Reconstruction talk:Proto-Turkic/kodurčuk

Reconstructing with a *-d-

The earliest form found in the DLT is clearly with a -d-, EDAL’s bias for Altaic seems to be the main reason for *-g- as imo the Uzbek forms are secondary (possibly from -w-?), the term also has a secure etymology in Common Turkic *koduŕ (“woman”) per Tekin. What do you guys think?

BurakD53 AmaçsızBirKişi Blueskies006 Ardahan Karabağ

(Sorry for pinging btw :p) Yorınçga573 (talk) 07:39, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Support BurakD53 (talk) 10:07, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Support seconding Burak. See this though, a possible etymology of that *-g-.

AmaçsızBirKişi (talk) 15:53, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm guessing you mean ko:kuz, I would say that it is semantically problematic but I'm unsure. Yorınçga573 (talk) 19:18, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for not being able to elaborate on what I was meant to say yesterday.

Three things should be addressed I think with this etymology;

1: According to Clauson's dictionary (p. 608, second entry in the 'Dis. ĞDZ' section), *kodur´ (more accurately *koduz, since if not for this word, there is no reason to reconstruct a palatal rhotic sound for this proto-Turkic form) in essence means "a woman who no longer has a husband because he is either divorced or dead", a "femme sole" or more broadly, a "widowed woman". The same meaning is given by Tekin-1969 (p. 62, not given anywhere so I found it myself. He writes down this exact line: <<Orkh. qoduz "girl, woman", MK qoδuz "widow">>, Orkhon Turkic form simply doesn't exist [I used Eski Türkçe Sözlük by Fuzuli Bayat & Minara Aliyeva Çınar to check for that].) In the same entry, it is given that this word is a deverbal noun (Dev. N.) from the verb *kod- (“to leave, abandon”), so it neither is a simplex nor has a broad meaning of "woman" but rather a quite specific "woman of whom her husband died or divorced". Seems like a weird word to make out the meaning of "doll", isn't it?

2: For the forms that include an intervocalic velar sound, "-g-", I have thought of this particular line of semantic shift: "toy" (kagur-cuk) < "carved-out wood" < "hollow piece of wood" < "hollow thing" < "empty" (which would be *kagur´/z, as in Clauson's dictionary, p. 614, first entry in the 'Dis. ĞĞZ' section [the reference I posted in the previous post]). I should note that I don't have any faith in this pseudo-etymology myself, just proposing a potential string of changes.

3: The line from EDAL, <<...so the attested form with -δ- must be a phonetic aberration.>>, could it be that the original DLT entry had a scribal error instead? I am not familiar with the script used by the Mahmud Kashgari, but the signs for the velar fricative (ڭ) and dental fricative (ذ) seem like they could be confused with each other easily. That's another of my theories regarding this etymology.

That being said, Tekin clearly shows that <<Chag. qoγurčak < Uzbk. qoγirčak id. < *qowurčak < *qoyurčak>>. That pretty much establishes *-d- as the original sound. I think the problem of the meaning "widow" (the first point) must be tackled, by someone who knows what they're doing and this page would be perfectly done. AmaçsızBirKişi (talk) 16:38, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

1. The link actually sends to *koduz, it just appears as *-ŕ- to better highlight the rhotacism.
2. I actually fully agree with you about the etymology of koduz, Erdal (1991) also suggests such a derivaiton, it is semantically, morphologically and phonologically sound. The semantic relation with "doll" then becomes dubious, we could assume it meant women in general at an earlier date but we have no proof.
3. I do agree such a semantic evolution is plausible actually. Although I am unaware of what kaguz you are talking about, the word you seem to mean is written as kokuz, not that it matters though, phonological evolution would've lead to it becoming kogurçak ~ kagurçak anyway but should be reconstructed as *kōkurčuk ~ kōkurčak.
4. Honestly this is practically impossible to prove so I have nothing to really say other than it's possible.
5. Yeah I agree with your last point as well, for now I'll add a bit about the dubious semantics.

Yorınçga573 (talk) 18:05, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

After having had a look at the Chagatai Dictionary, it appears *kob- (“to chase”) has become kog-, kowı "empty" has become kog, kowga "bucket" has become koga (granted these both come from *kog- (“to hollow out”) but I doubt Chagatai kept the original *-g-) etc. I am assuming the sound change w -> g is a Chagatai (and via inheritance, Uzbek) feature. Yorınçga573 (talk) 08:37, 3 August 2024 (UTC)