[tied] Re: Convergence in the formatin of IE subgroups

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

>
> On 2006-05-11 10:05, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> >> [Patrick:] and why *W rather than *w???).
> >
> > Latin canis. I'd rather believe *kW- > *k- than *kw- > *k-.
> > Pulleyblank reconstructs Old Chinese *kÜ- in his attempt to link
> > Chinese and IE (but also *kÜw- I think it was).
>
> For Latin, the difference doesn't matter, since *kW and *k(^)w

simply

> merge there, so the loss of the labial element is problematic

either

> way. But the Satem branches that have the word (Indo-Iranian,

Baltic,

> Armenian) unambiguously point to biphonemic *k^w-, and the /ku-/

of Gk.

> kúo:n can hardly reflect *kW-.

But the -a- is unexplained, so I assumed it was a loan in Latin from
some neighboring language in their old central European home, cf.
Marsian(Germany) Tamfana < *dems-potnia, where the Proto-PIE ablaut
vowel ä/a merged, as in Sanskrit (or the PIE e/o, whichever one
prefers). What happened to *kW- in such a dialect is anybody's guess
(so I'll make one: *kW > k, bearing in mind the affinity of plain k
for /a/'s). Of course you're right that the PIE is *kw-, not *kW-,
but I'm assuming the *kw- of the dog word is a loan rendition of the
original (sino-Tibetan?) name. The alternative to the assumption of
a loan is to root for Pulleyblank's attempt to find a common
ancestor for Chinese and IE, and his thirty-some cognate pairs are
not enough to convince me of that.

>
> >> The root on which it is based is obviously **k^eH- (Nostratic

**k^A?-

> >> ), 'to be a dog" + *-w, 'to wag the tail like a dog' (PIE

*k^eHw-) +

> >> *n(A), 'a (tail-)wagger' >(*k^won-).
> >
> > That's not obvious to me.
> > I was wondering by what kind of principle you have joined the

two

> > roots?
>
> Me too. Proto-Nostratic must have been a most extraordinary

language if

> it had verbs like 'to be a dog'.
>

It might of course be a participle in the waggative.


Torsten

>