Re: Comparative Notes on Hurro-Urartian, Northern Caucasian and Indo

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Arnaud Fournet"
<fournet.arnaud@...> wrote:

>> This root is basically the same as Semitic z_r_& 'cultivate'.
> As you can see, we can equate :
> - H2 with z
> - r with r
> - H3 with &ayin.
> NB : I'm not saying that H2 is _always_ z, nor that H3 is &ayin.
> We can also see that Kartvelian 'to grow' is /zil/ with z.
> This word had *z as initial.
>
> The main issue is what happens with *z in PIE ?
> The phoneme is not supposed to exist, because the correspondence

for it is

> not obvious.
> Personally, I have come to think that :
> - in western PIE (Celtic, Latin) *z is equivalent to H2
> - in eastern PIE *z is equivalent to *y
> - in Greek the situation is very complex ; H2, y or Z.
> For example :
> Arabic zimam 'bridle' : Latin amentum, : Skrt yama
> Hebrew zeqeq 'purify' : Skrt yajna 'sacred'.
> Etc.
> It's not rare that Latin has a strange -s- in that case :
> aro = sar-io < *z_r_&
> sacred < *z_q-
> I think that a branch of Indo-European substrate to Latin kept *z

as *s.

> This feature causes doublets like ab-ies = sap-in
> But this is another matter.
>
> Then, what is my point ?
> If *H2erH3 from *z_r_& __were__ inherited, in the same fashion as

the word

> 'sacred' is inherited,
> we should expect an alternation between H2 and y in the western and

eastern

> parts of the Indo-European family,
>
> What do we have ?
> One family Indo-Iranian has no trace of this root,
> The other languages all have H2, the form expected for the western

half.

> There is no alternation at all.
>
> My conclusion :
> Eastern languages where we should expect *y but where we find the

reflect of

> H2 have borrowed this word from the western IE languages.
> Germanic probably borrowed this word from NWB and Celtic when it

entered

> Europe.
>
> This cannot be a cognate.
> As a matter of fact, Armenian is irregular : arawr reflects an

irregular

> retention of H between *arHtor > ar-a-wr. Hence loanword.
> Next, Tocharian are does not mean 'to plough' but 'a plough'.
> The verb radical is used as a noun : absurd hence loanword.
>
> Conclusion about PIE :
> When this word penetrated the indo-european family,
> this family was already spread about,
> For that matter, PIE dispersal must be pre-neolithic.
> PIE split _before_ this word and agriculture came into being.
>
> I hope my reasoning was about clear !?
>
> Arnaud

To tell the truth, I mostly see no major flaws with your reasoning,
it all mostly sounds plausible, except the big one is that the
phonological change of */z/ to */H2/ seems highly unusual at first
glance. But I suppose one could compare */s/ > /h/ in Greek,
Iranian, and Brythonic.

However, your reasoning that since /j/ (<y>) is not found in the
eastern branch in this root, then it must have been borrowed (in
Greek and Germanic, as I understand you to mean): I don't think that
this must necessarily be so. I think that, when investigated, there
will be found not enough evidence to necessarily connect Semitic *z-
with western IE *H2-. Latin <amentum> may not be related to Semitic
<zimam> or Sanskrit <yama> (or either of these two to each other). I
suppose it depends on how many more examples there are under
your "Etc.", whether someone like me would be convinced of your
hypothesis. Right now, I think your hypothesis is plausible and
possible, but at the same time I see no compelling reason to discard
the traditional view of this root. And even if it is a borrowing of
Semitic *z_r_&, it could not have been borrowed any earlier than
agriculture appeared in the Middle East, which as I take it is
considered to be in the Neolithic period -- which argues against your
final conclusion.

A question I have is, how is it known for certain that agriculture
originated in the Neolithic? Could it not have originated earlier,
and *H2erH3- along with it? Of course, if the root were indeed
borrowed from Semitic, one could ask also whether agriculture
originated earlier than the Neolithic in the Middle East.

AJ

>
> ========
> > I am not well-informed about the Stone Age and its divisions, I
> > didn't know that agriculture has been limited to the Neolithic,

since

> > ca. 8000 B.C. (nor do I know the reason for this -- and I am
> > personally a little skeptical of the reliability of archaeology).
> > Although I have supported you in your idea that PIE is much older
> > than conventionally supposed (although my reasons are different, I
> > think) nevertheless 8000 B.C. sounds reasonable as a possible

genesis-

> > time for PIE to me at least (most will say later than that,

right?).

> > AJ
>
> ==============
>
> Yes, I suppose the conservative siders will vote for -4 000 BC.
>
> But I believe none of their arguments withstand a thorough analysis.
>
> The problem is - 8000 is too late.
> PIE must have split before that time.
> Otherwise a word like H2erH3 should have the alternation H2/y.
>
> Arnaud
>

I would think, the later the split, the less likely major differences
would be found between the eastern and the western branches (just as
in genetic differences in evolution) -- hence the less likely one
would find the H2/y alternation. If the split were early, on the
other hand, this would give time for phonetic change, and therefore
phonetic drift, to evolve, making the H2/y alternation more likely.

If the H2erH3- root were borrowed from Semitic before 8000 BC, this
would give it time to evolve differently in the eastern and western
branches (H2- vs. y-). If it were borrowed from Semitic e.g. around
4000 BC, I would think one would expect that it would appear
comparatively less changed in the various adoptive languages -- hence
one would expect *s- as in Latin <sario:> (as an example, I know you
consider it a substrate word) more so than *H2- in the western
branch. In the eastern branch, *y- might still be expected, as it is
less different from *z- than is *H2-, but I would think one would
rather see an assimilation to e.g. the reflex of *g^- in these
languages. Regardless of what sound-substitutions actually occur, I
think the general idea that a late splitting-date is more likely to
produce divergent sound-substitutions than is an earlier splitting-
date, seems erroneous.

AJ