< Reconstruction:Proto-Sino-Tibetan

Reconstruction:Proto-Sino-Tibetan/lwa(ː)j

This Proto-Sino-Tibetan entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Proto-Sino-Tibetan

Etymology
  • Proto-Sino-Tibetan: ?
    • Proto-Tibeto-Burman: *lwa(ː)y (Matisoff, STEDT); *lway (Weidert, 1987; Benedict, 1972); *s-l(w)a-y (LaPolla, 1987)

The quantity of the nuclear vowel has not yet been established, although Jingpho loi ~ lwe (“easy”) doublet suggests that it might have been long[1] (Matisoff, 2003: 213).

Matisoff (STEDT) and Schuessler (2007) propose 易 (OC *leːɡs, “easy”) as Chinese comparandum. The presence of a labio-velar approximant as well as a velar coda in Chinese is confirmed by the fact that the character was borrowed to write 役 (OC *ɢʷeɡ, “to do service, do labour”) in some classical texts predating the Han dynasty. 易 (OC *leːɡs, “easy”) should not be confused with his homograph 易 (OC *leɡ, “to change”), a derivate of 移 (OC *lal, “to change”) via k-suffixation, i.e. OC *lek < *lajk < *laj + -k.

According to Schuessler (2007), 易 (OC *leːɡs, “easy”) could be compared with Tibetan ལེགས་པོ (legs po, “good, beautiful”) and ཡག་པོ (yag po, “good, fine”) due to phonetic similarity. However, Matisoff (STEDT) reconstructs Proto-Sino-Tibetan *l(j)a(k/ŋ) (“good, beautiful”) for these two Tibetan words.

Adjective

*lwa(ː)j

  1. easy

Descendants
  • Old Chinese: 易 (yì) /*lek-s/ (? < /*ɴ(ə)-lek-s/, see Sagart, 2007) (B-S), /*leːɡs/ (ZS) ("easy")
    (in the oracle bone script)
    • Middle Chinese: 易 (yì) (yeH, /jiᴇH/) ("easy")
      • Modern Chinese
        • Beijing: 易 (yì, /i⁵¹/, “easy”)
        • Cantonese: 易 (/jiː²²/, “easy”)
        • Wu: 易 (/ɦi²³/, “easy”)
    • Min Nan
      • Xiamen: 易 (/i²²/, “easy”)
  • Central Naga:
    *m-laj (Bruhn, 2014)
    • Lotha: ela (“easy, cheap”)
  • Angami-Pochuri
    • Angami: meli (“easy”)
  • Tangkhulic
    *plaj (Mortensen, 2012)
    • Ukhrul: kəpaj (“easy”)
  • Meitei [Manipuri]: লৈবা (laiba, “easy”)
  • Tangut-Qiang
    • Northern Tangut
      • Tangut: 𗧙 (*ljɨ², “easy”)
  • Sal
    • Jingpho [Kachin]: loi (“easy”), lwe (“easy”)
  • Lolo-Burmese
    • Burmish
    • Loloish
      • Yi: ꆻ (liet, “easy”)

Notes
  1. The reflex -oi in Jingpho comes from both PTB *-waj and PTB *-waːj rhymes, but Jingpho -we only comes from PTB *-waːj.
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