Proto-Tai reconstruction of 'maternal grandmother' revisited: *na:jA, *ta:jA or * ta:jB?

Abstract

The word ‘maternal grandmother’ presents irregular modern forms in Tai languages. It is ta:jB1 in most Northern Tai (NT) varieties, ta:jA1 in most Central Tai (CT) varieties, na:jA2 in most Southwestern Tai (SWT) varieties, and ja:jA2 in Standard Thai. Li ( 1971 ) reconstructs the proto-form of this word as *na:jA , positing that the later forms changed by analogy with semantically similar words. This paper discusses two alternative hypotheses *ta:jA and *ta:jB , and argues that the proto-form was *ta:jB . The analysis indicates that the sound changes of this word in Tai languages are caused by the “contamination” in kinship terms with paired semantic contents in CT/SWT, and by dissimilation from the otherwise homophonous word ‘to die’ in SWT. As a result, the proto-form of ‘maternal grandmother’ *ta:jB is preserved in the vast majority of NT and a cluster of CT. In most CT/SWT the original *B tone changed to *A tone, and then in SWT the initial *t- underwent further change to *n- in order to avoid homophony with the taboo word ‘to die’. This issue of homophony arose only in this branch due to the merger of *t- and *tr- (or *p.t-). This proto-form *ta:jB is supported by historical evidence and other non-Tai languages in the Daic family. Other exceptional irregularities in some CT languages are also discussed as they are crucial to the determination of the *ta:jB hypothesis. Analogous examples from several Tai varieties also support the occurrence of aberrant development due to taboo avoidance.