dive (was Re: Sos-)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, johnvertical@... wrote:

>
> > I think I'll write out all the variants.
> >
> > Original form in the ar-/ur- language: *daN- (*duN-)
> >
> > Alternation
> > *daN-/*daNG-/*daNw-
> >
> > Denasalization
> > *da:-/*daG-/*daw-
> > *du:-/*duG-/*duw-
> >
> > 'Venetic Verschärfung' (*w- > *b-, *w- -> *g-)
> > *da:-/*dag-/*dab-
> > *du:-/*dug-/*dub-
> >
> > Prenasalisation of voiced stops in the pretonic syllable:
> > *dá:-/*dág-/*dáb-/*dang´-/*damb´-
> > *dú:-/*dúg-/*dúb-/*dung´-/*dumb´-
> >
> > 'Half-Grimm'
> > *dá:-/*dák-/*dáp-/*dank´-/*damp´-
> > *dú:-/*dúk-/*dúp-/*dunk´-/*dump´-
>
> Why do these reconstructions keep looking like they're based on
> assumptions rather than hard data?

I don't know how your mind works so you can probably answer those questions better yourself.

> (At least the last three steps propose actual conditions. The
> initial six-way split does not seem to be even falsifiable.)

Assumptions made in linguistic reconstructions rarely are; the best strategy for evaluation is a secondary one for Popper and resembles Occam: most forms explained with fewest assumptions.

> > We could do that again with a root *saN- "slush",
>
> One that you just will into being?

I don't have that kind of power; I propose it.

> > and get
> >
> > *sá:-/*sák-/*sáp-/*sank´-/*samp´-
> > *sú:-/*súk-/*súp-/*sunk´-/*sump´-
> >
> > which would solve the 'Suomi' mystery
>
> What "mystery"?

That was a loose reference to your discussion with Sean Whalen.

> Several possible etymologies exist, there's no need to posit a yet
> another one

You don't really want me to comment on that, do you?

> (at least one involving all sorts of hypothetical forms).

Reconstructions are hypothesis. I thought you knew?
If you are asking for which forms it purports to explain, look at 'sump' here:
http://runeberg.org/svetym/0995.html

> > and on the connection to supposed PIE *pen- "swamp"
> > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/63881
> > Funky.
>
> _Bagno_ with voiced stops and a common Slavic distribution quite
> clearly cannot be a loan from Finnic.

Of course it can if the Slavic language family has a Finno-Ugric substrate. The alternative is that both loaned from an unrelated substrate, ie the ar-/ur- etc language.

> Old Indic _paNka_ "swamp, mud" is interesting; Uralic *pëNka
> "mushroom" looks like a potential loan from it (or rather, from
> some more northerly Indo-Iranian precedessor or cognate).

Good observation. I believe a saw a Kartvelian cognate somewhere meaning "mushroom" or was it the "foam" word?

> > Instead a loan *paN- ? Cf.
> >
> > 1 pin´: (Sal. pinli), pl. pi`n´n´&^D (neu: sùomli, pl. -st)
> > finne (finnländer);
> > s. pin´-mo:, pi`n´n´&^mìez.
>
> Transparently a loan from _Finn_. This provides no new insight.

No exactly transparent. The one thing which points in that direction is the root -i- vs. Tacitus' -e- in Fenni, which makes it likely the word participated in Gmc *-en- > *-in-.

>
> > So:
> >
> > the forms with sVl- are most likely from *saN-l-, those with sVr
> > from *saN#
> >

>
> Thus far it sounds unlikely either of those exists at all.

If you have any concrete objections, I'd like to hear them.

> I would leave this at *sal- and I do not see any explanation for an
> l/r alternation required to connect BF *saari.

I have no doubt that that is what you would do.

> BTW note that there's no a/u "alternation" in "salt" in Uralic. *a
> is regularly reflected as Komi /o/ ~ Udmurt /u/, and the latter
> under some conditions

And they are?

> can be delabialized to "island".

Okay, so there is a/u alternation in Komi and Udmurt, under some conditions.

> Connecting this to "salt" has semantical problems, /ï/; long *a:
> regularly > *o: in Finnic.

Don't try connecting them in Finnic then.

The a/u-alternation I am referring to is that of the ar-/ur- language; I suspect it arises from denasalization of a nasal vowel -aN- (cf. -aN- > -u- in Russian). The nasalization might have been 'sweated out' in auslaut as an -n# which was then rhotacized > -r#, which means there must have been a word or morpheme boundary after the -ar-'s and -ur-'s Kuhn found in river names etc.

> I see no reason to make it anything but an IE loan.

OK. It's a free country.


Torsten