----- Original Message -----
From: proto-language
To: nostratic@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2001 7:46 AM
Subject: Re: [nostratic] AA-IE
 
> I have never asserted that *g^en- meant 'make love', just fornication; it means 'beget', 'fertilize an ovum with sperm'. I hope you are not asserting that it does not mean that because you would be dead wrong!
 
First, PIE-speakers knew precious little about the fertilisation process, so a modern technical meaning like 'fertilise an ovum with sperm' cannot have existed at the time. The meaning 'to introduce semen' was expressed like 'to sow' (PIE *seh1-, *se-sh1-e-, etc.). What I mean is that *g^enh1- refers to the vertical relation between the parent and the offspring: 'be the parent of, give birth to', and by extension also 'cause, produce, create'. Hence also derivatives like *g^enh1-es- 'descent, origin; race, offspring' etc. It does _not_ refer to fornication, insemination, etc., and if you think it does, please show your evidence rather than declare me dead wrong ex cathedra, as it were.
 
> And I believe there are forms in IE languages which require *g^en-.
 
You mean, forms which require *g^en- but rule out *g^enh1-? Which particular forms?
> You mix apples with oranges: first, there is 'beget', then 'bear'. And frankly, I doubt whether tu(d) means 'beget'. The archaic sign depicts a 'seed with a sprout'.
 
> I suspect that tu(d) is ultimately cognate with *do:u-, and simply means 'give', i.e. 'produce'.
 
Well, I'm not a trained Sumerologist (neither are you, I presume), so I'm inclined to respect the interpretation offered as standard by those who know better. "A seed with a sprout" sums it up rather nicely as far as I'm concerned.
 
> Yes, one must be careful. But, I will say, that I consider Nostratic had a heavy bias towards nominal forms. And again, Arabic kurki:y-un, 'crane', shows no sign of a 'laryngeal'.
 
I don't think PIE *h2 was a "laryngeal" in articulatory terms -- a velar~uvular fricative, more like. But that's quite irrelevant. My point is that most bird names with the segmental structure KVr-C- are sound-imitative and may be coined independently in unrelated language groups. My native Polish has <kura> for 'hen' (and <kurka> for 'little hen'), <kruk> for 'raven', <sroka> for 'magpie' (with s < *k^), <krakwa> for 'gadwall', <krakac'> for 'croak', <gruchac'> 'coo (of pidgeons and doves)', etc. (I _mean_ "etc.").
 
> It is the cognates from other languages, which cannot represent *g^ that incline me in this direction. But there is also Old Indian gárta-H, 'wagon-seat'.
 
Well, to be frank, I don't see any solid evidence for EITHER *g^er- OR *ger- meaning 'twist, turn, plait' or the like.
 
>> PIE has *gerbH- 'carve, notch' plus several "scratchy" roots like *skrebH-, all of them no doubt onomatopoeic ...
 
> Ridiculous!
 
What's ridiculous -- the phonaesthetic value of [skr-]?
 
>> ... and thus of little use in distant comparison. As for <zrák>, why cite only a Czech word if the root in question is found everywhere in Slavic and a precise reconstruction is possible? The original meaning of the word is 'sight' (the semantic development as in German Gesicht), derived from the Slavic verb *zIr-E-ti 'look, see; appear, be visible', from *g^Her- 'shine' (Slavic *zorja 'light in the sky'). I think you lump together unrelated items here.
 
> I think the idea is rather 'become visible by being scraped'.
 
So we have your word for it, but where's the evidence? Have you really examined the data or just accepted a reconstruction offered by somebody who took it from somebody else, who'd made it up? The root *g^Her-, by the way, is not pan-IE but restricted to the NW area (best attested in Balto-Slavic, with possible but slightly uncertain Germanic and Celtic cognates. The notion of getting exposed through scraping is not reflected in any of the actually attested forms. For example, *zorja refers to the break of day or the fading light at sundown. The cognates I'm aware of suggest an original meaning like 'glow, produce luminescence'.
 
Piotr