From: Glen Gordon
Message: 7809
Date: 2001-07-05
>I saw a theory that Poseidon somes from *potis - da: = "lord land" = >"lord of the earth", which is the wrong way round for IE because it is >an over-literal loan-translation of a Semitic god name "Ba`al `Ars." = >"lord of the earth", the name being because he was blamed for causing >earthquakes by some such method as jabbing with his trident at the
>underwater slopes of the islands.
Come to think of it, Tyrrhenian's "reverse" compounding could be partly due to the result of Semitoid influence, couldn't it. Hmm, basically something like a typical genitive construction in Tyrrhenian *[X Y-se], where X is the possessed and Y is the possessor, becomes *[X-Y] without the genitive ending, mimicking a Semitic pattern (note: "Minotaur" in Etruscan as /tevru-mines/ with the *[X Y-se] word order present).
Hypercool.
- gLeN