Re: The oddness of Gaelic words in p-

At 5:51:55 AM on Sunday, June 1, 2008, tgpedersen wrote:

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

>> At 4:40:57 AM on Saturday, May 31, 2008, tgpedersen
>> wrote:

[...]

>> It appears that you'd still rather rely on uninformed
>> impressions and a very dated work than do any serious
>> investigation.

> I was relying on McBain's claiming those words occur in
> Gaelic. Don't they any more?

Playing the innocent again, I see. Very well, I'll spell it
out for you: you give no evidence of being qualified to
comment on the quality of MacBain's etymologies, because you
give no evidence of knowing much of anything about the
language or its writing system.

> And as to serious investigation: I present my half-baked
> ides here on Cybalist, because I know people like you will
> be much more motivated, thus more successful, in finding
> counterarguments than I ever would.

Not really. I rarely do more than glance at your posts
before discarding them as more of the same old ... stuff.
Occasionally something catches my eye, sometimes even when I
have the time, interest, and knowledge to make some kind of
response, and then I may amuse myself for a bit, but I
certainly don't take it very seriously.

>>> http://www.ceantar.org/Dicts/MB2/mb28.html#MB.P
>>> http://www.ceantar.org/Dicts/MB2/mb29.html
>>> http://www.ceantar.org/Dicts/MB2/mb30.html
>>> which is odd, since Gaelic is a q-Celtic language.

>>> Some of the frequent explanations from Latin are
>>> undoubtedly correct, but you're struck by the tortuousness
>>> of some of the derivations,

>> No, *you* are.

> Yes, and you are not. So?

Occasionally he can be quite sensible, but you're struck by
the effectiveness of Torsten's blinkers where his idées
fixes are concerned.

>>> both the semantic and the morphological ones ('formed
>>> from', indeed),

>> Your incredulity is misplaced. 'Formed from X' appears
>> to be MacBain's abbreviation for 'adapted from X to
>> Irish/Gaelic phonology', or at least to include that
>> sense.

> And in the rest of the cases you apparently don't know
> know what to make of it either, but you'd rather die than
> admit it.

In fact the phrase 'formed from' appears exactly three times
in the material in question. Twice it was used in
unqualified assertions, and I addressed both of those. I
did not bother with 'peilisteir -- a quoit, flat stone;
formed from the stem peileir?', since MacBain was clearly
just offering a conjecture.

>> An example is the entry for <pàisd> 'a child':

>> Irish páisde; formed from Middle English páge, boy,
>> Scottish page, boy, now English page.

>> In fact Middle English or Anglo-Norman <page>, /pa:dZ&/
>> or the like, was borrowed into Irish as <páitse>,
>> representing something like /pa:t^s^&/. Modern <páiste>
>> 'a child' and Sc.Gael. <pàisde> ~ <pàiste> have
>> metathesized the cluster.

> Feilberg: Ordbog over det jyske Almuesmaal (1894 - 1904):
> pajs "small child"
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/30336
> How do you explain that?

Lacking any information on how far back it goes, and knowing
rather less about Danish (let alone specifically Jutlandic)
historical phonology than I do about any of the other NGmc.
varieties, I'm obviously in no position to do so. I would
look first at the possibility of a French source.

> Loan into Jysk from English or Gaelic or French? Loan from
> Jysk into English and Gaelic and French? AFAIK the French
> 'page' doesn't have a proper derivation from Latin either.
> And don't forget, it's a word in p-, so 'pajs' can't be a
> Germanic word.

I couldn't care less. The *only* issue that I'm addressing
is your use of Gaelic words. This includes your notion that
'the equally frequent explanations from English are no
really an explanation either since "true" Germanic words
can't have p- either': a word that can be traced back to
English or ON may be relevant to your substrate concerns,
but its presence in Gaelic isn't, and you should be looking
at the English or ON word instead.

>> Derivation of EIr <páb(h)áil> 'pavement' (whence <páil>)
>> and <páb(h)álta> 'paved' from English <pave> isn't quite
>> so clearcut, but it is in fact quite plausible, and if
>> you don't know why, you're not in a position to be
>> skeptical.

> Hahaha. You made my day.
> You don't know how, so I'm not in a position to be
> skeptical?

Read it again. I *do* know how; I merely recognize that it
isn't quite so straightforward and therefore is less
certain. And no, I'm not going to tell you. If you want to
play with Irish and Gaelic, you can damn' well learn
something about them.

> Try this one in stead:
> http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/KuhnText/07pauw-treten.html

Why? It's completely irrelevant to the Gaelic words.

Brian