Re: [tied] [w]anax

----- Original Message -----

From: Mark Odegard

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Friday, September 22, 2000 11:25 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] [w]anax

I see what he means. The postulated stem is *wnatk-, Nom.sg. *w@... (some people prefer the notation *wnnatks), with the so-called "Lindemann treatment" of the initial cluster (cf. *dije:us, *kuwo:n). The theory is that Tocharian has [wnatk-] throughout, while Greek has generalised the Nom.sg. allomorph [w@...-] > *wanakt-. The metathesis is as in *xrtkos > arktos. The normal archaic N.pl. is wanaktes, and there is also the Mycenaean adjective wanakteros 'royal'.

 

Zeu ana! ... (if you don't know, ana is the vocative < *wanakt). To say that a tongue-twister like *wnatk- looks rather un-IE is surely an understatement, and to say that a root of this shape is not unprecedented is an under-understatement. Where are all those other consonantal stems beginning with *wn- and/or ending in *-tk? (not to mention the rarity of *a as a root vowel -- and no linguist in his right mind would want to stick a laryngeal into what's already a Quasimodo of a root). PIE has *wr- and possibly *wl- (like Old English), but would it tolerate word-initial *wn- at all? And would the Lindemann form of *wn- be *w@...- or rather *un-? If the word is a loan after all, the obvious question is "Where from?" And why into Greek and Tocharian, of all languages? Lots of question marks.

 

The alternative -- perhaps more productive -- is to abandon the connection. For the Greek word other etymologies have been proposed, e.g. *wan-akt- < *w@...- 'tribe-leader' (cf. Linear B rawaketa [lawageta:s] < *la:w-ageta:- 'army-leader'), both derived from PIE *xag- 'lead, drive'. Anaks has the variant anakto:r (used of gods); the -akto:r part would then be etymologically equivalent to Latin actor (originally 'herdsman, driver').

 

Piotr

 

Direct quote, including the fiendish diacritics in the first two sentences.

 

 

TochA nātäk (pl. nācki) 'lord', nāśi (pl. nāśśāñ) 'lady'. Greek has generalized the variant unnatks while Tocharian has generalized unatks. Greek forms such as (w)anakes, Dioscuri without a -t- may be back-formations from the nominative (w)anax (<wanakts < wanatks) and/or the feminine (w)anassa (< wanacca <*wanatkya) since the stage *-cc- would imply a masculine *-k. (The recessive stress of (w)anassa and/or the recessive stress of the vocative.) The shape of *unatk- looks looks rather un-Indo-European and it may betoken an early borrowing from some unknown source. However, a root of that shape is not totally unprecedented ... and thus may represent a purely IE inheritance.

 

Mark.