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Sino-Austronesian versus Sino-Caucasian
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Topic Started: Mar 22 2007, 01:30:56 AM (753 Views)
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ren
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Mar 22 2007, 01:30:56 AM
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Two macrophylic models have been argued for in recent times; Sino-Caucasian and Sino-Austronesian. Sino-Caucasian has been principally promoted by the late Sergei Starostin (1991) and Sino-Austronesian by Laurent Sagart (1994, 2005). Van Driem (this volume) has reviewed these models and finds the case for Sino-Caucasian flawed by irregular correspondences and wayward semantics. Sino-Austronesian is altogether more promising and most of those who have considered the evidence conclude that Sagart has made a case for links between the two phyla. The issue is whether it can be demonstrated that this is the result of genetic affiliation as opposed to contact.
p. 6 of PDF http://www.rogerblench.info/Language%20dat...04%20submit.pdf
http://rogerblench.info/Ethnoscience%20data/Blench-CH02.pdf ^version of Blench's chapter in book "SAGA" (actually it's a different name but aptly termed SAGA... Blench and what's-his-name's chapter <linked else where here> are available online) credit to member khmeric
I must say I personally like the fact that Sino-Austronesian (which includes Sino-Tibetan branch and Austronesian branch with Tai-Kadai being a sub-branch of Austronesian) is more promising. It makes mouch more sense and adds the great sea-faring race, the Austronesians as well as the Tais with their popular and exoticized culture as the brethren of the Sino-Tibetan Qiangic nomads. Wow... I lost my dispassionate self a moment sentimentalizing like Maju. 
2009-3-31
van Driem's summarizing of Starostin's Sino-Tibetan recon:
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The Sino- Tibetan reconstructions correspond largely to those given in Peiros and Star- ostin (1996), which are based on five strategically chosen Tibeto-Burman languages, i.e. Old Chinese, Tibetan, Burmese, Jinghpaw and Lushai. Star- ostin’s website has been strengthened by the inclusion of a Kulung diction- ary provided by Gerard Tolsma, a Yamphu dictionary by Roland Rutgers and Limbu and Dumi dictionaries by myself.
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In most cases, the Sino-Tibetan reconstructions in Peiros and Starostin are not reflected in all five languages, and in many cases they are supported by reflexes in only two of the five chosen languages. The same applies mut- atis mutandis to the reconstructions posted on the website. This modus ope- randi is similar in principle to the assumption made at the Indo-European Etymological Dictionary (IED) in Leiden, whereby a form is judged to be reconstructible as a common Indo-European root or process if the etymon in question is well reflected in any two out of twelve branches of Indo- European. The difference, of course, is that Indo-European is a language family with a well-understood history. Moreover, a modern Lushai form is not a reconstructed Mizo-Kuki-Chin etymon. So, Peiros and Starostin’s ‘Sino-Tibetan’ is somewhat analogous to a reconstruction of Indo-European based on Kurdish, French, English, Ardhamāgadhī and Norse runes. Whenever a ‘Sino-Tibetan’ root is based just on reflexes in languages which according to a subgrouping hypothesis could belong to a single branch of Tibeto-Burman, such as Old Chinese, Tibetan and Kiranti as members of the hypothetical Sino-Bodic, the correspondences in question may not legitimate the reconstruction of a root at the Tibeto-Burman or ‘Sino-Tibetan’ level. The best analogue at present to the twelve branches of Indo-European is the model of the fallen leaves of the Tibeto-Burman tree depicted in Diagram 2. Although a reconstruction of Proto-Kiranti, for example, is available (Opgenort 2005), no reconstructions are available for most branches of Tibeto-Burman.
On the face of things, Starostin’s 1358 reconstructions for Sino-Cauca- sian would seem to outweigh the 75 correspondences adduced for Sino- Austronesian by Sagart. However, only 130 of the 1358 Sino-Caucasian re- constructions are supported by reconstructions from all four putative mem- ber families, and only 847 additional correspondences involve reconstructed ‘Sino-Tibetan’ roots at all. Sino-Caucasian is not an established and gen- erally accepted language family like Indo-European. Rather, the plausibility of Sino-Caucasian has yet to be demonstrated. So, decisive evidence for Sino-Caucasian cannot be based on reconstructed etyma from only two or three of the purported constituent groups. What are we to make of the 64 Sino-Caucasian reconstructions supported only by a North-Caucasian recon- struction, the five Sino-Caucasian etyma supported by only a reconstructed ‘Sino-Tibetan’ root, the one postulated Sino-Caucasaian root supported only by a common Yenisseian reconstruction, and the one Sino-Caucasian root reflected only by Burushaski? Are these Sino-Caucasian roots posited mere- ly to furnish comparanda at yet higher putative nodes such as Dene-Cauca- sian or Dene-Daic?
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The time frame of the domestication of various cereals is called into question by two Sino-Caucasian agricultural terms, both glossed ambigu- ously as ‘millet, rice’. Sino-Caucasian *λwɨ̆ ʔwV́ has been constructed on the basis of the irregular North Caucasian root *λwɨ̆ ʔwV ‘millet’ and the shaky Sino-Tibetan *lɨ̄ wH ~ *ƛɨ̄ wH denoting some type of grain (record no. 590), whereas Sino-Caucasian *bŏlćwĭ́ is constructed from North Caucasian root *bŏlćwĭ ~ *bŏnćwĭ ‘millet’, Sino-Tibetan *phrē(s) ‘rice’ and Buru- shaski *baẏ ‘millet’ (record no. 733).
Edited by ren, Mar 31 2009, 01:10:01 AM.
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Maju
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Mar 22 2007, 04:19:45 AM
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- ren
- Mar 22 2007, 03:30 AM
I must say I personally like the fact that Sino-Austronesian (which includes Sino-Tibetan branch and Austronesian branch with Tai-Kadai being a sub-branch of Austronesian) is more promising. It makes mouch more sense and adds the great sea-faring race, the Austronesians as well as the Tais with their popular and exoticized culture as the brethren of the Sino-Tibetan Qiangic nomads.
Wow... I lost my dispassionate self a moment sentimentalizing like Maju.
:lol:
(note: I think I'm often less passionate than you are, tough I give less importance to this aspect)
I must say that, even without enough knowledge or data to sustain my stand, I suspect that you are possibly right. It's more intunition and non-linguistic logic than any other reason what brings me to tentatively support this theory.
Nevertheless when I tried to figure out the slightest connection between Basque and Chinese (with the help of a good manual of Chinese) I found none at all (would they claim a link to Japanese, maybe I could have a different opinion, because Japanese does sound more like Basque in some aspects... but Chinese? No way, not at all as far as I can discern). Of course Basque may not even be linked with any Caucasic language after all... and in this case, I'd be digressing on nothing anyhow.
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Chaos never died, the Empire was never founded.
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ren
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Mar 31 2009, 12:38:02 AM
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Some of Starostin's Gang's criticism of Sagart's reconstructions
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— in reality, there is no such Old Chinese form as trkuʔ ‛elbow’; exis- ting evidence from Middle Chinese only allows us to reconstruct OC 肘 *truʔ > MC ṭ)w. The reconstruction *trkuʔ is justified by Sagart «on account of the graphic similarity of the early graph for this word with jiǔ 九 *bkuʔ ‛nine’» [Sagart 999: 96–9]. Without going into too much detail on Old Chinese prehistory, let us merely note that modifying reconstructions that are based on systematically applied procedures (MC ṭ regularly reflects OC *tr-) on the grounds of isolated and highly subjective «similarities» does not provide us with highly reliable evidence. Thus, criterion (c) (ex- clusion of seriously questionable cases) finds itself violated; — including the word for ‛female breast’ violates criterion (a), since this word is generally known to belong to the ‛expressive’ part of the lexi- con (plenty of the world’s languages have words for ‛female breast’ that contain nasal resonants n or m); again, it is possible to present it as sup- porting evidence, but only within a large corpus of evidence; — most importantly, though, there is still no way to ascertain whether the remaining four items on the list are really indicative of genetic relationship or are the result of borrowing from Austronesian into Sino-Tibetan or vice-versa. Moreover, even if just two of them happen to be borrowed (e. g. ‛vomit’ and ‛earth’), then the similarities between the other two can be ascribed to chance (especially considering that p~Ö~êí, in order to make Old Chinese comparable with Austronesian, also has no choice but to postulate a radical reduction of the root structure in the former) — or, perhaps, be indicative of a much deeper relationship than Sino-Caucasian (Sino-Caucasian + Austric?).
Starostin's Gang is arguing that the cognates in both theories are subject to "twisting", and that Sino-Caucasian has more quantity, and thus is better. But, van Driem had already compared the two systems and deems that Sagart is far more disciplined and his system far more rigorous.
Starostin's Gang
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We, at least, know of no such cases, and strongly suspect that nothing of the sort is even remotely possible. A very clear demonstration can be made on the «Sino-Austronesian» example. Thus, no matter how much L. p~Ö~êí has managed to «twist» his reconstruction of Old Chinese (and it is substantially different from that of his predecessors and controversial on many points), he is still able to score but five matches between Austronesian and Old Chinese on the «ultra-stable» 35 item section of the pï~ÇÉëÜ wordlist as defined by S. v~âÜçåíçî [SAGART 2002] (two of them still with irregularities in correspondences; the sixth comparison, OC 骨 kut : PAå kukut ‛bone’ does not count because the basic meaning of the word in PAå is really ‛joint’) — in comparison to thirteen matches between OC and North Caucasian [STAROSTIN995], even though the latter consists of no more than three dozen languages, whereas the very hugeness of Austronesian seems to provide far more pro- mising opportunities for comparison, with many different roots often «competing» for occupying the Proto-Austronesian slot for notion so-and-so. Obviously, p~Ö~êí can criticize his opponent for tailoring the reconstructions to fit his own tastes, but that is not the issue, since the same criticism can be ad- dressed to p~Ö~êí himself. The issue is that pí~êçëíáå’s OC reconstructions (justified on Chinese evidence) fit in with North Caucasian better than p~J Ö~êí’s OC reconstructions (justified on alternative Chinese evidence) fit in with Austronesian, and that there really seems to be no way that any more or less credible OC reconstruction would fit in with Austronesian.
van Driem
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SINO-AUSTRONESIAN VS. SINO-CAUCASIAN. How do Sino-Austronesian and Sino-Caucasian compare? The first difference involves the many degrees of freedom in Starostin’s reconstructions as compared with Sagart’s Sino-Austronesian.
Additionally,
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Another difference between the two theories of distant relationship is that several morphological processes have been found to be shared by Tib- eto-Burman and Austronesian. No Sino-Caucasian shared morphology is in evidence, and most Sino-Caucasian grammatical morphemes are shaky.
Edited by ren, Mar 31 2009, 01:24:15 AM.
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Starbuck
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Apr 20 2011, 10:18:01 PM
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(plenty of the world’s languages have words for ‛female breast’ that contain nasal resonants n or m)
Is that even demonstrable?
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