*s-tay

I regard this root as a co-allofam of #517 PTB *m/s-la(ː)y NAVEL / CENTER / SELF. Both STC #299 *s-tay ‘navel’ and STC #284 *tay ‘self’ are to be subsumed under this stop-initialled allofam. Reflexes occur widely in TB: NE Indian Areal Group, Himalayish, Jingpho, Karenic, Qiangic (including Tangut), Bai, and Tujia, as well as occasionally in Loloish.

A comparison with Chinese 臍 OC *dz'iər, GSR #593f; Mand. qí, perhaps < *s-tay via **zday, has been suggested several times, including by Weidert (1987) #843. However, it seems clear that this root is related rather to #1373 PTB *s-daːy WAIST / BELT / ZONE / FLAT EXPANSE, so that the true Chinese cognate is 帶 OC *tɑ̂d, GSR #315a ‘girdle, sash; carry at the girdle’; Mand. dài (the modern word also means ‘zone; area’, e.g. 熱帶 rèdài ‘torrid zone’).

Note the near homophony between the Jingpho words for ‘heart’ (sin³¹ tai³³) and ‘navel’ (¹šə²dai), undoubtedly due to the widespread metaphorical extension of both of these concepts to CENTER, MOST IMPORTANT PART.

Written Tibetan has acquired a lateral prefix with this root.

See GSTC #62 and #71, and HPTB pp. 52, 208, 217.

臍 OC *dzʼiər, GSR #593f ‘navel’; Li 1971: *dziəd; Baxter 1992: *dzɨj; Mand. qí.

The initial correspondence of OC *dz- to PTB *s-t- could be explained by metathesis, as discussed in Bodman 1969¹. Baxter 1992:229-30 allows for the general developments *St- > ts- and *Sd- > dz-, where *S is a metathesizing prefix. This prefix is usually reconstructed when phonetic series evidence suggests an original stop initial. Within GSR #593, however, there is no evidence for original dental stops. Nevertheless, Schuessler 2007:421 admits the possibility, suggesting possible pre-Old Chinese forms *dz(l)əi < *s-d(l)əi.

On the apparent mismatch between the voiceless PTB initial and the voiced OC initial, see the discussion under #1654 PTB *pu EGG.

For a discussion of the correspondence between OC *-ɨj and TB *-ay, see #1160 PTB *ŋ-(w)aːy COPULATE / MAKE LOVE / LOVE / GENTLE.
[ZJH]

There also seems to be a phonosemantic connection between the stop-initialled allofam *s-tay and a PTB root *taːy meaning BELT/ZONE/WAIST, first reconstructed in Matisoff 1985a (GSTC #95) on the basis of WT sde ‘part, portion (e.g. of a country), province, district, territory, zone’, Lahu de ‘belt of land between the high rain-forest and the plains; large expanse of terrain’, Luquan Lolo ntʰe¹¹ ‘plain, flat expanse’, Lushai (Mizo) tai ‘waist’, Karbi daykha ‘middle, intermediate’. This implies that WT lte-ba ‘navel’ is a co-allofam of WT sde ‘zone’.

A very likely Chinese comparandum is 帶 OC *tɑ̂d ‘girdle, sash’, Mand. dài ‘belt, zone’. For the semantics, cf. Eng. zone < Gk. zōnē ‘girdle’ < PIE *yōs-nā (*yōs ‘to gird’).
[JAM]

帶 OC *tɑ̂d, GSR #315a ‘belt, sash’; Li 1971: *tadh; Baxter 1992:753 *tats; Mand. dài.

This word is reconstructed with a final stop by both Baxter and Li. As Schuessler (2007:72) notes, there is reason to think that some of the words reconstructed by Baxter in *-ts should be revised to *-s. 帶 is one of the words that Schuessler so revises, supporting the comparison made here (Schuessler 2007:203).

The comparison of PTB *-ay with either OC *-as or *-ats is still problematic, as I know of no other examples of such a correspondence. It must be noted, however, that a regular pattern of correspondence between OC and PTB *-ay has not yet emerged. The most commonly attested correspondences are with OC *-aj or *-ɨj on the one hand (as with 臍, above), and OC *-e on the other (see #90 PTB *m/s-ŋa-y SMALL / INFERIOR / OFFSPRING).
[ZJH]