Fróðskaparrit

						26

ARMENIAN MUKN

mug'S 'mouse'. (Many languages and di-

alects show such development. The exam-

ples above are sufficient for illustrating my

point).

Before trying to explain Armenian mukn,

it will be useful to see the explanation of-

fered by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov

(1995:98). They suggest that there has been

a neutralization which yielded a shift of

-ukh to -us in Armenian. Further they say:

»there must be some systemic connection

between that shift and the fact that we also

fmd the reverse process, where *us yields

uk ». The words in question are mukn

'mouse' andjukn 'fish'.

This explanation is rather unconvincing.

As mentioned I do not think that there is

any evidence of a laryngeal in the word for

mouse in IE. The old paradigm might have

been mús in nom., sg. and mus- in the

oblique cases. Mayrhofer M. (1963:668).

Frisk H. (1970:276) explains the long /ú/

as: »Die Idg. Vokallánge ist mit der Einsil-

bigkeit in Verbindung gesetzt worden«.

There is, however, a possibility of loss of an

-s morpheme in nom. sg. causing compen-

satory lengthening: * mus+s > * mus.

Armenian mukn is best explained as a

glide insertion after a vowel that is [+high].

There is no need for reconstruction with a

laryngeal. We have seen evidence from oth-

er languages above, which confirm this.

The development was (maybe) * muss >

mus > muws > mu%s > muks -> (to the n

declination) mukn. The best parallel is in

the word for mouse in the Danish dialect of

West- and North-Jutland mug*s (< 01 d

Danish mus) versus Armenian mukn. In

both cases the vowel in front of the stop in-

sertion is [+high], and there is evidence

from other languages, which confirms the

glide insertion resulting in a stop after

[+high] vowels.

References

Endzelin J. 1922 Lettische Grammatik. Riga

Gamkrelidze T.V. / Ivanov V. 1995 Indo-European and

the Indo-Europeans. Trends in Linguistics. Studies

and Monographs 80, ed. W. Winter. Mouton de

Gruyter. Berlin. New Your.

Frisk H. 1970 Griechisches Etymologisches Wortebuch.

Band II.  Heidelberg.  Carl Winter.  Universitáts-

verlag.

Lindeman F. O. 1987 Introduction to the 'Laryngeal

Theory'. Norwegian University Press. The Institut

for Comparative Research in Human Culture. Oslo.

Mayrhofer M. 1986 Indogermanische Grammatik. Band

I, 2. Halbband: Lautlehre. Heidelberg. Carl Winter

Universitátsverlag.

Mayrhofer   M.   1963   Kurzegefafites   etymologisches

WÓrterhuch   des   Altindischen.   Band   II:   D-M.

Heidelberg. Carl Winter. Universitátsverlag.

Petersen H. P. 1993 Skerpingin í føroyskum, Frænda-

fundur 11-19.  Háskóli  íslands.   Háskólaútgáfan.

Reykjavfk.

Pokorny J.   1989 (first ed.  1959) Indogermanisches

Etymologische Wórterbuch. I. Band. France Verlag.

Bern und Stuttgart.

Robbins B. 1966 The Addition of final Stops in the His-

tory of Maru (Tibeto-Burman). Language 42:581-

586.

Hjalmar Petersen

FR-360 Sandavágur

p.t. Yale University