Armenian
index / Index arménien
Ստուգաբանական
ինդեքս հայկական բառերի
ա
amaṙn ամառն ‘summer’: IE *samaro- ‘summer (adj.)’ < *smh2-ero-;
n-inflection began in the locative.
2009b: 1-3.
ark‘ay արքայ ‘king’: from Syriac -arkā (in
“compounds”), from Greek -αρχος, ‑άρχης (in compounds). 2009b:
3-6.
ark‘uni արքունի ‘royal’: from *ark‘oyn, from
Syriac arkōn, from Greek ἄρχων. 2009b: 5-6.
գ
garšapar գարշապար ‘heel, foot sole’: earlier *‘footprint’, from Iranian *pada- ‘footprint’ (Olsen) + verbal stem
*garša- *‘crush, press’ (to avoid
homophony in Armenian mouth with *pāda-
‘foot’). 2009b: 6-7.
զ
zut զուտ ‘pure’: from Iranian *zuta- ‘poured’, originally applied to
gold (‘melted’) and perhalps to milk (‘filtered’). 2009b:
7-8.
դ
dełj դեղձ ‘peach’: from an IE root denoting
‘yellow’ (Olsen), dełj is likely to
have been the Armenian word for ‘apricot’ before ciran was borrowed: 2009b: 9 fn. 38.
խ
xlurd խլուրդ ‘mole’ (cf. Olsen): from Aramaic *ḥululdā. 2009b:
17 fn. 77.
ծ
ciran ծիրան ‘apricot’ (attested only since the
12th century): 1° unrelated to Iranian *zaranya-
‘gold’ or Armenian cirani ‘purple’; 2° probably related to
Indo-Iranian words like Kashmiri cēr
‘apricot’ (Adjarian, Morgenstierne); 3° perhaps from Old Kashmiri *cīḍa- *‘apricot tree’ (named after its
exuding gum), *cīḍa-vana- ‘id.’,
perhaps through Pashai and Khwarezmian (i. e. along the Silk Road) although it
is not attested in these languages; see also dełj. 2009b: 8-16.
ciranavačaṙ ծիրանավաճառ ‘seller of purple goods’ (Acts
16:14): the better reading is of course ciranevačaṙ
ծիրանեվաճառ with
e. 2009b:
18.
cirani ծիրանի
‘purple (dye); purple (colour); the shellfish purple is drawn from’:
unrelated to ciran ‘apricot’; with lenition *d > r from pre-reduction *ceydaní ‘of Sidon’, from *Ceydán ‘Sidon’, from Aramaic Ṣaydān. 2009b:
17-18.
curac‘i ծուրացի ‘of Tyre’: analogical preservation or restoration of u: the only ethnics whose root has less
than three phonemes are hreay հրեայ ‘Jew’ (not a derivative in Armenian) and vrac‘i վրացի ‘Georgian’. 2009b: 18 fn. 80.
հ
heṙ հեռ ‘strife’: originally *‘estrangement’, from heṙanam ‘move away’. 2009b:
22.
heṙi հեռի adj. ‘distant’, adv. ‘far away’: from *heṙ ‘far away’, cognate with Gothic fairra, English far,
perhaps from IE *pérrē < *pérh2-eh1 ‘beyond’.
2009b: 19.
կ
kałapar կաղապար ‘model’: not from Greek κᾱλοπόδιον, but from accusative κᾱλοπόδα, κᾱλαπόδα, through
Parthian. 2009b: 23.
ձ
jêt‘ ձէթ ‘olive’, ‘oil’: from Aramaic (Syr. zaitā), not through Parthian: 2009b: 17 fn. 79.
jiwt‘ ձիւթ ‘pitch’: from Aramaic (Syr. zift), not through Parthian: 2009b: 17 fn. 79.
jmeṙn ձմեռն ‘winter’: IE *g1him-ero-
‘winter (adj.)’; n-inflection began
in the locative. 2009b: 1-3.
ճ
čiran ճիրան, a dialectal variant of ciran: perhaps appeared in cirani č‘ir
‘dried apricots’. 2009b: 10.
չ
č‘ir չիր ‘dried fruit’ (attested at least
since Rivola 1633): perhaps cognate with Greek ξηρός (Adjarian); comments: 2009b: 11 fn. 45 (but delete the statements
involving Greek ξερόν).
ս
*seark
‘today’: the source of serkean սերկեան ‘of today’, serkacin սերկածիյն ‘born today’ is not *serk
(with Dumézil), but *seark,
explainable as *siyātwi (with early syncope, unrelated to the later “reduction”) < *siyātiwi < *k1iyādiwi
‘today’, with ā taken from *kiy-āmero- ‘of today’ 2005:
94-96.
Corrections:
1°
On irregular reductions due to frequency, see especially Witold Mańczak, Frequenzbedingter unregelmäßiger Lautwandel in den germanischen
Sprachen, Wrocław 1987 (as quoted in 1997: fnn. 136, 164, 165).
2°
Several points of this note are corrected or discussed by Witold Mańczak,
“Arménien serkean “d’aujourd’hui””, Folia Orientalia
42/43, 2006/07, 293-295. In particular, several additional examples of
irregular phonetic reductions in a word or phrase for ‘today’ (not only
univerbation) are given there p. 294.
3°
Given that *k1i(y)āmero- is
from *k1i-h2eh1-mero-,
there has been no diaeresis in Armenian, but a synezesis *k1iyā- > *kyā-
in other languages (cf. -ruk‘).
skutł* սկուտղ* ‘plate’: not from Greek σκουτέλλιον
or Latin scutella, but from Latin *scutla < scutula. 2009b: 22-23.
Various
words
Words that must have existed until
shortly before Mesrop’s time: *ark‘oyn ‘king’,
*heṙ
‘far away’, *seark
‘today’.
Syriac words that are only known
from Armenian loans: the sources of Armenian ekełec‘i եկեղեցի (?) ‘church’, k‘uay քուայ ‘dice (?)’, k‘ueay քուեայ‘cube,
vote’. 2009b: 4.
Dialectal position within IE
Have there
been contacts between the Germanic and Armenian dialects of Indo-European? 2009b: 21.
Historical Morphology
Noun
a-declension:
genitive, dative and locative singular borrowed from i-declension to avoid homophony with nominative-accusative (after
the loss of final consonants but before the loss of final vowels). 2009b: 3 fn. 9.
Verb
-ruk‘
(medio-passive 2 pl. secondary ending) < *-dhuwe
(Jay Jasanoff, IF 1979) < *-dhh2we (cf. H.
Craig Melchert, Anatolian Historical
Morphology, 1994: 77, 128, though with *dh,
not *d). 2005:
93-94.
Correction:
There
has been no diaeresis in Armenian, but a synezesis *‑dhuwe > *‑dhwe
in
other languages (cf. *seark).
Historical Phonology
The
following is partly an index of (not previously known or not generally
accepted) changes that I have advocated in the publications referred to, partly
an index of well-known changes that are mentioned in the etymological word index above.
Armenian
As my work
focusses on the unwritten or pre-Mesropian
period of the language, I use the following terms:
·
“Modern
Armenian” (not simply “Armenian”) for the modern language;
·
“Armenian”
without an adjective (not “Ancient Armenian”) for the classical language;
·
“Ancient
Armenian” or “Early Armenian” to denote any stage later than Indo-European and
earlier than Mesrop;
· either “Armenian” or “dialectal
Indo-European” to denote that dialect of Indo-European that has evolved to Armenian.
Apocope
Conventional
short name for the loss of last-syllable vowels, that is, not only of final
vowels (the usual meaning of ‘apocope’) as in IE *yugom > ... > *lúco
> luc ‘yoke’, but also before a
final consonant as in IE *astēl >
... > *ástił > astł [astəł]. (Meillet 1936: 19, Schmitt 1981: 37-38).
This change
occurred probably after the
(beginning of the) main influx of Iranian loans (cf. Olsen 1999: 856-861), but
certainly before the “Reduction”.
Lenition
On this
site I use the terms “early lenition”, “main lenition”, “late lenition” as in 2005: (96-)98.
Early lenition (de-occlusion of the reflex of PIE *k1, the end result being
Armenian s).
Main lenition (voicing or/and de-occlusion of the reflexes
of PIE *p, *t, *k2, *kw,
after the consonant shift, in various positions).
Late lenition (affecting the reflexes *b, *d of PIE *bh, *dh
after a vowel):
·
*b (from PIE *bh)
is weakened to w after a vowel, and
it is (sometimes?) lost after m.
·
postvocalic
*d of various origins is weakened to r; this includes: IE *dh (Jasanoff); IE initial *t in enclitics; IE suffixal *t transplanted by analogy; Iranian
loans. 2005: 85-93; as well as Aramaic
(early) loans: 2009b: 17-18.
Mesrop
As the
creator of the Armenian alphabet (405), Mesrop Maštoc Մեսրոպ Մաշտոծ (362-440) marks the turning point
between the unwritten and the written period of the history of Armenian.
Reduction
My
conventional short name for the reduction of unstressed vowels (Meillet 1936:
20-23, Schmitt 1981: 38-45), occurring after the Apocope
and before Mesrop:
1.
unstressed
*i, *u > [ə] (usually not spelt) or zero, as in
IE yugosyo > ... > *lucóyo > *lucóy > lcoy լծոյ [ləcoy]; this change is often called
“Syncope” by other authors;
2.
differently
before a vowel: *iá, *ió > ea, wo
(except in monosyllables?), *iú > iw (2002c:
1 fn. 1);
3.
unstressed
*ea > e (later than 1, earlier than 4);
4.
unstressed
*oy, *ey (including the reflex of *eay), *ew > u, i, iw (later
than 1 and 4, and earlier than the change of stressed *ey to ê).
In 4, it is
not known whether the earlier diphthong *ow
[not to be confused with ու = u] as in *owž > oyž ոյժ ‘strength’ was still *ow or
already *oy when it was reduced to u in unstressed position as in the
genitive uži ուժի.
Bibliography
Reference
books on Armenian historical phonology include:
Meillet 1936 = Antoine Meillet, Esquisse d’une grammaire comparée de
l’arménien classique. Vienne: Mekhitaristes.
Godel 1975 = Robert Godel, An introduction to the study of classical
Armenian. Wiesbaden: Reichert.
Schmitt 1981 = Rüdiger Schmitt, Grammatik des Klassisch-Armenischen. Innsbruck: Institut für
Sprachwissenschaft.
Important recent works on Armenian etymology include:
Martirosyan 2010 = Hrach Martirosyan, Etymological Dictionary of the Armenian Inherited Lexicon. Leiden:
Brill.
Olsen 1999 = Birgit Anette Olsen, The Noun in Biblical Armenian. Berlin:
Mouton De Gruyter.
Further
references are found in the publications indexed.