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In this paper I seek to show that proto-Mon-Khmer *p as the second element in an initial cluster normally developed in Mon to -w-, and that *b underwent the same development accompanied by voicing of the initial consonant where this was a plosive. The point, as a contribution to Mon-Khmer phonology, is a minor one; but it has consequences of some importance for morphological reconstruction.
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- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , February 1969 , pp. 104 - 114
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- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1969
References
1 I am grateful to my colleague Mrs. J. M. Jacob, who read an earlier MS version of this article, for helpful suggestions in relation to the Khmer material and for saving me from a number of errors.
2 ‘ Einiges über das Infix mn und dessen Stellvertreter p in den austroasiatischen Sprachen ’, in Aufsätze zur Kultur- und Sprachgeschichte⃛ Ernst Kuhn⃛gewidmet, Breslau, 1916 (hereafter cited as AKS), 472. I cite Chmer words in the Transcriṕtion used in Henderson, E.J.A., ‘The main features of Cambodian pronunciation ’, BSO AS, 14, 1, 1952, 149–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Abbreviations: AN = Austronesian, EMK = Eastern Mon-Khmer, Khm. = Khmer, LM literary Mon, MK = Mon-Khmer, MM = Middle Mon, NMK Northern Mon-Khmer, OKhm. = Old Khmer, OM = Old Mon, SM = spoken Mon; C = consonant, V = vowel.
3 ‘ A comparative study of the verb in the Munda languages ’, inZide, N. H.(ed.), Studies in comparative Austroasiatic linguistics,The Hague, 1966 (hereafterSCAL), 184–5, § 6.3.2 (16).Google Scholar, At Versuch einer historischen Lautlehre der Kharia-Sprache, Wiesbaden, 1959 (hereafter VHL), 405,Google Scholar, Pinnow had noted Austroasiatic *p > Mon w as an ‘ einzelne Sonderentwicklung ’; but the example he gives—Mundari hapu' ‘ flying fox’, etc., Mon kəwa’ ‘ bat’ (OM kilwa)—is, I think, invalid.
4 Grundzüge einer Lautlehre der Mon-Khmer-Sprachen, (Denkschriften Wiss, d. k. Akad. d.. in Wien, Phil.-hist. Kl., LI, 3), Wien, 1905, 199–200, § 226–8.Google Scholar, Schmidt's Mon material was mostly drawn from Haswell's Vocabulary, first published in 1874.Google Scholar, Some of his proposed morphological connexions are inadmissible; and the paw, pow ‘ gut, schön ’ which he compares with Khm. kúə is a ghost-word, apparently miscopied for gaw, gow.
5 Haudricourt, A.-G., ‘ Les consonnes préglottalisées en Indochine ’ BSLP, XLVI, 1, 1950, 177Google Scholar; cf. also Jacob, J. M., ‘ Prefixation and infixation in Old Mon, Old Khmer, and modern Khmer ’, in Shorto, H. L. (ed.), Linguistic comparison in South East Asia and the Pacific, London, 1963, 66, table I.B.1; 69, 1(d) in table.Google Scholar
6 For Riang-Lang s-: AN *t'-, etc., cf. ¯ sმŋi’ ‘ sun, day ’, probably again corresponding to an infixed form.
7 Maspero, H., ‘Ètudes sur la phonétique historique de la langue annamite: Ies initiates ’, BEFEO, 12, 1, 1912, 95–6. Sre bbany ‘ bread, cake ’ is a recent borrowing from Vietnamese.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8 ‘ De l'origine des tons en viêtnamien’, JA, CCXLII, 1, 1954, 69–82.Google Scholar
9 Sre bbon, if related, sheds no illumination; the initial glottalization suggests a recent Tai source which the vocalism repudiates.
10 The active sense presumably developed from the ‘ possessive ’ sense often found in OM stative verbs, e.g.glon ‘ to be many, to have many ’: ‘*to have a row of ’ > ‘ to place in a row ’. For the primacy of the non-active sense cf. further the formal causative MM preṅ ‘ to prepare, arrange, to have prepared, have arrangements made ’.
11 For evidence suggesting that SM pù' ‘to be white’ derives from a doublet and not from a form *bu' whence *k-bu' was obtained by prefixation (such as might be preferred for comparison with the Sre and Sakai, though not the Stieng, words), see p. 109 below.
12 cf. also Bahnar bŏk ‘ to hollow out ’. The *6- of Riang-Lang ¯bm; ‘ hole, eye, noose ’ may result from secondary borrowing via Shan 
‘ hole’. I connot follow VHL, 173, § 380, in connecting this set with Khm. prəhaoŋ ‘ hole ’ and other forms with -h-.
13 cf. VHL, 122, § 245. Pinnow regards Munda -' as derived from final velars, but MK evidence suggests the reconstruction of a distinct *-' to accommodate such correspondences as Kharia ti´jმ', OM tińju /tმnju'/ ‘worm ’.
14 cf. Jacob, art. cit., 69. Such a prefix could be expected to leave little trace in Mon, where derivation of a verb from a nominal root is very rare.
15 Epigraphia birmanica, III, 1. Rangoon, , 1923, inscription IX, F 42; tr., p. 53. Though Blagden gives the reading as doubtful, it is probable to my eye, nor does any alternative possibility suggest itself.Google Scholar
16 Wat Mahāwan, B 10 (BEFEO, xxx, 1–, 1930, 101).
17 In kwĭr tar buwut ‘ quern-handled digging-stick’, i.e. ‘ earth-auger ‘—not, as Epig. birm., III, 1, 58, etc., ‘ spade with a turned handle ’.
18 For which cf. Schmidt, AKS, 468.
19 Jacob, loc. cit.; AKS, 470; Banker, E. M., ‘Bahnar affixation’, in Banker, J. E. and others, Mon-Khmer studies, I, Saigon, 1964, 104.Google Scholar
20 Watson, S.K. ‘ Verbal affixation in Pacởh’, in Thomas, D. D. and others (ed.), Mon-Khmer studies, II, Saigon, 1966, 23–4.Google Scholar
21 Costello, N. A., ‘ Affixes in Katu ’Google Scholar, ibid., 67.
22 But we might note in connexion with the Kherwari reciprocal infix the unexplained initial of the Khm. reciprocal prefix prə, as contrasted with katu ta-, Pakoh tar-, Riang-Lang tმ, Palaung kმ.
23 But then not OKbm. pi > Khm. bγy ‘ in order to ’, unless we assume a complex origin for the affix.
24 cf. Shorto, , ‘The interpretation of archaic writing systems’, Lingua, XIV, 1965, 88 ff., esp. 95.Google Scholar
25 ‘ OM ’ by convention, as in this article, refers primarily to the period c. A.D. 1100 when the volume of texts first allows of systematic linguistic analysis, but the introduction of writing antedates that by several centuries at least, the earliest inscription dating from c. A.D. 600. A restricted vowel system in unstressed in unstressed syllables at an early stage is predictable on comparative grounds; a three-term system is actually reported for Pakoh by Watson, R. in )Mon-Khmer studies, I, 144.Google Scholar
26 Pinnow, , VHL, 259, § 324f, 375–6, § 513; SCAL, 114–15, 184. I give the Sora forms (in which i represents a palatal semivowel) as they appear inGoogle Scholar, Ramamurti, G. V., A manual of the So:ra: (or Savara) language, Madras, 1931Google Scholar, Pinnow writes kaájed for kმ´jed on grounds of allophony and treats 'kabjed as a reconstruction, but Ramamurti (p. 10) characterzes the assimilation as ‘ optional ’-
27 With *w to account for peculiarities in the Munda correspondences: VHL, 97–8, § 148.
28 To the froms listed by Pinnow, , at SCAL, 184, may be added Katu, Pakoh pa-, Riang-Lang, Praok, Khmu ‘ p., Pinnow's listing of Mon pმ-, (i.e. LM pa-, ba-)requires correction. The prefix appears as LM p- in most contexts. pa- is usually an arthographic variant of p-; ba., pha-except before labials usually reflect the OM frequentative-of-causative prefix pin- (p-in-), with which cf. Khmu' pin-.Google Scholar
29 ‘ Les mutations consonantiques des occlusives initiales en mon-khmer ’, BSLP, LX, 1, 1965, 171.
30 For a similar stressed form cf. SM ma' ‘ in order [not] to ’, which develops from a special use of the OM attributive particle ma/mმ/.