Re: Portuguese, Spanish bode "buck"

From: dgkilday57
Message: 71156
Date: 2013-04-02

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Bhrihskwobhloukstroy <bhrihstlobhrouzghdhroy@...> wrote:
>
> 2013/3/29, dgkilday57 <dgkilday57@...>:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Bhrihskwobhloukstroy
> > <bhrihstlobhrouzghdhroy@> wrote:
> >>
> (...)
> >> For beccus I had already proposed, following the suggestions by
> >> Delamarre 2003: 70 and 80, a root *bek- (or maybe *gWek-) 'sting',
> >> unless *bekko-s < *gWet-ko-s (cf. *gWet- 'bulge', Pokorny 1959: 481).
> >
> > The obvious problem with *gWet-ko-s is that *-tk- should have undergone
> > metathesis outside Anatolian and Tocharian, as in Celtic for 'bear', unless
> > we presume that *-ko- remained productively in use with bare roots.
> > Connecting 'beak' with 'bee' seems rather fanciful, even if a beak is pointy
> > like a sting.
> >
> > DGK
>
> *Bhr.:
> Are there instances of Celtic metathesis of non-palatal
> *-tk-sequences? In Reiner Lipp's monumental volumes I can't detect
> anyone, but maybe it's simply due to the combined effect of my lack of
> time and its lack of a Wortindex...

I have no examples, but it would surprise me if a centum language showed different outcomes for *-tk^- and *-tk-.

A more serious objection is that if *-ko- was productive with bare /e/-grade roots, there should be no shortage of *-ko-formations with such roots having different auslauts, not just those in *-k- or other stops expected to assimilate to a suffixal *k-.

Matasovic' refers Celt. *balko- to PIE *bel-, which I do not follow. It seems to me that he implicitly assumes a laryngeal root-extension (and I have no problem with *-h1 or *-h2) and zero-grade. Of course, *bHelh1/2- or *gWelh1/2- would work equally well. But for your desired /e/-grade we must manufacture a root *bh2/4el-, *bHh2/4el-, or *gWh2/4el-.

> With *bek I really meant PIE */b/ rather than the bee-root *bhei-

Yes, I thought so. Meyer-Luebke operates with Gaul. *becos 'Biene' (REW 1014). I have no objection to PIE *b- (but it is rare, and I suspect that it became phonesthemically associated with nasty noises and other undesirable stuff; a very few non-nasty roots like *bel- were grandfathered in).

Anyhow, your theory of Celtic tenues geminatae needs to be checked for plausibility against the frequency of parallel formations from roots which do not produce geminates with the same suffixes.

DGK