[tied] Re: PNS

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

>
> On 2006-09-20 10:43, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > I note with interest that likkon "lick" seems to be foreign in
> > Germanic, since I've proposed it's related to Sino-Tibetan and
> > Old Chinese words for "feed, rear animals" etc (which prehaps
> > might help rehabilitate Rulen's 'Proto-World' *m-l-k-, at least
> > in its sense "milk").
>
> Kluge's Law, despite being discussed by Brugmann, Martinet,
> Prokosch and others, remained practically forgotten (or at
> least largely ignored) for a hundred years or so until its
> full vindication in Rosemarie Lühr's Habilitationsschrift
> (1988).

That was about the time research in substrates picked up speed.

> It's now clear that many (of course not all) instances of
> *-tt- alternating with *-ð- and/or *-þ-, or with single *-t-
> are due to nasal assimilation, including many of the geminates
> routinely regarded as expressive, substratal or what not.

Some of the explanations I've seen look like the authors did
some nasal assimilation themselves.
Please explain hatt-, ho:d-, Latin cassis?

> See, in particular, Paul Hopper's "Remarks" and Jens Rasmussen's
> "Erwiderung auf Paul J. Hoppers 'Remarks'" in Theo Vennemann
> (ed.), 1989, _The New Sound of Indo-European: Essays in
> Phonological Reconstruction_, Berlin/New York.

That's some powerful rule. Can it also explain the simultaneous
existence of the roots duB-, duff-, dubb-, dup-, dupp- and dump-?
Faroese eta [e:hta] 'eat', opin [o:hpin] 'open'? Northumbrian
eatta? Old High German ezzan, offan?

> I see no reason at all to regard the verb stem *likko:-
> (OHG leccho:n etc.) as foreign in Germanic.

Miguel didn't either. It occurs as one of the very few geminates
in early texts, where it is obviously out of place, see below.

> The verb *leig^H-, originally a root formation (*léig^H-ti,
> *lig^H-énti) had derivatives with secondary nasal suffixes
> in several groups (Slavic *lIz-noN-ti, Gk. likH-neú-o:
> 'taste'); *lig^H-náh2- fits that pattern very nicely.

I'll quote Kuhn again:
"
Die zweite Frage, die ich an den jetzt erörterten Stoff zu richten
habe, geht darauf, wie er sich auf die verschiedenen Schichten der
Sprache verteilt. Es ist deutlich, daß er auch darin dem lateinischen
verwandt ist. Daß das Schwergewicht bei uns ebenfalls in den unteren
Sprachschichten liegt, ergibt sich nicht nur aus den vorherrschenden
Bedeutungskreisen, sondern zeigt sich, im Einklang wieder mit dem
p-Anlaut und manchem andern, auch darin, daß die höhere Dichtung von
diesen Wörtern wesentlich weniger enthält als die übrigen Quellen. Der
Beowulf braucht von ihnen nur sceatt "Schatz", scucca "Dämon" und die
Sippe von upp "auf", der Heliand skatt, luttik / luttil, likkon
"lecken" und upp (usw.), während ich in den Corpus-glossen rund 20 und
in den kleineren altsächsischen Denkmälern sogar etwa 40 solche
Wortstämme zähle. Ebenso deutlich tritt dieser Gegensatz in den
herangezogenen Teilen der alten nordischen Dichtung hervor. Auch diese
große Ungleichheit verbietet uns, hinter der verfolgten Erscheinung
Lautgesetze zu suchen.
"

Why would one need a rule that 'explains' only the words sceatt,
scucca, upp, luttil and likkon in the earliest texts, words which
have no sensible IE etymology with or without gemination? If this
rule is so successful, how come there are so few examples of it
in those texts?


Torsten