Re: Etymology of 'daughter' (was: Rg Veda Older than Sanskrit)

From: tgpedersen
Message: 57813
Date: 2008-04-21

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "batinquo" <batinquo@...> wrote:
>
> >
> > Richard,
> >
> > Do you know any article that discusses the meaning and etymology
> > of Duhita- Cf my message that duhita means the girl who milks the
> > cow.
> >
> > Kishore patnaik
> >
>
> Hi all,
>
> Since the subject has come up, I'd like to plug a recent article by
> Pinault, where he suggests etymologies for all of the main kinship
> terms.
>
> Briefly, Pinault says that the –ter- of the kinship terms is not
> –h2ter-, nor the agent noun –ter-, but is the `contrastive –ter-'
> seen in Gk. -teros etc, ultimately coming from adverbs in -ter /
> -tr., and that all the –(h2)ter- words form natural pairs with other
> kinship terms, hence the contrastive suffix.
>
> Here's the final section of his article. I've omitted the
> diacritics, accents etc in case it came out as gobbledygook.
>
> "1) dhh1ugh2-ter- `belonging to the group of *dhh1-u-g- `(female)
> children', derivative based on the root *dheh1- `to suckle,
> feed'(LIV 138, cf. Lat. filius, Lyc. tideimi-, OCS deva), collective
> *dhh1ug-h2-;
>
> 2) *bhreh2-tr- `belonging to the group of (male) children', from
> *bhr-eh2-, collective based on the root *bher- `to bear', hence `to
> give birth' (LIV 76), referring to the group of males borne by the
> same mother;
>
> 3) *h1inh2-ter- `belonging to the group of acquired/given women',
> from *h1i-en-h2-, collective of a derivative *h1i-en-
> `acquisition/gift' of the root *h1ai- `to acquire/give' (LIV 229);
>
> 4) *ph1h2-ter- `(man) belonging to the family', as opposed to other
> families or clans, from an abstract *ph1-eh2- `field, fold', cognate
> to Ved. pa:thas- `fold, herd', and derived from the root *peh1- `to
> move' (LIV 459);
>
> 5) *mah2-ter- is based on *mah2 `motherhood', hence `mother' (cf.
> Gk. ma, maia), parallel to *dhh1ugh2-ter- from *dhh1ugh2- `daughter'
> and *h1enh2-ter- remade on the strong stem *h1ienh2- `exchanged
> woman'.
>
> The new etymology of `father' helps to settle a vexed question:
> unlike Ved. duhitar- ... and several other words, Ved. pitar- does
> not show the regular aspiration of the first stop (†phitar-). It may
> be suspected that the aspiration was blocked by an intervening
> phoneme. The vocative sg. pitar...requires the presence of an
> inherited PIE anaptyctic vowel in *ph1°h2ter > *p°h2ter, for
> without a pre-existing vowel, one cannot explain the retraction of
> the accent onto the first syllable. Finally, one may note that the
> contrastive value is kept in all these terms, with the exception of
> *mah2-ter-, which has obviously been remade after `father'. Each
> original term with the suffix *-t(e)r- can be opposed to a term that
> lacks this suffix: *dhh1ugh2-ter- vs. `son' (which had several
> designations), *bhreh2-tr- vs. *nepot- `nephew, grandson',
> *h1ienh2-ter- vs. *suesor- `sister' (< *`own female'), etc."
>
> p276-7 in G.-J. Pinault (2007) `A star is born: a "new" PIE *-ter-
> suffix', pp271-9 in A.J.Nussbaum (ed.) Verba Docenti: Fs. Jasanoff.
>
> I'd be interested to hear people's reactions. The footnotes discuss
> some potential objections (e.g. why *dhh1ugh2te:r didn't undergo
> laryngeal metathesis to give *dhuh1gh2te:r > dhu:gh2te:r), and add
> Gk. pe:os 'allied relative', supposedly from *ph1eh2-s-o-, as
> support for the 'father' etymology. Any takers? As far as
> kinship-term etymologies go, they've got to be better than
> Szemerenyi's `bring-fire' for bhra:ter!
>
> Best wishes, Oliver Simkin
>
I've proposed something simlar earlier. The idea is that those words
were originally used in deferential sentences, with a deferential
impersonal construction: 'On father's side, it is said...' for 'Father
says...'

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/31477
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/32092
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/36042


Torsten