Although Li (1977) lists a number of items under simple aspirated stops *pʰ-,
*tʰ-, *cʰ-, and *kʰ-, reconstructing contrastive aspiration for PT is in fact very problematic. As discussed earlier, the majority of these etyma show voicing alternation and therefore clearly do not go back to PT simple aspirates. Moreover, a number of etyma that Li reconstructed with *kʰ- should in fact be reconstructed with uvular onsets (see §3.3). In this subsection, I show that most of the remaining items must be viewed as post-PT lexical innovations, either borrowings or forms derived after the establishment of the contrastive aspiration. These etyma can be divided into two groups—those that are found only in SWT and CT and those that are found in all the three groups. Table 3-10 lists etyma with aspirated onsets that are not found in NT.
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Table 3-10 Forms with Li’s simple aspirated onsets not found in NT
Gloss Li Siamese Lungchow Po-ai
The etymon ‘carpenter’s square’ is most likely a Siamese innovation. It is found only in Siamese and Lao. The Dioi form cited by Li (1977: 167) is probably not related. It may be related to Chinese 尺 chǐ (< MC tśʰjäk) ‘foot measure’. The forms
‘to sing’, ‘turban’, and ‘to coil’ are reflected with /x-/ in White Thai, pointing to either earlier *x-, *q-, or *χ-, rather than *kʰ-. The /h-/ in the Saek reflex for ‘to sing’ also supports this interpretation. As for ‘turban’ and ‘mother’s younger brother’, it is difficult to identify their original onsets because they are found exclusively in CT dialects, which have all lost the distinction. However, these etyma are ultimately from
29 For Po-ai, Li (Li 1977: 64) gives /pewC1/ ‘to move residence’. In addition to the semantic problem, the short vowel is also unexpected. Therefore, this form is not related.
30For NT, Li (Li 1977: 102-103) cites Po-ai /takDS1/ ‘knot’, which may not be related.
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Chinese 巾 jīn (< MC kjen) and 舅 jiù (< MC gjəuB) respectively. Note that ‘turban’ is mostly likely borrowed via Vietnamese, cf. xăn. The entry ‘to dry on fire’, found only in CT and SWT only, shows irregularity with respect to the tone. While the Siamese form goes back to *A, the Lungchow form indicates *B. The NT forms for ‘frog’ go back to PT *krwe: but are not related to their CT/SWT counterparts. The form ‘to knit’ might not be found outside of Siamese. Manamaivibool (1975: 346) links this word to Chinese 織 zhī (< MC tśjək) ‘to weave’. The forms for ‘spicy hot’ are found only in SWT and CT, assuming that the Saek forms for these etyma are loans from Lao or Thai. Similarly, ‘not exact’ is exclusively a SWT word. While ‘spicy hot’
might have been borrowed from an Austronesian source, cf. Malay /pahit/ ‘bitter’, the etymology of ‘not exact’ is unclear.
The crucial point is that the etyma in this set only occur in CT and SWT, never in NT. Many of them point to initials other than *kʰ-, i.e. *x-, *q-, or *χ-. Although it is not possible to explain the etymological sources of every etymon, the words in this set cannot be regarded as cases of retention from PT on the part of CT and SWT. This is because they are the only instances of Li’s simple aspirates. If these particular forms were retentions, we also would expect to see in NT a sizeable number of other etyma shared with either CT or SWT that fit this correspondence pattern. Since no such item is found, these etyma must be considered post-PT vocabulary that were innovated after CT and SWT dialects had developed contrastive aspiration through independent processes (see §3.3 and §3.5). Unlike the set of data just discussed, the second set, given in Table 3-11 consists of etyma reconstructed with simple aspirated stops by Li that are shared by SWT, CT, and NT.
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Table 3-11 Forms with Li’s simple aspirated onsets that are found in all the three groups
Gloss Li Siamese Lungchow Po-ai MC
‘to split’ *pʰ- pʰa:B1 pʰa:B1 paB1 破pʰwâC
‘to roll, to twist’ *pʰ- pʰanA1 pʰanA1 panA1 翻pʰjwɐn
‘clf. for boards, flat objects, etc.’
*pʰ- pʰɛnB1 pʰe:nB1 pe:nB1 片pʰienC
‘charcoal’ *tʰ- tʰa:nB1 tʰa:nB1 ta:nB1 炭tʰânC
‘to pull out’ *tʰ- tʰɔ:nA1 tʰo:nB1
‘to retreat’ *tʰ- tʰɔ:jA1 tʰo:jB1 tʰo:jB1 退tʰwậiC
‘to remove’ *tʰ- tʰɔ:tDL1 tʰutDS1 to:tDL1 脫tʰwât
‘granary’ *cʰ- cʰa:ŋA1 ɕa:ŋA1 ɕa:ŋA1 倉tsʰâŋ
‘to tear’31 *cʰ- cʰi:kDL1 ɕi:kDL1 ɬi:kDL1 拆 ṭʰɐk
‘to lie athwart, broad’32 *kʰw- kʰwa:ŋA1 kʰwa:ŋB1 kwa:ŋB1 橫ɣwaɨjŋ
Although the etyma in Table 3-11 are found in all three groups and are reflected with the expected onsets, they cannot be reconstructed at the PT level. First of all, a few of them show unexpected vowels or tones. For ‘to pull out’, the tones in Siamese and Po-ai do not agree. Similarly for ‘to retreat’ and ‘to lie athwart, broad’, Siamese points to *A while Lungchow and Po-ai indicate *B. As for ‘to remove’, the Lungchow form has short /u/ instead of the expected long /o:/. More crucially, it cannot be coincidental that all but one has clear Chinese etymologies. This strongly argues for treating these etyma as post-PT borrowings. In other words, they were not part of PT but were borrowed from Chinese separately after the break-up of PT into
31 This etymology is my own. Pulleyblank reconstruct tʰrɛ:jk.
32 This etymon is not listed in Li (1977) but follows the same pattern.
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different branches. In CT and SWT, the borrowing must have occurred after contrastive aspiration had emerged (see §3.5.2 below). This allows these Chinese loans to maintain their aspiration when incorporated into the recipient Tai dialects. On the other hand, NT dialects, which never acquired contrastive aspiration, lost the Chinese aspiration in the process of loanword adaptation.