Re: [tied] Fjall, pilis, polis...

If one assumes that germanic cognates fjall, fels, are reflections of
a n. collective (< germanic *felzô) can one recognise these and greek
pélla < péls-(e)h2 as cognates of IE *pelos- (with different
formations pels-, zero-grade *pls)?

Interestingly ON and modern Icelandic (sometimes Swedish) has a
numeral distribution where singular fjall is used only for a specific
mountain. In other circumstances the plural fjoll is used.


Håvard

--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> Dear Tomas,
>
> It's a difficult question. The problem is that PIE had several
homonymous or near-homonymous roots with different meanings, all
involving the sequence *pel-, and (semantic evolution having its
quirks, zigzags and convergences) it isn't always clear which branch-
specific term belongs to which etymon. The fact that two words sound
similar or even the same does not guarantee that they have the same
ultimate origin. Let me begin with what we CAN work out and what is
uncontroversial:
>
> *pelh1- 'fill'. The best-known derivatives, apart from various
verb stems, are *plh1-no- 'full' and *polh1-u- 'much, many'. There
are also numerous more complex formations based on this root.
>
> *pelh2- 'flat, open'. Lots of derivatives, several subsenses,
*pélh2-tu- 'open field' (Eng. field, German feld), *plh2-no- 'flat'
(Lat. pla:nus), *polh2-jo- (Slavic *polje), *plh2-m-ah2- 'palm (of
one's hand)'.
>
> *pl(o)th2-u- 'wide, broad', cf. Lith. platus. Not necessarily
related to *pelh2-. Often means 'expanse, earth, land, country' (OE
fold, Skt. pr.thivi:, Celtic *litu-). Here presumably belongs Slavic
*pletje 'shoulder-blade, (du.) shoulders, back'.
>
> There are more such roots, but only the ones above are potentially
relevant to your question. Now more speculative stuff:
>
> The prototype of Gk. polis, Lith, pilis, Skt. pu:r is usually
reconstructed as *p(o)lh1-(i-) 'hill-fort, citadel'. The quality of
the laryngeal is not quite certain, and there are subtle internal
difficulties (Greek and Lithuanian have an i-stem as opposed to the
Indic root noun, Greek has a mysterious dialectal variant with
initial <pt->). It is hard to decide if this word can be related to
*pelh1- and *polh1-u- (as "a place for many people"?).
>
> North Germanic fell ~ fjall (borrowed into English as <fell>) is
another hard nut to crack. Since it may have meanings like "upland
stretch of open country", "barren hill", etc., one could in theory
assign it to *pelh2- in the sense "open, spread" (though a fell is
anything but "flat"). As an alternative, it is compared with German
Fels 'rock' and treated as a Germanic root without known external
cognates.
>
> I'd conclude that <pilis> and <fjall>, obscure as they are in terms
of etymology, are unlikely cognates.
>
> Piotr
>
>