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A Parthian sound-change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Nicholas Sims-Williams
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Extract

The existence of M Sogd. prqyš- ‘to imprison’, past stem prkšṯ-, and the meaning of the associated B Sogd. noun prk'š ‘imprisonment’ were first established by Henning in 1936. Later he recognized also the equivalent Parth. verb prg'c- ‘to incarcerate’. For the alternation between š and č he compared NP āγōš: Parth. 'gwc (‘side’) and MP āgustan <*ākuštan: Sogd. ākōč-/ākuγd- (‘to suspend’), remarking that ‘the discrepancy is found only in syllables that begin with k- and is therefore probably due to assimilation or dissimilation’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bulletin of SOAS , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , February 1979 , pp. 133 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1979

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References

1 BBB, p. 96 on b 74. The present stem is attested also in C Sogd. (prqyš-, CI. 89), the past stem in B Sogd. (prk'yšt-, P6.151, cf. Henning, , BSOAS, XI, 4, 1946, 735 Google Scholar ).

2 Apud Boyce, , BSOAS, XIII, 4, 1951, p. 913, n. 5Google Scholar.

3 Boyce, , A word-list of Manichaean Middle Persian and Parthian (Acta Iranica, 9a), Teheran, Liege, 1977, 72 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Professor Boyce has kindly informed me that this interpretation is due to Henning, who translated prgštg in an unpublished text (M 5785 i r. 9) as ‘imprisoned’.

4 The MS C2 will be cited according to my forthcoming edition, references to the edition of Hansen, O. (BST, II) being added wherever appropriateGoogle Scholar.

5 C2/51v.4–5; C2/11r.26; C2/64v.28; C2/94r.16 (= BST, II, 826.16).

6 ∼ Syr. ḥbwšy' ‘confinement, imprisonment’, C2/94v.26 (= BST, II, 827.56).

7 One need scarcely hesitate on account of B sγrh f. ‘wheel’ (on which see Benveniste, , TSP, 205–6Google Scholar, and VJ, p. 91). This cannot be a native Sogd. reflex of *čaxra-, since it contrasts not only in its initial but also in its gender from the expected and attested B cγr-, M cxr- m.; it might be of Bactrian origin, especially if Bactr. σ < *č really stands for [s] (cf. Henning, , BSOAS, XXIII, 1, 1960, 49 Google Scholar).

8 A phonologically possible but morphologically less plausible alternative would be to take *kaš- as the basic form (with ), whence *kās° with an IE suffix containing *.

9 See MacKenzie, , BSOAS, XXXIII, 3, 1970, 557 Google Scholar.

10 cf. Bailey, , BSOAS, XXIX, 3, 1966, 528 Google Scholar, and KT, VI, 44.

11 Only in the phrase hrw'gwc, 'c hrw 'gwc ‘on all sides, everywhere’, attested at least six times in Parthian, once also in a MP text (Mir. Man., II, 296.20). Note that the explanation of Parth, . 'gwz as a mistake for *'gwž = 'gwc (Mir. Man., III, 48b) is withdrawn in BBB, p. 106aGoogle Scholar.

12 The assumption that NP āγōš ‘armpit, bosom, breast, embrace, amount which can be held in an embrace, bundle’ (Vullers) derives from an OIr. form with *-k- is supported by the variant āgōš ‘embrace, bosom, side’ and by the spelling of Pahl. 'kwš ‘embrace’. On the other hand, MMP ”wš ”wš ‘by armfuls’ (recognized by Sundermann, , BTT, IV, 113bGoogle Scholar) and Shughni , Sarikoli , etc. ‘(in an) embrace, (in) the compass of two arms, armpit’ ( Morgenstierne, , EVSG, 43bGoogle Scholar) demand an OIr. form with *-g-. Possibly two words have fallen together in NP āγōš. [Cf. Humbach, , Münchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschafl, XXXIII, 1975, 51–2Google Scholar. ]

13 cf. Benveniste, , TPS, 1945, 73–4Google Scholar.

14 Only in ST, I, 66.20 (the proper Sogd. form would be a light stem *qwšt-).

15 < *kušāza-, Bailey, , KT, VI, 49 Google Scholar.

16 It is not quite certain that qwš[‘side (of a ship)’, ST, I, 79.4, is the same word.

17 ST, I, 78.3, and C2/51v.15 (= BST, II, 886.15) respectively.

18 C1.228 (misprinted in the text, but cf. the facsimile apud Hansen, , Forschungen und Fortschritte, XVII, 33–4, 1941, 361aGoogle Scholar).

19 Henning, apud GM8, § 1168 1 Google Scholar.

20 See my forthcoming article in BSOAS, XLII, 2, 1979 Google Scholar.

21 cf. Bailey, , KT, VI, 52 Google Scholar, and Schwartz, , Altorientalische Forschungen, I, 1974, 260 Google Scholar.

22 Henning, , BSOS, IX, 1, 1937, 79 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; AION, 8ez. Ling., VI, 1965, p. 32, n. 6Google Scholar.

23 Schwartz, , ZDMG, CXX, 2, 1970, 290 Google Scholar; MacKenzie, , BSOAS, XXXIV, 3, 1971, 523 Google Scholar.

24 Morgenstierne, , EVSG, 14b, 18aGoogle Scholar.

25 See MacKenzie, , SCE, p. 35 Google Scholar; differently Gershevitch, , IF, LXXV, 1970, 306 Google Scholar.

26 Henning, , ‘Verbum’, 182 Google Scholar; Morgenstierne, , EVSG, 42aGoogle Scholar; cf. also Emmerick, , SGS, 17, 137Google Scholar.

27 Turner, , CDIAL 1725 Google Scholar, s.v. *utkucyatē.

28 Henning, , BSOAS, XII, 1, 1947, p. 51, n. 1Google Scholar.

29 Clauson, , EDPT, 412bGoogle Scholar.

30 Utz, D. A., An unpublished, Sogdian version of the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇāsūtra in the German Turfan collection (unpublished Harvard Ph.D. thesis), 1976, 17, Mainz 185b(I), v(?) 3Google Scholar.

31 See Henning, , BSOAS, XII, 1, 1947, 50 Google Scholar, and ‘Mitteliranisch’, 94. [Sogd. ”k'c is not a purely Buddhist term. Dr. Sundermann has kindly drawn my attention to ”q'cy in an unpublished C Sogd. text, C3 = TiiB57, 4 r4. Also to Parth. ”g'c ‘sky’ in the unpublished M83, ii, v 1.]

32 Gershevitch, , JRAS, 1954, 3–4, pp. 124–5 (q.v. also on Parth. kyc ‘someone’)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 Gershevitch, , Dr. J. M. Unvala memorial volume, Bombay, 1964, 91–2Google Scholar.

34 Both forms occur in the Farhang-i Jahāngīrī. For information on this and several similar pairs of NP doublets I am indebted to Mrs. F. Salimi.

35 See, most recently, Lazard, G. in the ‘Cambridge History of Iran’, IV, 601 Google Scholar.