Re: Ligurian Barga and */p/ (was: Ligurian)

2012/5/25, dgkilday57 <dgkilday57@...>:

>
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Bhrihskwobhloukstroy
> <bhrihstlobhrouzghdhroy@...> wrote:
>>
>> 2012/5/18, dgkilday57 <dgkilday57@...>:
>> >
>> > DGK:
>> > This is where distribution begins to matter. If Barg-place-names are
>> > not
>> > commonly found throughout the whole Pan-Celtic realm,
>>
>> Bhrihskwobhloukstroy:
>> I think that nevertheles a certain amount of traces can be found in
>> Transalpine Gaul: Barges (ca. 775 Bargas, Côte-d'Or; 1234 Barias,
>> Haute-Loire; Haute-Saône), La Barge, Les Barges (Central and Western
>> France), Barjouville (1203 Barjovilla, Eure-et-Loir), Barjon (1169
>> Barjum, Côte-d'Or), Barjac (Ariège), where Bargius is by no way a
>> prototypical nomen. They are usually analyzed as occurrences of
>> Gaulish *barga > Western French barge 'meule de foin', but especially
>> when they are mountain or rock names (Les Barges d'Olonne,
>> Sable-d'Olonne, Vendéee; Le Bargy, SW of Cluses, Haute-Savoye) a
>> derivative of 'mountain' can be more appropriate, just like in
>> properly Ligurian area Mont des Barges (NW of Rabou, Hautes-Alpes),
>> Mont de la Barjaude (E/NE of Vérignon, Var)
>>
>> > DGK:
>> > but a cluster includes
>> > Greater Liguria (with the Serchio and Lima valleys, where Pieri
>> > extracted
>> > *barga), then it would appear (under your Pan-Celtic model) that those
>> > ultra-conservative Porcoberan Celts, who were so good at holding their
>> > /p/,
>> > were also very good at using *Barg- as opposed to mainstream Celts.
>>
>> Bhrihskwobhloukstroy:
>> Wait a minute. The only instance of Barg- in reasonable proximity
>> to Porcobera Valley is Bargagli (Genoa), in the valley of Bisagno
>> River, a place whose inhabitants are by the way most hated by the
>> Polceverines or inhabitants of Polcévera < *Purcifera = Porcobera
>> Valley.

>> Between Bargagli and Barga there are Borzone (< Brezono) and
>> Borzonasca (Genoa) < *brig- and Lavagna (Genoa), town and river, <
>> *lawo-(p)ania: 'water moor';
>> in Cuneo Province there are both Barge in the highest Po Valley and
>> Briaglia < *Brigalia nearer to Liguria, in Tanaro Valley;
>> in Brescia (< Brixia < *brig-) Province there's Barghe;
>> Bargano (Villanova del Sillaro, Lodi) lies between Milano <
>> Mediolanum < *Medhyo-plHnom and Cremona < *Kremo-ponah2;

> DGK:
> I presume you have the same analysis of Derto:na? Otherwise, if the /o:/
> did not arise that way, it provides another isogloss between Ligurian and
> Gaulish.
>

Bhrihskwobhloukstroy:

Yes, I have: *dher-to-pon-ah2 'slow river' (*dher- 'hold'), the great
moor of the Scrivia.
This implies ancient rivers had many different names, as it's still
observable in isolated remnants (Sarca = Mincio) and more so in Middle
Ages (Lexua = Adda).
Same for Adda and *Krem(H)-o-pon-ah2 (I hadn't written the meaning of
the first member because it wasn't relevant to the question of *o-po-

> Celtic *-o:-)


>> in the Var Departement we have both Bregançon (Bormes[!], arrond.
>> Toulon-sur-Mer, canton Collobrières) and Bargème (814 Bergemulu,
>> 1026-1064 Bargema; traditionally liked to Berigiema of the Sententia
>> Minuciorum!), Bargemon;
>> Briançon is both Ligurian (Basses-Alpes, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence;
>> Briançonnet Alpes-Maritimes) and Gaulish (Dordogne, Charente-Maritime,
>> Indre-et-Loire, Maine-et-Loire, Oise).
>> I think this suffices to show that *barg- and *brig- coincide in
>> their distribution and that there's no special correlation between
>> *barg- and retention of */p/

> DGK:
> Certainly there is no simple correlation, but the fact that *barg- increases
> in frequency toward the East of Gaul, and again toward the South into the
> historically Ligurian area, is suggestive.

Bhrihskwobhloukstroy:
Yes, it is

>
>> > DGK: In
>> > fact, all your model does is project the base of Celticity downward, so
>> > that
>> > /p/-retaining Ligurians are renamed as ultra-conservative /p/-retaining
>> > Porcoberan Celts. Now, what scholarly purpose can that serve? "I
>> > hereby
>> > plant this flag and claim this land for /p/-retaining Celts!"
>>
>> Bhrihskwobhloukstroy:
>>
>> I insist for the fourth time that it's just a matter of
>> terminology, as very aptly pointed out by Yourself. I wish I had never
>> used the term 'Celts' in this case. Let's please call them
>> 'Conservative Late Indo-Europeans'; what's crucial is whether they
>> exhibit any non-Celtic innovation or not. If they don't, we can call
>> them 'Ultra-Conservatives' or just how You like; if they do, they earn
>> a denomination that can clearly distinguish them from the Celts.
>> Another (the other) crucial point is whether all Ancient Ligurians
>> retained PIE */p/.
>> Since we agree that 1) all Ligurian innovations but */gwh/ > /b/ and
>> */-rT-/ > /-arT-/ are shared with Celtic (and with other IE classes as
>> well, but never more or even just as systematically as with Celtic)
>> and 2) /-arT-/ can be explained as outcome of a lengthened grade, we
>> are left with */gwh/ > /b/.

> DGK:
> Uh, no, _I_ did not agree that there were only two isoglosses. Those two
> are simply the most obvious. Another, noted by Petracco Sicardi in "Top.
> prerom. e rom. della Liguria" (pp. 9-82 of "Top. stor. della Liguria",
> Genova 1981), is */-dt-/ > /-st-/, occurring in Blustiemelum and Clastidium.
> P.S. (p. 39) derives Lig. *blusto- from *bHlud-to-, from the extended root
> *bHleu-d- 'to swell, well up, overflow' vel sim. She takes *-iema as a
> collective or abstract, so Blustiemelum might be understood as 'place of
> frequent flooding, place of abundant landslips' vel sim. For Clastidium,
> rather than *kl.d-to- from the root *keld- which she suggests (pp. 45-6),
> which would yield Lig. *kalsto-, I believe we need *kl.h1d-to-, Lig.
> *kla:sto-, from *kelh1-d- 'to strike hard, strike down' vel sim., the
> zero-grade providing also the base of Latin <cla:de:s>.
>
> Another isogloss is */-onC-/ < */-n.C-/ in Blondelia, from *bHln.dHo-
> 'reddish, ruddy', Gmc. *blunda-, Skt. bradhna- (P.S. p. 39).
>
> P.S. also sees earlier */e:/ becoming a long open front vowel (in contrast
> to Gaul. /i:/), like Class. Grk. eta, transcribed as <ae> (cf. scaena,
> scaeptrum). She derives (saltus) Craedelius from *kre:dH- as found in Lat.
> <cre:ber>, which can describe a dense forest, crebra silva. Surely you are
> familiar with this book. I suspect that more isoglosses will turn up with
> further study.

Bhrihskwobhloukstroy:
Romance-speaking Scholars often fail to remember that PIE had
productive ablaut rules. It's conceivable that Giacomo Devoto, judging
more or less for the first time the possibility of an IE affiliation
of Ligurian, took *blond- for a perfect match to *blunda-, but - as
You have very aptly pointed out in Your following message - a
different ablaut explication is perfectly justifiable.
Giulia Petracco Sicardi's analysis of Craedelius is built on a
systematic equation of <ae> with /ɛ:/ which in turn reflects a typical
Italian unwillingness to abandon the received (tradita) pronounciation
of Latin in favour of the restituta; although it's a possible
etymology, it implies that Ligurian either had no /ai/ or had no means
to distinguish it from /ɛ:/ in Latin script. I prefer a more
Celtologic hypothesis, viz. Craedelius : OIndic kraid.iná- 'belonging
to the winds', therefore Celtic *Kra:içd-elios (cf, Schrijver 1995
SBCHPh: 376 ) < *Kra:izd-elios < PIE *Kro:isd-elyo-s (*krisd- 'move
violently', Mayrhofer EWA I 413).
For Blustiemelum I've proposed *bhleus- 'burn' or *bheluHs- 'beat',
therefore with PIE *-st-; for *klasti- in Clastidium there's a much
more direct PIE *klh2(t)-sti- > German Last.
I think this is all. Ligurian's diachronic phonology has been put
together in three phases, the first one in a non-IE perspective, then
with more or less happy guesses as if it were an IE language different
form any other one, finally in a Celtological frame; G. Petracco
Sicardi's book is primarily intended as a toponymic reference primer
and therefore makes scarcely any attempt to a dialectologically
coherent representation, but it seems to me (and to her too) that time
is ripe for an improved discussion of that topic and this is wat we
are trying to do.

>
>> Since we agree that every instance of */p/-drop can be interpreted as
>> a Celtic intrusion into formerly Ligurian territory, we can't solve
>> the second crucial point.

> DGK:
> On another matter, however, since Celtic and Italic share the assimilation
> *p...kW... > *kW...kW..., reflexes of the tree-name *perkWu-, *pr.kWeh2-
> with */p/-drop must have been borrowed rather than inherited by Celtic.
> This applies to Hercy:nia, Orku:nia, Arku:nia, and Piemontese <olca>.
> Trentine <porca> is presumably "Rhaetic" (in Hubschmied's sense), "Illyrian"
> (in Krahe's sense); we might compromise on "Rhaeto-Illyrian", a Q-Illyrian
> language spoken in Rhaetia.

Bhrihskwobhloukstroy:
This hardly applies to Hercynia (where do You get long /y:/
from?), because it had since long no */kW/ more (before /u/).
Piemontese olca 'Swiss Pine' is in my humble opinion the same
formation as its Gaulish homophone olca 'brownfield land' < PIE
*polk'ah2 'Gewendetes' (Pokorny 807); in any case it can't reflect
*orka: because no */r/ > /l/ is known either in Gaulish or in
Piemontese (nor Western Lombard and Ligurian intervocalic */l/ > /*r/,
to which a */r/ > /l/ mutation could theoretically consitute a
hypercorrect reaction)

>
>> In sum, we have together come to this provisional conclusion:
>> Ancient Ligurian exhibited an albeit limited number of phonological
>> innovations from PIE;
>> */gwh/ > /b/ could be non-Celtic, but it's disputed;
>> */-rT-/ > /-arT-/ could be non-Celtic as well, but we agree that it
>> could also alternatively represent a characteristic Celtic treatment
>> of lengthened grades;
>> */p/-drop is disputed and even when it could be evident it may
>> reflect Celtic infiltrations (this should in any case suggest to avoid
>> a too systematic use of 'Ligurian' as a unitary linguistic label for
>> all Ancient Liguria);
>> all remaining innovations are shared by Ligurian and Celtic and there
>> isn't such a concordance with any other IE linguistic class;
>> ergo, Ancient Ligurian is the IE linguistic class most similar to
>> Celtic: if */gwh/ > /b/ is true, Ligurian and Celtic are two
>> distinguished classes; if it isn't, Ligurian is distinguished from
>> Celtic only by a privative opposition (lack - maybe only in restricted
>> areas - of certain innovations).

> DGK:
> In my view, we do not yet have the totality of phonetic isoglosses between
> Ligurian and Gaulish (the ONLY securely Celtic language spoken in the area
> in pre-Roman times), we have only begun to discuss lexical isoglosses
> (*dHeigW- in Lig. but not Celt., and if I am right about interpreting
> Lepontic <teu>, *dHeh1- in Lig. but not Celt.) and morphological isoglosses
> (-asc- in Lig., -isc- in Celt.). Therefore, it would be foolish to regard
> Ligurian as "almost Celtic" or "para-Celtic" or whatever you are driving
> at.
>
> DGK
>
>
>
>

Bhrihskwobhloukstroy:

No, please, no. You are again taking for granted that Lepontic isn't
Celtic and therefore anything Lepontic is automatically non-Celtic. As
for *dHeigW-, You are on one side taking Matasović for the Golden Book
of Pure Celtic (as if nothing not included in Matasović could be
Celtic), on the other side You are taking everything You want - You
even stretch Ligurian's boundaries according to Your pleasure - as
definite proof of Ligurianness, clearly two exceedingly different
criteria: everything can be labeled as Ligurian if only it occurs in
Western Europe, but nothing can be labeled as Celtic if only it
doesn't occur in Matasović. Either You take a coherent position or
it's useless to continue