Re: [tied] -st

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
wrote:

> On 04-11-03 11:43, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > An n-/gn- alternation together with the *s-d- root, aha.
>
> This Slavic <gn-> is completely isolated, and it doesn't alternate

with

> <n-> within Slavic itself. Coupled with the other Slavic

irregularity,

> *e^ instead of *I, it strongly suggests some kind of folk-

etymological

> contamination (in Slavic too initial <gn-> may carry the

phonaesthetic

> suggestion of pressing or crushing).

Slavic <gn-> is completely isolated and may carry the phonaesthetic
suggestion of pressing or crushing. I understand.

>
> > So maybe the
> > two phenomena belong to the same donor language, which would be a
> > Nordwestblock one (given the place names in -st).
>
> Certainly. A Nordwestblock loan into Armenian and Sanskrit.

Hey! Sarcasm is not nice!
I might save it this way: Non-IE Nordwestblock (the ar-/ur- language)
stretches all the way to the Black Sea, and *s-d "sit" is not
exclusively IE.

> > Or a North European loan getting a double whammy of Grimm. Are

there

> > cognates outside Germanic?
>
> Yes, this time in Celtic, Latin (<turdus>) and Balto-Slavic (OPr.
> tresde, Lith. strazdas, Slavic *drozdU. A northern word,

definitely, but

> then the song thrush is mostly a north European bird.
>

The language of the dedications to Matrones in the Rhineland has f,
th and h, but is not Germanic (but Vennemann thinks they're from bh,
dh and gh). And if I'm right about Marsic 'Tamfana' < *dem-po(t)na,
the non-Germanic Marsic had had it's own independent Grimm.

Torsten