Re: The oddness of Gaelic words in p-

From: tgpedersen
Message: 59257
Date: 2008-06-14

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "stlatos" <stlatos@> wrote:
> > >
> > > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > *TK > KK is regular in Latin. Weiss gives as examples
> > > >
> > > > *ad-gradior 'approach' > aggredior
> > > > *ad-causa:- 'charge' > accu:sa:re
> > > > *ped-ka:- 'sin' > pecca:re,
> > >
> > > I'd say that an original noun/adj. formed that verb. If so,
> > > *pediko- was the original form, like *sitikos 'thirsty' > siccus
> > > 'dry', with (perhaps not regular) middle V>0 between two
> > > consonants. If it was regular, the type of C would have counted.
> >
> > Ernout-Meillet:
> > 'pecco:, -a:s, -a:ui:, -a:tum, -a:re:
> > broncher, faire un faux pas, sens encore conservé dans Hor. Ep. I
> > 1,8,9,
> > solue senescentem mature sanus equum, ne |
> > peccet ad extremum ridendus et ilia ducat.
> > Employé surtout comme le gr. spállomai, dans le sens moral de
> > "commettre une faute ou une erreur, se tromper" (cf. titubo: dans
> > Pl. Mi. 248). -
> > Ancien (Enn., Cat.), usuel et familier. Très usité dans la l. de
> > l'Église de même que pecca:tum (qui traduit hamartía), pecca:tor;
> > et passé par là dans les l. romanes,
> > cf. M.L. 6321 pecca:re, 6322 pecca:tor, 6333 pecca:tum et 6334
> > pecco:sus.
> > Irl. peccad, britt. pechu, pecchod, pechadur.
> > Autres dérivés et composés: pecca:men, peccantia, pecca:te:la,
> > pecca:tio:, pecca:to:rius, pecca:tri:x, pecca:tus,-u:s (?
> > douteux); impecca:bilis; impeccantia (= anamarte:tos, -te:sía),
> > tous tardifs.
> > Le sens donne lieu d'imaginer que pecca:re serait dérivé d'un mot
> > pecco- qui serait à pe:s ce que mancus est à man- (v. manus). Mais
> > pareil mot n'est pas attesté. L'ombrien a pesetom "pecca:tum".'
>
> Umbrian <pesetom>, which occurs four times in the Iguvine Tables, is
> generally held to be equivalent to Latin <pecca:tum>, though the
> morphological correspondence is not exact. This matter demands
> attention in connection with the origin of L. <pecca:re>.
>
> All attestations of <pesetom> appear in a propitiatory formula
> having slight variations. The first three examples (VIa:27-29,
> 37-38, 47-48) are addressed to Jupiter Grabovius, the last
> (VIb:29-31) to the more obscure god Tefer Jovius. Following is the
> text of the first example, with the translation of J.W. Poultney,
> _The Bronze Tables of Iguvium_ [1959], p. 244.
>
> dei . crabouie . persei . tuer . perscler . uaseto . est .
> pesetomest . peretomest / frosetomest . daetomest . tuer . perscler
> . uirseto . auirseto . uas . est . di . grabouie . persei . mersei .
> esu . bue / peracrei . pihaclu . pihafei
>
> 'Jupiter Grabovius, if in thy sacrifice there hath been any
> omission, any sin, any transgression, any damage, any delinquency,
> if in thy sacrifice there be any seen or unseen fault, Jupiter
> Grabovius, if it be right, with this perfect ox as a propitiatory
> offering may purification be made.'

BTW Buck calls 'tuer perscler' a genitive, can that be true?


> In this passage <s> is routinely written for <ç>, denoting the
> sibilant resulting from earlier /k/ before a front vowel (note
> <uaçetom> VIa:37, and in the older alphabet <vaçetum-i> Ib:8).
> Geminates are seldom written as such in the Tables. Von Planta thus
> regarded <pesetom> as written for *peççetom, assuming that inherited
> -kk- corresponding to L. <pecca:re> was entirely assibilated to
> -çç-. The other possibility is that *peçetom never had a geminate,
> and comes from a root *pek-. Either way, if we maintain a
> connection between <pesetom> and <pecca:tum>, we must abandon hope
> of derivation from *ped(i)ka:- 'to stumble', the assumed derivative
> of *ped- 'foot'. In Umbrian such a derivative, if inherited without
> syncope, would have yielded *per^ka:-, with /r^/ represented in the
> newer alphabet by <rs> (cf. U. <per^i>, <persi> 'with the foot').
> Had *pedka:- been current when intervocalic -d- shifted to -r^-, it
> would also have produced *per^ka:- by analogy with forms like
> <per^i>, as we see with the many examples of the prefix <ar^->,
> <ars-> (L. <ad->) in preconsonantal position, e.g. <ar^kani>
> 'musical accompaniment' (acc. sg. from *ad-kaniom). Finally, if
> *pedka:- had undergone devoicing to *petka:-, the dental would have
> been preserved and eventually revoiced, as we see with <totcor> nom.
> pl. 'those of the city', <todceir> abl. pl., <todcom-e> acc. sg.,
> from *teutiko-, *toutiko- (Oscan nom. sg. <túvtiks>). None of these
> alternatives can yield *peç(ç)etom or <pesetom>.


> Another morphological issue is that all seven passive participles in
> the formula end in -eto(m). Since <uirseto auirseto> can hardly
> mean anything other than 'seen (or) unseen', we must assume that
> Umbrian created a regular second-conjugation participle *wir^e:to-
> from the verb 'to see' corresponding to L. <vide:re>, rather than
> retaining *we:sso- from earlier *weid-to- (L. *vi:ssum, <vi:sum>).
> In <peretom> and <daetom> we apparently have participles of prefixed
> forms of the verb 'to go', L. <i:re>, with normal-grade -ei- (U.
> -e:-) extended to the participle, unlike L. <-itum>. However
> <uaseto(m)> and <frosetom> (for *frossetom) appear to be participles
> of denominative verbs, based on <uas> 'gap, omission, fault' (from
> *wak(o)s, cf. L. <vaca:re> 'to be empty') and *fro:sso- (from
> *fraud-to-, cf. early L. <fraussus> 'cheated', L. <fraus>, <fraudis>
> 'deceit, fraud'). These verbs should belong to the first
> conjugation, and the participles are expected to end in -atum. Von
> Planta regarded them as unsyncopated participles corresponding to
> Latin 1st-cj. forms in -itum (e.g. <doma:re>, <domitum>), and this
> is the view preferred by Poultney, as opposed to Devoto's idea of
> participles in -e:tum of the 2nd-cj. form used with some 1st-cj.
> verbs. Apart from the propitiatory formula, the Tables also have
> <muieto>, nom. sg. neuter pass. part. corresponding to the
> imperative <mugatu> 'make a noise!', and various cases of
> <pruseçeto->, <proseçeto->, <proseseto->, pass. part. corresponding
> to the impv. <prusek(a)tu> 'cut off!'. Thus U. <pesetom> is capable
> of being the participle to a 1st-cj. verb *pek(k)a:- of likely
> denominative origin.
>
> W. Meyer-Lübke, _Wiener Studien_ 25:105ff., observed that Spanish
> has not only reflexes of L. <pecca:re> etc. with the expected moral
> meanings, but also <peca> 'freckle, speck, spot' and <pecoso>
> 'freckled'; he also provided a gloss "pecosus graece leprosus".
> Thus he argued in effect that <pecca:re> is a denominative to *pecca
> 'mark, spot, blemish, macula'. A. Walde, LEW s.v. <pecco:>,
> rejected this idea on the grounds that L. <pecca:re> is
> intransitive, <macula:re> transitive, and so an original intr. sense
> of <pecca:re>, such as 'stumble' from *ped(i)-ka:-, should be
> sought. However, Walde's criticism can be easily sidestepped.
> Assuming *pecca 'mark, spot, blemish' in pre-classical Latin, we
> derive a regular transitive denominative *pecca:re 'to mark, spot,
> blemish', and regular deverbative nouns <pecca:tus> 'act of
> blemishing; blemish; fault' and <pecca:tum> 'result of blemishing;
> blemish; bad mark; sin'. If *pecca and *pecca:re were replaced by
> <macula> and <macula:re> in Roman Latin, say around 200 BCE,
> surviving only in provincial Hispanic Latin, the derived nouns could
> have been reinterpreted in classical Latin as deverbatives to
> <pecca:re> 'to commit a fault, go wrong, sin'.
>
> Combining all the evidence from Latin, Umbrian, and Spanish, it
> seems best to regard L. <pecca:re> as indirectly based on a noun
> *pecca 'mark, spot, blemish' unconnected with *ped- 'foot'. A
> better source for this noun is *pek^- 'to set in order; decorate,
> make pretty; make pleasant, joyful' which we find in English <fair>
> (OE <fæger>, PGmc *fagraz, PIE *pok^rós), Lithuanian <púos^iu>
> (*po:k^ejo:) 'I decorate', Middle Irish <a:il> (*po:k^li-)
> 'pleasant', etc. Most Italic words in -ko/ka:- use /i/ as a
> connecting vowel, but a few have the suffix attached directly to a
> consonant, like L. <juvenca> 'heifer', U. acc. sg. <iveka>,
> <iuenga> 'id.', and some ethnonyms, U. <Naharkum> 'Narcan',
> <Turskum> 'Tuscan'. If it belongs here, *pecca could represent a
> *pek^-ka: 'beauty mark; freckle', acquiring a derogatory sense 'bad
> mark; blemish; fault' in the specialized language of Italic ritual,
> but preserved as Sp. <peca> in practically its original sense.

Ernout-Meillet's '6334 pecco:sus' seems to indicate you're right.
-o:sus is denominative, AFAIK.


> > There's the *-k-. Note that mancus, like manus, with its /a/ must
> > be a 'mot populaire'. So would then peccatus etc.
> >
> > Ernout-Meillet on mancus:
> > 'mancus, -a, -um: manchot, infirme de la main;
> > cf. Dig.21,1,2, sciendum scaeuam non esse morbosum, praeterquam si
> > imbecillitate dextrae ualidius sinistra utatur; sed hunc non
> > scaeuam, sed mancum esse dicimus. Puis plus généralement "mutilé,
> > estropié". - Attesté depuis Pl.
> > Demeuré dans les l. romanes sous forme d'adj., et dans le verbe
> > dérivé du type "manquer", M.L.5285;
> > germ.: m.néerl. mank, ags. bemancian.
> > Le bret. manc "manchot" peut être emprunté au français.
> > e:manco:, -a:s: rendre manchot (Labien, ap. Sen. Contr.5, 33 fin);
> > mancaster(Gl.), manca:tus (Lex.Sal. ).
> > De *man + ko-s, avec un suffixe caractéristique des tares
> > [deficiencies] physiques; cf.pecca:re ?'
>
> Walde cites Uhlenbeck, _Altind. Wb._ p. 209, as relating <mancus> to
> ai. <mankú-h.> 'schwankend, schwachlich', ahd. <mango:n>, <mengen>,
> <mangolo:n> 'entbehren', mhd. <manc> 'Mangel, Gebrechen', usw. I
> see no compelling reason to connect L. <manus> and <mancus>
> etymologically. Subsequent paretymological association, of course,
> is like falling off a log; note in particular the Italian
> specialization to 'left-handed'.
>
> > The French verb would have been *manca:re in Latin, corresponding
> > to pecca:re. So we have *man-k- in MDutch, Breton, OE and 'Popular
> > Latin', with that pesky /a/ everywhere. My guess: loan from
> > Venetic: and so would consequently *pek-k- < *ped-k- be, just as
> > these
> >
http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/KuhnText/01paik-betr_gen.html
> >
> > with the exception, of course, of the Germanic forms in f- (which
> > would be pre-Grimm loans).
>
> I see no compelling reason to regard <mancus> and <pecca:re> as
> loanwords, even if I disagree with the explanations of these words
> which are currently most popular.

For semantic reasons, I suspect the whole mess of *bak- "staff", *pek-
"mark", *pak- "pole, construct, area", *mak- "spot, blemish" to be
ultimately related (*p- > *b- > *m- happened in Basque). The fact that
the suffix of *peþ-k- or *pex-k- (or from *paþ-k-/pax-k-, > Venetic(?)
*paik- "deceive" in the Kuhn quote?) is of the form *-k-, not *-Vk-
sets them apart, which speaks for loan status (I suspect stops in PIE
were spirantized before other stops, cf Sabellan, Iranian and
Germanic; Germanic generalized it).

Note BTW in
http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/KuhnText/01paik-betr_gen.html
Irish 'Peacach, -aighe, a., sinful ; sm., a sinner' and
Breton 'Péc'hi, v. n. Pécher, transgresser la loi divine.'

One might argue that the
Irish 'Peacadh, g. -aidh and -ctha, pl. id., -aidhe and -aí, m.,
a sin, a transgression, loosely anything deplorable' and the
Breton '*Péc'hed, s. m. Péché, faute contre Dieu.'
are loans from Latin pecca:tus. But what of the other forms?
Did the Irish and Breton extract a verb stem from the Latin ppp?


Torsten