>I'm not saying it's an isolate either. But where is this proven
>relationship with IE that you mentioned earlier?
Etruscan contains many poignant grammatical similarities with IE that could
never be found with NEC:
* genitive in -s & -l
(cf. Anatolian languages)
* accusative in -n
(IE *-m)
* 1ps pronoun /mi/
(IE 1ps oblique *me)
* 3ps /an/ & /in/
(IE *e, *ei-)
* demonstratives /ica/ & /ita/
(IE *k^e- & *to-)
* use of an optional "nominative" s-suffix
as in /Tin-s/, /Sethlan-s/, etc.
(IE nominative -s)
* imperative /-thi/
(IE *-dhi)
IE and Etruscan also share vocabulary items:
IndoTyr | Etruscan IndoEuropean
---------------------------------------------------------
to be *am- | am- *ambhi "around"
this, that *deuk:e | s'ec *dhught�:r
[imperative] *-di | -thi *-dhi
this, that *ke | ica *k^e-
to make *kWer- | car- *kWer-
four *kWet:Wa(-n) | huth *kWetw�r-
me *me | mi "I" *me
to die of old age *sen- | san- *sen-
to consecrate *sek- | sac- *sek^-
this, that *ta | ita *to-
two *t:We | za- *dwo-
... for example. Unfortunately, the word /huth/ is irregular because
*kWet:Wa > preTyrrhenian *kWat:Wa (with initial -a-!) > Tyrrhenian *xotta.
>Maybe this is a bit like the reluctance of many Etruscologists,
>especially Italian ones, to express unambiguously the truth about the
>Etruscans: they were foreign immigrants.
I think it lingers in all branches of linguistics from Basque to Swahili.
Xenophobia starts at home, I always say.
>A couple of questions:
>Isn't the /-g/ in Chechen /b`a"rg/ (and /lerg/) just the diminutive
>suffix?
Yes, this -g is certainly not of any NECists concern since this is most
recent. Starostin explains that that Chechen -r- is also from a suffix
*-re-, leaving us with an atomic Nakh root *b`a-. If we stopped here, we
would see nothing at the end of the word. However, all the other NEC
branches show that a final lateral phoneme must have once existed. So,
Starostin reconstructs *HwilHi (transliterating his snazzy phonemes isn't
easy) but I would much rather reconstruct something more legible like
*b-xWiL instead (hence my earlier DeneCaucasian stage with *m-xutL). Both
Khinalug and Nakh demonstrate the prefix *b-, btw. Basque /begi/ would
derive from earlier *bik: ultimately deriving from *m-xutL (*tL always
becomes pVasconic *k: > Basque /g/ and *-u- usually becomes *i).
That's my scheme of things anyway. I've been bad and haven't put this up on
my website yet for people to browse. I still have things to say about
SinoDene (accentuation, vocabulary, typology, its connection to Steppe and
IndoTyrrhenian, etc). I'll try once I get a test over with next week to type
things up online.
>Where does PN *La" come from? Isn't /txwo/ borrowed from Kartvelian
>and /vaj/ common Nakh-Daghestanian?
If I remember, there is Kartvelian *tkwen- but... I think this is just
coincidence. The fact is that Starostin's initial lateral is found elsewhere
in the NEC spectrum (AvarAnd, Tsezian). While *L- > *lx- > Nakh *tx- may
seem bizarre, I still find it reasonable. Otherwise, how does one explain
Nakh's nominative *txo- versus the ergative *?a:xo. Looks like a classic
case of nominative *L- versus ergative *-L- to me. This all comfortably
brings me to an NEC 1pp in *La.
As for /vaj/, I wasn't aware of it being NEC. I had always assumed that it
was IE in origin (*wei-). Wassup, homey?
>Interesting idea about the gender marking, though.
Thank ya. I came up with it all by my lonesome. It appears that the further
back in time I roam when looking at comparative linguistics, the more I
encounter three things: word-class prefixing, ejectives and ergativity.
Strange.
- gLeN
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