On Wed, 17 Jan 2001 09:24:23 +0100, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
<
mcv@...> wrote:
>I doubt [<s'> is] a "sh", as it's much more common than sigma. More than
>likely, in this text sigma <s> is /S/, and the sign transcribed as
><s'> (or <$> or <z>) is the plain /s/.
On the Lemnos stele, <s> only occurs in the "double genitive"
<-asi-al->, in the numeral <sialchv-> (Etr. <s'ealch>), and in the
word <evistho>. In the case of "60" ("40"), the "sh" is assured by
Etruscan (and in general by all circum-Mediterranean words where, if
the sibilants of "6" and "7" differ, "6" usually has the shibilant
(e.g. We. chwech, Slavic s^estI, Basque sei, Akkadian s^es^s^et, Etr.
s'a, etc.) and "7" the sibilant (secht, sedmI, zazpi, sebet, semph,
respectively)). In the morpheme -sial-, /s/ was palatalized before
/i/ (or /j/), which did not happen to final *-si > Lemn. <-s'>. As to
the word <evistho>, /st/ > /St/ seems to be a common development in
general, but the meaning and etymology of the word are obscure. From
context, as I said, one may gather it was some kind of title or
magistrature which the deceased (Sivai) performed for his kinsman
Holaie, from Phokaea. A derivation from Greek would be most welcome,
given the eu- prefix, and maybe we can propose *eu-histo:r, where Hom.
(h)isto:r (wisto:r < *wid-tor-) means "one who knows law and right,
judge". This would fit with the root <t(o/a)var-> in the words
<toveronarom> and <tavars'io>, if connected with Etr. <tevarath>
"referee, judge".
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...