Piotr:
>To be sure, the root *h2ag^- is polysemic and very flexible as a
> >derivational base. Agent nouns can be derived from it in more than >one
>way, even in Greek alone (akto:r, agos < *h2ag^-to:r, *h2ag-o-s; >BTW, as I
>have explained by way of self-correction, the final suffix >in <la:gete:s>
>is agentive *-tah2-, not *-to-).
Ah, yes. Point taken.
Piotr:
> Here, Glen, _you_ are spinning a yarn. Have you ever seen a
> >representation of Vanth, the demoness of destiny and death? Apart >from
>external sexual characteristics, she's a copy of Thanatos,
Alright, but then where does the name of Vanth come from? The
names Thanatos and Vanth are not the same. Tell me, what
possessed the Etruscans to call Thanatos "Vanth" then? Sometimes
mythologies collide and new functions are given to old deities.
Is there reason to doubt the antiquity of the name?
>Consequently, the reconstruction of Tyrrhenian *wenakte is >groundless.
>While I'm ready to discuss an Anatolian or Hattic source of <wanaks> as a
>serious possibility, this Tyrrhenian >connection looks completely
>gratuitous to me.
Hold on. First of all, perhaps you can tell us what the origin of
Vanth is, if not *wenakte. Second of all, I don't feel the use of Tyrrhenian
as an intermediary between Hattic and Hellenic is
gratuitous. In fact, it's necessary. Otherwise, we have PHattic and
Hellenic in the same location and time. If so, the PHattic would
have to run very fast to Anatolia to catch up to their eventual
location. A gradual, early movement into Anatolia seems a little
more reasonable, but this requires the PHattic to leave Europe
before having ever met Hellenic peoples.
Tyrrhenian, one of the expected languages of that time and
location (let's note Ytte:nia and the position of Lemnian one more time),
brings better cohesion to this idea than to presume a direct
Hattic-Hellenic exchange. Do you know of clear Hellenic loans in
Hattic, Piotr? How about vice versa? I personally don't expect to
find any. If Anatolian doesn't have its own version of "wanax", it can't
serve as intermediary.
If you are truely willing to discuss a PHattic source of the
word such as *kWati "chief", the Tyrrhenian intermediary also
causes the necessary static (like a game of "telephone") to corrupt the word
the way it appears in Greek AND to explain the origin
of the name Vanth at the same time. As far as I see, **wnxag^ts
doesn't seem any better :)
- gLeN
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