attested until the early 900s. I'm curious if this is related to, , , perhaps from a sense development similar to English "to come to the point, to reach a point".
 * AVOIDS — presumably . See also intransitive.
 * Daijirin explicitly calls this a cognate with . This verb is evidenced in the  with both the quadrigrade and lower bigrade conjugation patterns.  Given the semantics and conjugations, it looks like modern  is thus ultimately a derivation from OJP verb saku, as realized as, ,.
 * BRANDISHES — ???
 * BURNS — Probably, mentioned by the author. See also transitive / causative.
 * Cognate with, from the idea of growing shoots or flames.
 * BURNS WOOD — ???
 * CHILL — Presumably . See also transitive / causative.
 * Related to adjective . Cognate with other verbs, , , with an underlying idea of "some underlying condition resolving over time", be it sleepiness, intoxication, a stain, or being warmer than room temperature.
 * CLOUDY — Presumably . Clearly related to noun.
 * COMES OF AGE — Maybe ? From OJP oyu.  Further derivation uncertain.
 * CONVEYED — Maybe ? See also intransitive.
 * Possibly related to,.
 * CULTIVATES — Maybe ? Ultimately a sound shift from, a compound of.
 * Maybe ? Ultimately a compound of.
 * DESCENDS — Probably . See also transitive.
 * DRAGS — ???
 * FAILS — ???
 * FILLS — Maybe ? See also intransitive, ,.
 * The mitsu form is from OJP and is quadrigrade. Not sure if this is the verb the author was thinking of.
 * GATHERS A CROWD — ???
 * HANGS IT — ???
 * HELPS — Must be . Related to, as mentioned earlier by the author.
 * is listed in various works as cognate with . This seems less connected to the idea of "helping".  There is also some suggestion of a connection to, , , , , all with an underlying idea of "through".  I suspect this suk- is the root, and the modern "help" sense came from the idea of "getting someone through something".
 * PASSES BY — Probably . See also transitive
 * Cognate with . The idea of "through" may suggest a relation to the suk- root above.
 * PERISHES — ???
 * PUTS IT DOWN — ???
 * QUIET — ???
 * RECEIVES — Must be . See also intransitive.
 * RISES — Must be . See also intransitive.
 * SEES — Must be.
 * Appears to be derived somehow from noun, and related to suppositional / presumptive / volitional suffix.
 * SEWS — Must be . Appears in OJP as nupu.  No intransitive counterpart per se, although there is the old passive form.
 * SHUTS — Presumably . See also intransitive.
 * There is a cluster of words that appear to derive from a root shim-, including, ,.
 * SHUTS IN — ???
 * SIDELINES — ???
 * SOAKS — Presumably, as mentioned above. Alternatively, might be .  See also intransitive.
 * SOAKS THROUGH — Presumably, as mentioned above. Alternatively, might be .  See also intransitive.
 * TOSSES IN — Must be.
 * Might be related to, from the idea of "going far away". If so, probably cognate with.
 * Might also be related to, and ; perhaps from a shared idea of "flat", also related to.
 * Notably, those transitive -eru verbs generally have -aru intransitive counterparts. If this -aru is from the copula, I wonder if we have a root that's actually a nominal derivative?
 * At any rate, many thanks for the link to the paper -- I will read the rest of this with interest! ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 17:27, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
 * There is a list of reconstructions plus KO and JA comparanda starting from p. 175 in the thesis, sorted by all-caps English glosses (instead of being sorted by reconstructions, which is how I would have listed them). I don't know really much about the topic. I'm interested in the evidence that has been presented in the recent years for a reformed version of Altaic (Robbeets' "Transeurasian") and its proposed descendant "Proto-Korean-Japonic", but so far I haven't gone much further than putting up a long list of literature that I want to read sometime :) –Austronesier (talk) 08:20, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
 * , my impression is that Vovin shifted from his view that KO and JA are related, to his current stance that they are unrelated and only similar because of proximity and Sprachbund effects, due to the inability of linguists to show any solid shared vocabulary that can't be attributed to borrowing from each other or from some other source. Admittedly, much of what I've seen of Starostin's or Robbeets' reconstructions leaves much to be desired -- StarLing, for instance, has many terrible Japanese etymologies that fall apart as soon as one seeks corroboration in other sources (particularly those written in Japanese).  Consider their entry for Proto-Altaic "sharp point, notch".  From this, they derive purported Proto-Japanese àkuàjaì.  However, the closest Japanese term I could find that might match is now-obsolete term, which in turn is apparently a compound of  + a shift from , in turn from.
 * Given the extreme similarities in structure and grammar between KO and JA, I cannot easily agree that they are wholly unrelated -- but Vovin's criticism seems quite reasonable. I'm curious to see what further research might discover.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 00:59, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Bjarke Frellesvig reconstruction
Where did you find the source for the *-r reconstruction that you mentioned Frellesvig (2021)? Chuterix (talk) 00:43, 19 November 2022 (UTC)


 * NVM, this is from a chapter Verb verb complex predicates in Old and Middle Japanese.
 * Source: Chuterix (talk) 01:35, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Numerals
I dug into tosa, and. Seems that this spelling is ateji for what was originally a borrowing from Ainu to sam ("lake side"). I can't find any evidence for any OJP term tosa meaning "thirteen"; for that matter, the morpheme sa meaning "three" is only apparent as a shift from Chinese-derived san.

HTH! ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 17:09, 16 May 2023 (UTC)