--- In cybalist@..., "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...> wrote:
> Piotr:
> >"Related?" In what way? "Alternates?" In what sense? p > w
> >and r > l are both possible, but what evidence is there to
> >justify the assumption of either change in Hattic? Almost
> >anything could be related to anything else, but unless you
> >can support it with a plausible pattern of correspondences
> >illustrated with real examples, an isolated equation like
> >"par = wel" is too long a shot.
>
> Okay, okay, hold your horses. First, it's /n/ and /r/ that
> alternate in Hattic (kunu~kuru). The reason I ask about /wel/
> is that the book I finally discovered hidden in my university
> library (Hethitisch, Palaisch, Luwisch, Hieroglyphenluwisch und
> Hattisch - Altkleinasiatische Indices zum Handbuch des Orientalistik
> A. Kammenhuber, 1969.) shows these alternations in its glossary.
>
> pakku, wakku troups, army
> pau, wau to eat
> pinu, inu child
> punan, wunan person
>
>
> And yes, there apparently is even p/w alternation for the word for
> "house" (pil, pel, wil, wel). Some p-words don't exhibit the
> alternation in written Hattic, some do. The "house" word does.
>
>
> Comments?
>
> gLeNny gEe
That p/w thing intrigues me.
For some time I have been trying to update the *bh/p-l/r- (yes, *bh-l-
, *bh-r, *p-l-, *p-r-; where -bh:p- (glottalic even better: -b:p-)
means Noreen'sch Wechselform, alternative forms; the -r:l-
alternation is pre-IE) entry of my Austric-IE-AfroAsiatic page.
http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/bhr.html
What a godawful heap of IE *bh/p-l/r-'s there are (and similar in
AfroAsiatic)! The problem is that if you quote IE and AA and
Nostratic and Austric dictionaries and word lists, the descendants of
the individual entries will overlap. It reminds me of a story of two
cowboys we told in the underskole. It went like this:
Cowboy I : I'll bet you $100 you can't take a sip from that spittoon!
Cowboy II: OK! (glk-glk)
Cowboy I : Here's your money! But you didn't have to drink it all!
Cowboy II: I couldn't bite thru it!
Which is what you experience if you try to combine the postulated
roots and presumed descendants from your sources. They tangle. This
is known in linguistics as the spittoon problem.
WRT *bh:p-l:r-, I'm fortunate in that Møller, who is trying to bridge
IndoEuropean and AfroAsiatic, has tried to posit connections between
the various meanings, which are:
1) divide, s-pl-it, f(u)rr-ow, half, two, br-ink of river or strait
2) b(o)r-e, br-eak through > s-pr-ead
3) (s)pr-out, bl-oom (mysteriously swell because the other side pokes
through)
4) be white, bl-inding, s-pl-endid, lightning (and bl-ind, having a
white spot in the eye)
5) drive, go, f(a)r-e, fl-y, fl-ow, fl-oat, fl-ee, s-pr-ing, carry,
br-ing
6) f(o)r-e-most, be-f(o)r-e, f(i)r-st
but it is possible, as Møller partially does, to circumscribe it as:
"a thing (b(a)rr-ier) with its two sides; >
a movement from one side (thru) to the other; >
a movement from the side of divine forces to this secular side,
which is also a journey across the Sacred river or strait
to or from the brink or coast of spirits;
but also the appearance of something spiritual from the other side
on this side (lightning etc)"
But what is the original meaning here? Someone recently asked why
Latvian has up- for Proto-IndoEuropean *ap- "water". Møller has
something interesting here. He reconstructs *H3-p- "water" (at least
that's how I interpret the laryngeal he posits here). Then *H3-b:p- >
*op- with a extended grade *o:p- > Sanskrit a:pas "waters". With an -
r- extension he gets *o:p-r > German Ufer, Dutch oever etc "bank of a
river, coast". Stressing the last syllable he gets *p-r-, etc,
starting with
*!abár- Pre-IndoEuropean
*p-r- Proto-IndoEuropean
péran,
pére:n "on the other side of" Greek
pérathen "from the other side" Greek
peráo: "take across the sea
to be sold" Greek
perai~os "being on
the other side" Greek
peraióo: "go, take across to
the other bank, coast" Greek
pa:rá- "the opposite
bank, coast" Greek
pa:ra n. "bank, coast" Avestan
pa:ráyati "go, take across" Sanskrit
fra-pa:rayeiti "takes across" Avestan
and its AfroAsiatic cognates.
So that must be our starting point.
http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/Ap.html
I think we need Møller's comment here:
Originally without doubt signifying only the bank of
a river or coast of a strait where the other side
is visible, therefore most frequently connected with
"the one, the other, the opposite bank".
and (why not) mine:
Which is what one would expect in Sundaland, with straits
ever widening, forcing people to learn to sail.
In other words: the journey to the other side, which is now perhaps
vanished, the coast of the dead. Austronesian, IndoEuropean and
AfroAsiatic, abound with those myths.
But there appeared also, as I tried to unravel the various tangled
connections, another glob:
*w-l/r-, with two meanings
1) wr-ap, surround, enclose, w(a)r-d off (like a city w(a)ll)
2) w(ea)r
which was OK by me, since in the good old days, what you wore, you
wrapped around you.
But unfortunately, Paul Manansala had mixed the *w-l/r- stuff with *p-
l- "polis", city etc, which latter I thought had to do with pr-
otuding, etc. Bad situation. I couldn't get the "wrap, wear" stuff to
fit in with *bh:p-l:r- stuff, semantically, and I wondered if /p/
> /w/ would be permissible at all. Then I saw that Bomhard had some
*w-l/r- cognates between NorthWest Caucasian (here Proto-Circassian)
and Proto-IndoEuropean
*warda "high-born" Proto-Circassian
*word[h]o-s "grown, full-born, tall, upright" Proto-IndoEuropean
*wala "cloud" Proto-Circassian
*w[e|o]l- "to moisten, to wet, to flow" Proto-IndoEuropean
and I wondered if the Semitic, originally Austronesian *bh:p-l:r- (in
my opinion, see later) had been loaned into North West Caucasian,
gone -bh:p- > -w- and then later been loaned into Proto-indoEuropean.
But nah, I thought, this is a bit skimpy.
Imagine my surprise when I saw that the "city" paradigm itself
alternated *p-l-/*w-l- in North West Caucasian. Hm! Maybe there's
something in it after all.
But where does it all the original *bh:p-l:r- come from? So I took my
Malay dictionary and said to myself: "Try to find an early cognate of
it here; but a good one. It should contain most of the meanings of
*bh:p-l:r-. If you don't find it, just give up the whole Austronesian
> AfroAsiatic > Proto-IndoEuropean scheme." And then I found: belâh
bêlah "split, gap (n.);
split, cleft"
bêlah doewa "split in two"
badjoe bêlah dada "jacket split, open
in the front"
bêlah boeloeh "striped, as colored cotton"
bêlah loseng
tjêkak. êmpat "a special way to split bamboo"
kadoewa bêlah "both sides"
kadoewa bêlah mata "both eyes" and so on
of all paired body parts
barang barang
pêtjah bêlah "fragile wares,
glass and pottery"
sabêlah "one of the sides"
mata sabêlah "one of the eyes" and so on
of all paired body parts
orang sabêlah "neighbor (opposite)"
sa'orang sabêlah "everybody on one side"
sabêlah sana "on yon side"
disabêlah "on one side, on the other side"
kasabêlah "to (that side)"
sabêlah mak. "from mother's side"
mêmbêlah "split, cleave"
doewit sakêping
dibêlah toedjoeh "a coin split in seven
(for the smallest amount)"
mêmbêlahkan
badjoenja "tear one's clothes deliberately"
mêmbêlah bêhagi "distribute unevenly,
give one a bit more,
and the other a bit less"
halilintar
mêmbêlah "the splitting, cleaving
lightning, before a
powerful thunderclap"
sabêlah-mênjabêlah "from both sides"
but if there is a water between then
sabêrang-mênjabêrang
bêrsabêlahan "on the same side,
each on his own side"
têrbêlah "split, to split, able to split"
sa'orang pon
tidak. têrbêlah "no one was able to split it"
bêlahan "split, cleft, crack"
pêmbêlah kajoe "wood-cleaver"
pêmbêlah intan "diamond cleaver"
pêmbêlahan "splitting, cleaving"
mênjabêlahkan "put someone or something
to one side"
Pretty close, huh? Torsten is happy. Now perhaps, if the weather gets
nice again, I will go downtown and walk in the city and look at the
women who are *bh:p-l:r-ing these days enough to make you *bh:p-l:r-
yourself. Sometimes you can get quite superstitious! Mmmh!
Torsten