Re: Metathesis of liquids

From: tolgs001
Message: 33669
Date: 2004-07-31

>>the Germanic family of "fliehen", "to flee". The
>>the Germanic "flehen" , MHD " vle:hen", which may be
>>conected with Rom. "îndu-pleca" from the semantic point
>>of view.
>************
>I gues that Alb. <lak> 'loop, bend, arch, bow' is indeed derived
>from metathetic variant of o-grade form of PIE *lokW-o- 'to
>revolve' (see *kWel-). And, Romanian form <pleca> or <apleca>
>isn't metathetic variant, but Alb. one is <pëlkej>, by all
>means, from <plekenj>.
>
>Konushevci

As for <îndupleca> (roughly: "persuade, convince to accept s.th.
or to be mild, clement, merciful, lenient; to make concessions"
& its reflex <neînduplecat> "stubborn, intransigent, reluctant,
pigheaded, uncompromising, irreconciliable"), the official
etymology in Romania is < Rum. în- + dupleca/re (an archaic
word, today completely out of use) < Lat. duplicare.

As for Ger. <flehen>, the Wahrig dictionary points out that
the Gothic meaning was "try persuading in a friendly way" and
the prior Germanic meaning would've been "flattery".

Whereas <fliehen> "to flee" (along with <fliessen, fliegen,
Floss, Flosse, Flut> & Engl. <fleet> < PIE *pleu "rinnen,
fliessen; schwemmen, giessen" (again according to Wahrig's
authors).

*pleu might be tempting, but methinks one has to take into
consid. that Rum. <plecá> simply and merely implies
"going/moving away", namely from A to B. It's a perfect
synonym of <purcede/re> which is today somewhat obsolete,
and stems from Lat. procedere. (Hence, in some circum-
stances, it's compatible with the English <to proceed>.)

As compared with <fliehen>/<fliegen><fliessen>/<Flug>/<Flucht>
/<Fluss> &<flee>/<flight> etc., I miss in <pleca> the...
flowing and floating connotations. I even miss the emergency
component: the necessity of fleeing, escaping, running
away, flying (whatsoever), since Rum. <pleca/re> is far too
neutral: in order to be understood as describing a
fleeing, escaping movement, one has to add some auxiliary
context to the verb. But anyway a native-speaker won't
prefer to opt for words such as <fugí>, <(se) refugia>,
<scãpa> and the like, which are far more appropriate.

To me, that procedure of "plicare" of the tents and
leave the place for a new destination seems better fitting
to Rum. <plecare>. NB: whenever conveying the mere idea
"moving to/thither", a Romanian will say "mã duc la" or
"merg la". But whenever there's the need for the connotation
"leaving", then one will rather opt for "plec la". (Also
compare the "departure" & "arrival" signs: <plecare> &
<sosire> (or their plurals).)

Finally, AFA Alb. <lak> is concerned, "bend" would be tempting,
but I'd be eager to learn how it is related to Lat. <plica>
or to PIE *pel (incl. Ger. <falten> & Engl. <fold>).

George