Re: A problem with PIE *p(o)lH-

--- In cybalist@..., "sergejus_tarasovas" <S.Tarasovas@...> wrote:

> Gr. _po'lis_ 'town' is routinely compared with Lith. _pili`s_
> 'castle' and Skt. _pu:'r_ 'fortified place', and on this base
> something like PIE *p(o)lH- 'fortified place' is usually
> reconstructed. I have no problem with the Old Indo-Aryan and
> Lithuanian lexemes (the last even seems to point to a possible
> etymology -- cf. Lith. _pi`lti_ 'to pour, to fill' (< *plh1-) and a
> deverbative _py'limas_ 'rampart', lit. 'what is piled up' (here -yl-

> from -il- by Schleicher's pseudo-apophony, -yR- < -iR- (R -

sonorant)

> being one of the most trivial cases); the Greek one, however, has

an

> alternative form -- _pto'lis_ 'id.', and if Myc. Gr. _po-ta-ri-jo_
> does belong here, _pto'lis_ seems to be the older one, making a
> comparison with the Old Indo-Aryan and Lithuanian lexemes at least
> problematic.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Sergei

Georgiev proposed in a book I read a decade ago and forgot the title
of that Greek contained an IE substrate language in which some series
of PIE stops had gone -> /ps/, ?, /ks/ (I forgot what happened to the
dental). Would /pt/ and /kt/ fit in here?

Torsten