Re: [tied] PIE root for "to fart"?

Bill Darden (of Chicago) is the author's real name :), as opposed to Yuck Foo, Quang Phuc Dong (these too were Jim McCawley himself) and some other contributors. The volume you mention (edited by Arnold Zwicky et al.) is a #*^!ing scatological and pornolinguistic gem: all the things linguists know but are afraid to share with their students :).

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: <dmilt1896@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 19, 2002 3:20 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] PIE root for "to fart"?


> There is a learned discussion of 'bzdet'' 'fart quietly'
> vs. 'perdet'' 'fart loudly' in "An example of iconicity in Russian"
> in "Studies Out In Left Field, Defamatory Essays Presented to James
> D> McCawley" 1971, for anyone fortunate enough to have that
> magnificent publication. Darden (? Most of the authors use
> pseudonyms) writes " [bzdet'] is the only verb in Russian to
> preserve the voiced palatal stop which comes from a /dj/ cluster,
> i.e. it has first sing. pres. 'bzdzu'*, presumably
> pronounced /bzzu/**.
> * inverted circumflex over second z
> ** reversed ` over both z's and cedilla-like extension under second.
> Dan Milton