Re: Finnic substrate in Slavic?!

> > > > What leads you to choose a Finnic substrate in Slavic over a
> > > > Balto-Slavic substrate in Finnic?
> > >
> > > Because historically the Finnics were the losers.
> >
> > Seriously now.
>
> I am serious. The Finnic speakers have historically been retreating before Balto-Slavic speakers.

The historical situation at the Latvia/Estonia boundary more resembles random fluctuation that happen'd to be in the Latvians' favor, than any constant tendency (as was the case with later Slavic conquests).

Oh BTW, if Baltic was never spoken north of Latvia, what do you make of the existence of Baltic loans (some of them independant of Finnic) in Samic?

> > > But lately the consensus seems to be that the Baltic
> > > languages are relatively recent at the Baltic coast, appr. 2000
> > > years ago.
> >
> > A similar consensus is emerging for Baltic-Finnic and Samic
> > languages, so that doesn't really help.
>
> So that leaves a big gap between them, unto which they have expanded, which should make us wonder what language(s) was/were spoken in the gap.

It's difficult to say much else than "apparently non-IE, non-Uralic".

But such a gap would have existed even in most older-date formulations too.


(re: -t)

> > > We have these logical possibilities:
> > > 1. some language related to PIE was a substrate of Finnic, or
> > > 2. some language related to Finnic was a substrate of PIE, or
> > > 3. some language unrelated to either was a substrate to both,
> > > or, if it was just a case of a loan of a postposition -t-
> > > 4. loan between neighboring languages.
> >
> > 5. IE and Uralic are related
>
> If so, then so far back it's irretrievable. The fundamental matches usually cited are too few and too little changed for me to accept as other than substrate influence.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Uralic_languages

"Too much to be nothing, too little to be something" or how was it they said of Nostratic?

> > 6. coincidence
>
> Gut feeling: no.

If it were limited to this one item, mine would be "yes". But it's not (verbal endings etc.)

Back to the topic however…

> Arnoud tells me in a mail that Mordva has a dative,

> Torsten

Cheers to that, but, he also tells in a further one that it's not used for possessors.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/uralica/message/537

John Vertical