Submorphemes: backtracking from English ‘kn- words’ to the emergence of the linguistic sign

Abstract

I claim, within a semiogenetic theory of the conditions of emergence and evolution of the linguistic sign (STEELS), that the polysemy exhibited by Modern English ‘kn- words’ related to body-joints and their actions (knead, knee, knuckle, etc.) is a vestige of an unconscious, metonymically-based, self-referential naming strategy that may date back to the indeterminable period when articulated speech began to emerge. The ‘kn- words’ in question appear to derive, via Proto-Germanic, from two Indo-European roots, namely *ĝenu- ‘knee, angle’ (knee) and hypothetical *gen- ‘± compress; compact, knobby bodies’ (knead, knuckle, etc.). I further claim that these roots, along with hypothetical *ken- (> Mod. Eng. neck) and *kenk- ‘heel, hock, bend of the knee’, all derive from a putative proto-root *ĝen- ‘± body-joint; body-joint actions’ in which *ĝ- appears to function submorphemically, like kn- in the subset of ‘kn- words’ under study, as a ‘core invariant’. If this is so, then the dyadic sound-notion relation {kn-, body-joints} in Modern English can be reconstructed as a {*ĝ-, body-joints/actions} relation in Proto-Indo-European. Lastly, I speculate that if the static manner feature [+occlusive] characterizing the putative core invariant <*ĝ-> in *ĝenu- ‘knee, angle’ and *ĝenu- ‘jaw, chin’ (<*g-> in hypothetical *gen-) is reconstrued as a resonating, close-open, articulatory gesture ([+occlusion]), then this {*ĝ-, body-joints/actions} relation may be retraceable in the form {± occlusive articulation, body articulators/articulations} as far back as is allowed by gestural theories of the emergence of speech, to the postulated capacity of early Homo sapiens for vocomimetic self-reference.

Keywords

• English ‘kn- words’
• submorpheme
• core invariant
• semiogenesis
• body-joints/actions
• self-reference