Re: [tied] Re: Poets, linguists and countrymen. Lend me your ears...

On Thu, 25 Jan 2001 21:01:00 +0100, "Piotr Gasiorowski"
<gpiotr@...> wrote:

>Thanks, Miguel, but you could at least admit that Toch. pärkär could reflect _either_ *prku- or *bHrg^Hu-

Hadn't occurred to me, actually.

>(or some other minor formation based on *bHrg^H-) :). Armenian is not my forte; what's the story of u-stems and the final -r there?

I guess my discussions about this with Alexis Manaster-Ramer have just
disappeared with the disk I lost, but final *-u gives Arm. -r:
medhu > mel/r, pek^u > asr, drak^u > artawsr, g^onu > cunr. Most
u-stem adjectives also have apparently preserved this neuter form:
brg^hu > barjr, swah2du > k`al/cr [influenced by "salty"] etc.
The oblique forms have -u (GDL barju, Ab barjue^). The plural has an
-n-, either NA -un-/ obl. -an- (barjunk` - barjanc`), or -un-
throughout (canunk` - canunc`). Cunr "knee" has pl. cungk` (< *gonwa
+ -k`) - cngac`.

>I don't intend to defend *prku- at no matter what cost -- just exploring an etymological possibility that has occurred to me. At any rate, I see no reason why a consonantal stem like **perkWs (unattested) should have been moved to the u-declension in Latin. Can't see any examples of such a shift, while counterexamples are easy to find (vo:x, not **vocus or **vecus).

Not quite comparable in syllable structure, though.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...