Re: [tied] Re: root *pVs- for cat

From: Brian M. Scott
Message: 49412
Date: 2007-07-23

At 4:40:54 PM on Sunday, July 22, 2007, tgpedersen wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> <BMScott@...> wrote:

>> At 10:18:08 AM on Friday, July 20, 2007, tgpedersen
>> wrote:

>>>>> You seem to have left out a number of non-foreign
>>>>> pairs of items in p-/b- in McBain:

>> [...]

>>>>> babag "tassle" / pab "shag, refuse of flax"

>>>> It's distinctly disingenuous to call this non-foreign
>>>> when you've read the <pab> entry in McBain. <Babag> is a
>>>> diminutive of <bab>, which may be from ME; <pab> is from
>>>> EIr <pop(p)> 'a shoot, a tendril (of a plant), also
>>>> <pap>, which may be from Latin.

>>> This is McBain's pab-entry:

[snipped]

>> Precisely: McBain explicitly notes the possibility of ME,
>> MScots, or Latin origin. (My comment on EIr <pop(p)> is
>> based on the DIL.) Therefore it is at least disingenuous
>> (and I would say downright dishonest) to offer <babag> and
>> <pab> without qualification as 'non-foreign' items when
>> citing only McBain.

> The decision what was foreign and non-foreign was mine.

Failure to point this out, especially when the decision is
contentious, is ... sloppy, to put a better face on it than
I think is actually justifiable.

[...]

>>> Let's first reiterate our positions:
>>> I think the Celtic p-/b-words are borrowed from some
>>> substrate language. You think they, if borrowed, are
>>> borrowed from a classical language (loans in p- from
>>> English can only be indirect, since they are foreign in
>>> Germanic too).

>> I've not taken a position;

> You follow standard procedure by not considering a local,
> non-Germanic source for Celtic words in p-; that's a
> position.

No. I have *not* taken such a position. I have tentatively
accepted another explanation for some (probably large)
fraction of the Sc.Gael. instances, but otherwise I have
merely explained why much of the evidence that you've
offered ranges from weak to nearly worthless.

Brian