The Indo-European wordlists. - Rice University

[Pages:66]The Indo-European wordlists.

These are the parallel wordlists of 24 Indo-European (IE) languages used in Ringe,

Warnow, and Taylor 2002. The first section (through page 42) is a 207-word version of the

Swadesh 200-word list with five of the characters (`day' and the 1st- and 2nd-person pro-

nouns) split into two characters each. The second section (numbered 301 to 421) is a list of

120 other basic words and words which appear to be culturally significant in many ancient IE languages, plus the noun `tear', which exhibits an interesting and potentially significant

phonological irregularity.

In a number of cases the meaning given in the Swadesh lists is ambiguous or vague.

We have specified the meanings more precisely as follows. Note that items separated by

semicolons in the right-hand column of this table are separated by semicolons in the word-

lists; apparent synonyms in the wordlists are separated by commas.

character

notes on the meaning

10 belly

external; internal (in that order, when the distinction is made)

19 breathe

breathe in; breathe out (in that order, when the distinction is made)

28a day

period of daylight

38 earth

most general term available

94 lie

stative

114 old

of things (rather than people), if a distinction is made

116 other

of more than two

117 person

human being (most general term)

118 pierce

by stabbing (or the like)

125 right

correct

131 round

spherical (rather than circular), if a distinction is made

144 sit

stative

145 skin

human: inner skin; outer skin (in that order, when the distinction is

made)

158 stand

stative

171 thick

dimension (not density)

172 thin

dimension (not density)

173 think

ratiocinate (not opine)

187 wash

body or body parts; clothes (in that order, when the distinction is

made)

303 ask

ask questions (rather than request)

313 bow

weapon for shooting

2

character

notes on the meaning

318 brother-in-law husband's brother

336 father-in-law husband's father

371mother-in-law husband's mother

379 ox

draft bovine (usually castrated)

395 sister-in-law husband's sister

401 stay

stay in a place (not continue to exist)

Lexemes are listed as far as possible in comparable citation forms, as follows.

Verbs are given in the present indicative 3sg. active unless that form does not exist (e.g. in

the case of deponents and perfecta tantum) or does not express the relevant meaning (e.g.

when the meaning in the list is expressed by a passive). If the present system of a verb is

suppletive, forms representing the other stems are given in parentheses. Suppletive non-

present stems are not usually given because they introduce too much additional polymor-

phism into the database. Nouns are normally given in the nominative singular; numerals are

normally given in the masculine nominative (if inflected), and other nominals that express

gender are normally given in the masculine nominative singular.

If the usual citation form of a word is not attested and cannot be inferred with confi-

dence (because the grammar of the language in question is too poorly known), another form

of the word is given with an identification of its grammatical category in parentheses. For

further grammatical information, as well as for the spelling conventions of each language,

the standard grammars of the languages should be consulted.

In the Old Prussian wordlist, "E" marks items from the Elbing vocabulary and

"G" items from the vocabulary of Simon Grunau; unmarked items are from the cate-

chisms.

There are numerous gaps and uncertainties in the lists for the more poorly attested

ancient languages. Occasionally related words, or forms from closely related dialects, are

adduced (with appropriate identification) in an attempt to extract as much information as

possible from marginally adequate data.

3

/ all (pl.) ? and < animal > ashes fi at fl back (nn.) bad ? bark (nn.) ? because /, belly // big /? bird /< bite /> black /fi blood /fl blow [wind] / bone /? breast [wmn's] /? breathe ?, burn (intr.) ?/ child ?? claw ?< cloud ?> cold ?fi come ?fl count ? cut ?? day [?> hrs] ??a day ?? die cold ?fi come ?fl count ? cut ?? day [?> hrs] ??a day ?? die cold ?fi come ?fl count ? cut ?? day [?> hrs] ??a day ?? die cold ?fi come ?fl count ? cut ?? day [?> hrs] ??a day ?? die ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download