*m-t(w)əy-n ⪤ *m-ti-s

This is a rather complex word family in which all three dental suffixes /-t, -s, -n/ are attested. Reflexes include Kanauri this ‘wet’, Jingpho mədìt ‘moisten sthg; wet, damp’, Lalo tíq ‘steep, soak’, Kanauri ti ‘water’, Jingpho mədī ‘moist, damp, wet’, Lahu dì ‘moisten due to sexual excitement (of a woman), ejaculate (of a man)’. The nasal prefix is reflected directly in Jingpho, and indirectly by the voiced Lahu initial.

Note the Kanauri form thiss, where the -s perhaps reflects the source of the -t to be found in other languages.

There is sometimes confusion between this root and #300 PTB *d(w)əy EGG / TESTICLE, as in compounds of BIRD + WATER > EGG. Note the Kom Rem forms mit ɣətui ‘eyeball’ and nəi tui ‘amniotic fluid’, where the second element definitely means ‘egg’ in the former, but ‘liquid’ in the latter.

This root seems certainly to underlie #2719 PTB *twəy FLOW / SUPPURATE, which shows a semantic extension towards the notion of flowing, as from a wound.

See STC #55 and Matisoff 1988a p. 705. STC #55, #167, and #168 should be combined as one root.

See HPTB *twəy, p. 194; *twəy ⪤ *dwəy, p. 195; *twəy-n, p. 451; *ti(y), pp. 193, 194, 471; *m-ti-s, pp. 434, 351.

There are several likely Chinese comparanda, the best of which is probably 涕 OC *t'iər ‘weep, tears’, GSR #591m. In Mandarin, this word now means either ‘tears’ or ‘snot’ (tì). Cf. also 水 OC *śi̯wər ‘water’ GSR #576a-e, Mand. shǔi, and 川 ‘river’ Mand. chuān, the latter pointing to an allofam with a nasal final: *m-twəy-n.

This root seems independent of #6170 PKC *ɗaay DEW.

Cf. also #187 PTB *b-ləy-k TEARS.

涕 OC *t’iər, GSR #591m ‘weep, tears’; Li 1971: (*thidx); Baxter 1992:792 *thijʔ; Mand. tì.

The Middle Chinese reading would permit an Old Chinese reconstruction in either the OC 脂 Zhī rhyme group (*-id (Li)/*-ij (Baxter)) or the OC 微 Wēi rhyme group (*-əd (Li)/*-ɨj (Baxter)). Li does not reconstruct this word, but he assigns other words in GSR #591 to the 脂 Zhī group. Words in GSR #591 are reconstructed some with one vowel, some with the other by Baxter (see 1992:457ff for an explanation), but 涕 is reconstructed with *-ij because it rhymes unambiguously with a number of 脂 Zhī group words in Shījīng #203. Still, it is possible that in Baxter’s system the word goes back to earlier *thɨjʔ, with vowel fronting occurring early in the dialect on which the Shījīng poem was based. Baxter proposes just such a development for other words in the phonetic series.

If the OC vowel is reconstructed as *i, the vowel correspondence with the proposed TB cognate is regular (see #300 PTB *d(w)əy EGG / TESTICLE for examples). A 微 Wēi group reconstruction of *-əd (Li)/*-ɨj (Baxter) does not jeopardize the comparison, but this Chinese rhyme seems to correspond to TB *-ay more often than to TB *-əy. It may be that the correspondence with *-ay is regular while that with *-əy is irregular but not uncommon. See #519 PTB *s-tay NAVEL / ABDOMEN / CENTER / SELF and #1160 PTB *ŋ-(w)aːy COPULATE / MAKE LOVE / LOVE / GENTLE, but note also ‘hungry’ 飢 OC *krjɨj (Baxter), TB *b-kri-(n/s); Mand. jī.

On the aspiration mismatch in the initials, see the discussion under #1654 PTB *pu EGG.
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水 OC *śi̯wər, GSR #576a-e ‘water, river’; Li 1971: --; Baxter 1992 #1239: *h[l]jujʔ; Mand. shuǐ.

Gong 1995 #133 reconstructs *hljədx and compares to WT chu ‘water, brook, river’, presumably assuming that the latter derives from an earlier form with a lateral initial. The comparison is, however, not tenable given the reconstruction of the PTB root #1631 PTB *tsyu WATER / LIQUID / BODY FLUID.

This Chinese word is most likely related to PTB *lwi(y) ‘flow, stream’ (see STC #210), as proposed by Coblin (1986:158) and discussed in Handel (1998). A relationship with #298 PTB *m-t(w)əy-n ⪤ *m-ti-s WATER / FLUID / LIQUID / RIVER / SOAK / SPIT seems unlikely because of the mismatch of initial consonants.
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川 OC *t̑’i̯wən, GSR #462a ‘river’; Li 1971: *thjiən ?; Baxter 1992 #1126: *KHju/on; Mand. chuān.

The reconstruction of this Chinese word is problematic. As Karlgren (GSR #462a) notes, the Middle Chinese form is probably irregular. The Old Chinese rhyme group is uncertain, which is why Baxter gives two possibilities for the vowel. Baxter’s capital *KH indicates a velar initial that palatalized irregularly in the development of Middle Chinese. Handel (1998) reconstructs *khlun and Schuessler (2007:195) *k-hlun, because GSR #462 looks like a lateral series. Schuessler further suggests that the Chinese word is related to PTB *kluːŋ ‘river / valley’, which has areal connections with Austroasiatic and Tai. However, this does not explain the *-n coda in Chinese.

The proposed PTB comparison in this volume depends on an Old Chinese reconstruction like Li’s with a dental initial, which in Baxter’s system would look like *thjun. However, the vowel correspondence is still irregular, and the comparison further requires positing an *-n suffix not found in Tibeto-Burman.
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