Comments from Sagart: On W. Baxter's article "A stronger affinity…"
沙加尔的评论: 谈白一平文章“"A stronger affinity…"
Laurent Sagart 沙加尔

Abstract 摘要

COMMENTS ON W. BAXTER’S ARTICLE “’A STRONGER AFFINITY… THAN COULD HAVE BEEN PRODUCED BY ACCIDENT’: A PROBABILISTIC COMPARISON OF OLD CHINESE AND TIBETO-BURMAN”

1. PROBLEMS WITH YAKHONTOV’S WORD LIST
1.1. Circularity in testing the Chinese-TB relationship on the basis of a list compiled at least in part on the basis of the Chinese-TB shared vocabulary
1.2. Bias in favor of nominals
1.3. Borrowings on Yakhontov’s list

2. THE OC AND PTB RECONSTRUCTIONS FOR EACH MEANING WERE NOT EVOLVED INDEPENDENTLY
2.1. Baxter’s OC reconstructions
2.2. Selection of TB cognate sets

3. BAXTER’S SOUND CORRESPONDENCES HAVE ‘LOANISH’ FEATURES
3.1. Reflection of tones, aspiration, and central vowels in borrowing by a language that lacks these features
3.2. Stratification

4. THE SUPPORTING MATERIAL CONTAINS CHINESE LOANWORDS

COMMENTS ON STAROSTIN’S ARTICLE “OLD CHINESE BASIC VOCABULARY : A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE”

1. STAROSTIN’S LEXICAL COMPARISONS
1.1. blood. 血 *hmit (<-ik) > hwit, PNC (starostin) *hwěɁnV.
1.2. dog. 犬 *khw[i,e]nɁ = PNC (Starostin) *ϫHwěje.
1.3. ear. 耳 *njiŋɁ > ńźji? = PNC (Starostin) *ʕwănʕV.
1.4. give. 予, 與 *ljaɁ = PEC (Starostin) * -íʟV (diacritic omitted).
1.5. horn. 角 *krok = PNC (Starostin) *qw rhV.
1.6. moon. 月 *ŋwjat = PNC (Starostin) *wəmcŏ
1.7. new. 新 *sjin < -ŋ = PNC (Starostin) *cănɁV
1.8. one. 一 Ɂjit = PNC (Starostin) *cHə.
1.9. salt. 鹺 *dzar : PNC (Starostin) *cwěnhV.
1.10. tail. 尾 *mjijɁ = PEC *mēʁV (short final vowel).
1.11. tongue. 舌 *Ljat = PNC (Starostin) *mělci
1.12. two. 二 *njij-s = PNC (Starostin) *năwši.
1.13. year. 年 *nin < -ŋ PNC (Starostin) *śwänĭ

2. SOME REMARKS ON THE METHODOLOGY
2.1. Phonetic matches
2.2. Semantic matches
2.3. Morphology and word-families.
2.4. Loanwords
2.5. Comparative procedure.
2.6. Extra-linguistic evidence.

3. CONCLUSION

COMMENTS ON P. LI JEN-KUI’S ARTICLE “IS CHINESE GENETICALLY RELATED TO AUSTRONESIAN?”

1. CHANCE SIMILARITIES AND LOOSE SEMANTIC EQUATIONS.
2. LACK OF BASIC VOCABULARY: NO NUMERALS, NO PRONOUNS, NO ITEMS FOR NATURAL PHENOMENA.
3. WORD STRUCTURE.
4. USE OF LATE AND LOW-LEVEL FORMS
5. COMPARING THE CHINESE AND AUSTRONESIAN MORPHOLOGIES
6. AUSTRONESIAN LOANWORDS IN CHINESE AND TIBETO-BURMAN?
7. Li’s article ends on a list comparing “Proto-Austronesian and Sino-Tibetan basic and important vocabulary”, which purports to show that Chinese shares many more cognates with Tibeto-Burman than do PAN and OC. Due to shortage of time and space I will not comment on the selection of items in that list.