Most Languages of the World Have Been Reliable Classified, Using The
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
THE URALIC LANGUAGE FAMILY: FACTS, MYTHS AND STATISTICS Angela Marcantonio Angela Marcantonio The Uralic Language Family: Facts, myths and statistics Page 1 i.m. Giorgio Raimondo Cardona Angela Marcantonio The Uralic Language Family: Facts, myths and statistics Page 2 CONTENTS Acknowledgements 7 List of tables 8 Abbreviations 12 Uralic languages and Language groups 12 Non-Uralic languages and language groups 14 Grammatical Abbreviations 14 Major Journals & Dictionaries 16 Transcription and References 18 1. Introduction 20 1.1 Aims of this book 20 1.2 The Standard Uralic Theory 20 1.3 Method 23 1.3.1 Evidence vs Opinion 23 1.3.2 The history of the Uralic theory 25 1.3.3 The Comparative Method 26 1.3.4 The programme followed in this book 27 1.4 Systematic re-interpretation of evidence counter to the Standard Theory 28 1.5 Key patterns in the evidence 30 1.6 Introduction to the literature supporting and opposing the Uralic Theory 31 2 The Historical Foundation of the Uralic Paradigm 34 2.1 The first historical sources 37 2.1.1. The Finnic people 37 2.1.2 The Hungarians 37 2.1.2.1 Summary of the historical sources 38 2.1.2.2 Fifth Century sources and their interpretation 40 2.1.2.3 Ninth / Tenth Century sources and their interpretation 41 2.1.2.4 Medieval sources and their interpretation 43 2.1.2.5 Interpretations between the 15th and early 19th Centuries 44 2.1.2.6 The textbook interpretation of the pre-history of the Hungarians 45 2.2 The origin of the Finno-Ugric node: the “Ugric-Turkic battle” 47 2.2.1 History 47 2.2.2 Linguistic Analysis of Budenz’ original data 48 2.2.2.1. Introduction 48 2.2.2.2 The original data 49 2.3 The origin of the Uralic node 53 2.3.1 History 53 2.3.2.Linguistic Analysis of Donner’s original data. 54 2.4 Linguistic models from the early 20th Century 55 2.4.1 Models 55 2.4.2 Linguistic analysis 56 2.5 the Ural-Altaic theory 57 2.6 Conclusion 58 2.6.1 Summary of the evidence 58 2.6.2 Political influence on the paradigm 59 3. Modern interpretations of the Uralic paradigm 62 Angela Marcantonio The Uralic Language Family: Facts, myths and statistics Page 3 3.1 The textbook interpretation – the “standard Uralic theory” 62 3.2. Criticism of the textbook interpretation and proposed alternatives 64 3.2.1 Variations to the conventional family tree model 64 3.2.2 Rejection of the genetic affinity 68 3.2.3 Wider language families 70 3.3. Conclusion 71 4. Reconstructing the Sound Structure and Lexicon of the Uralic family tree 72 4.1 Janhunen’s corpus: Proto-Finno-Permian-Samoyed 73 4.1.1 The number of sound-rules and etymologies 73 4.1.2 The ‘cumulative effect’ of the Comparative Method in the Proto-Uralic corpus 75 4.2 The reconstruction of the Ugric node 76 4.2.1 Hungarian recognised as an isolate 77 4.2.2 A riddle solved 78 4.2.3 A riddle truly solved? 78 4.3 Outline of the phonological structure of the Uralic languages 79 4.3.1. Phoneme inventory 79 4.3.2. Quantitative Opposition 80 4.3.3. Morpho-phonological Alternations 80 4.3.3.1 Vowel Harmony 81 4.3.3.2 Consonant Gradation 82 4.4 Attempts to reconstruct the Proto-Uralic vocalism 83 4.4.1 Vowel Alternation vs Quantity Correlation 83 4.4.2 Simplification of the Uralic family tree 86 4.4.3 Sammallahti’s reconstruction of the Proto-Uralic and Proto-Finno-Ugric vocalism. 88 4.4.4 The ‘reconstruction’ of the P-Ob-Ugric vocalism 89 4.4.5. Matching Proto-Samoyed with Proto-Finnic: Janhunen’s corpus 89 4.4.5.1. The question of Proto-Uralic Quantity Correlation 90 4.4.5.2 The question of the velar illabial vowels 92 4.4.5.3 The status of the Proto-Uralic sound structure 93 4.4.6 Conclusion on vocalism 96 4.5Attempts to reconstruct the Proto-Uralic Consonantism 97 4.5.1 The ‘reconstructed’ Proto-Uralic consonantism. 98 4.5.2 The sound-changes in consonantism 100 4.5.2.1 From Proto-Uralic to the modern languages 100 4.5.2.2 From Proto-Uralic to Proto-Finno-Ugric according to Sammallahti 108 4.5.3 The ‘Ugric’ innovations 109 4.5.3.1 Ugric consonantal sound-changes 110 4.5.3.2 The presumed borrowing in the ‘Ugric period’ 111 4.5.4.The position of Lapp 113 4.5.5 Sound changes in progress 114 4.5.6 Conclusion on Consonantism 115 4.5.7 Common phonological features in Eurasia. 115 4.6 Conclusion. 116 4.6.1 The status of the reconstructions 116 4.6.2 A possible interpretation of the evidence 117 4.6.3 A possible interpretation of the evidence within the paradigm? 118 4.6.3 Counter-evidence tends to be minimised 119 5. False matches or Genuine linguistic correlations? 121 5.1 Introduction: the significance of the Proto-Uralic numerals one to ten 122 5.2 The method 124 Angela Marcantonio The Uralic Language Family: Facts, myths and statistics Page 4 5.3. Results 127 5.3.1. Body-parts terms reported in UEW 127 5.3.2 Janhunen’s corpus 129 5.4 The similarities that appear to be statistically significant 131 5.5 Conclusion 134 6. Borrowed or inherited? 136 6.1 Methodology 136 6.2 The Parallels with non-U languages 138 6.2.1 Body-parts and flora & fauna 138 6.2.2 Typical examples 141 6.3 The Correlations between Uralic and Altaic 144 6.4 The Correlations between Hungarian and non-Uralic languages 146 6.4.1 When and from which language did Hungarian borrow? 147 6.4.1.1 The classification of the Turkic languages 147 6.4.1.2 The classification and chronology of the loan-words in Hungarian 150 6.4.1.3 The ‘Mongolian parallels’ of the ‘Turkic loan-words’ 151 6. 5 The correlations between Uralic and Yukaghir 151 6.5.1 The position of Yukaghir 151 6.5.2 The lexical correlations 152 6.6 The correlations between Uralic and Indo-European. 153 6.6.1 Genuine correlations or accidental look-alikes? 153 6.6.2 The nature of the words of Indo-European origin 154 6.6.3 On the nature of the morphological similarities 154 6.7 Conclusion 155 7. The antiquity of Proto-Uralic 156 7.1. Reconstructed tree names and the chronology of Proto-Uralic 156 7.2 Indo-European loan-words and the chronology of Proto-Uralic 159 7.2.1 The Proto-Indo-European period. 160 7.2.2 The Proto-Indo-Iranian period. 160 7.2.3 Rédei’s conclusion 162 7. 3. Baltic and Germanic Loan-Words in the Finnic languages. 162 7.3.1 The Baltic loan-words. 162 7.3.2 The Germanic loan-words 163 7. 4 Koivulehto’s interpretation of the Indo-European Loan-words 164 7.4.1. The Proto-Uralic segment ‘x’ and the Proto-Indo-European laryngeals 165 7.4.2 Early Uralic / Indo-European contacts and the Uralic Urheimat 166 7.4.3. Indo-European Loan-words, Asiatic loan-words, Wanderwörter, or something else ? 166 7.5 The presumed Uralic Substratum. 168 7.5.1 Lexical interference 168 7.5.2 Morphological and morpho-syntactic interference 168 7.5.3 Phonological interference. 169 7.6. Summary and Conclusion 170 8. Morphology 172 8.1 Case endings and the basic typological structure of the Uralic languages 173 8.2 Reconstructing the ‘primary’ Case endings 173 Angela Marcantonio The Uralic Language Family: Facts, myths and statistics Page 5 8.3 The formation of the ‘secondary’ Case endings 176 8.3.1 Secondary endings formed through Exaptation. 176 8.3.2 Secondary Case endings formed through Grammaticalisation 179 8.3.2.1 Examples of Grammaticalisation in Ostyak and some other Uralic languages 179 8.3.2.2 Grammaticalisation in Hungarian. 181 8.3.3 The reciprocal order of Case endings and possessive endings 184 8.4 Morphological correlations between Samoyed and Yukaghir 186 8.4.1 The Case system 186 8.4.2 The conventional interpretations of the Uralo / Yukaghir correlations. 187 8.5. Grammatical endings 188 8.5.1 Possessive and Personal endings 188 8.5.2 Personal Pronouns. 190 8.5.3 Plurality and Duality in the Uralic languages 190 8.5.3.1 The endings of Plurality and Duality 191 8.5.3.2 “Pluralty is a relatively new grammatical category” 193 8.5.3.3 Plurality in Hungarian 195 8.5.3.4 Summary and conclusion on Plurality and Duality 195 8.5.4 Tense, Aspect, Mood and other derivational morphemes 196 8.6 Isomorphic constructions 197 8 6.1 Negative Verb 198 8.6.2 Aspect markers and verbal constructions. 198 8.6.3 Infinitive, gerundive and verbal constructions. 199 8.6.4 Postpositional constructions. 200 8.6.5 The role of Typology 200 8. 7. Distribution of consonantal formants in Eurasia 202 8.7.1 The formants 202 8 7.2 Mathematical analysis 203 8.8 summary and Conclusion 207 8.8.1 The status of Morphology in the Uralic languages 207 8.8.2 Case endings and the antiquity of the Uralic languages: some speculations 208 9. Completing the picture: Proper Names, Archaeology and Genetics 209 9.1 Proper Names 210 9.1.1 The Ethnonyms in the Uralic languages.