From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 10591
Date: 2001-10-25
--- In cybalist@..., george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
*****GK: "Not particularly serious". An "amateur". (He was one of the
Soviet Union's leading specialists in comparative Indo-European
linguistics).*****
Was he? I am familiar with most of the "leading specialists" in the
field (including those from the former USSR) but I haven't heard of
Petrov before. There's no trace of the man in the TITUS database,
either. Where can I find his bibliography? (I can read Ukrainian.)
Talking of experts and amateurs, I may be an amateur in history and
archaeology. Call me what you like and correct my errors -- I'll
swallow the former and will be grateful for the latter. What I know
has been gleaned from my reading, since the kind of research I do
research requires a little interdisciplinary orientation. But I'm
paid for doing linguistics and have been properly trained to do it
well. I don't care what sort of reputation Petrov used to enjoy or
maybe still enjoys. The fragments you showed us look amateurish,
that's all.
****GK: So if API goes back to what you call common IE, or Proto-Indo-
Iranian why the urgent need to understand it by reference to Iranic
dialects only?****
Nobody does that on the basis of a single word, especially an
inherited one. It doesn't prove much either way. There's better
evidence elsewhere.
PG: Anyway, *ap- is an impeccable
> Proto-Iranian word (and Proto-Indo-Iranian too,
> given the Sanskrit cognates), even if it is missing
> from Ossetic in underived form. The reason for that
> is a trivial semantic shift particular to Ossetic:
> don < *danu < *dHa:nu 'river' came to mean 'water',
> ousting the older term. However, the development
> *ap-ra- > *afra- > arf- is regular (even the Ossetic
> metathesis *-fr- > -rf-), and I see no obstacles to
> accepting this derivation.
*****GK: Petrov did not deny it either. But the idea was to show that
it was easier to rely (here and in many cases) on Baltic analogies
rather than to automatically search for Iranic cognates. He looked at
Baltic, Iranic, and Thracian material because of the
territorial contiguity factor.*****
What "Baltic analogies?" Did the Balts have a Mother River goddess
called Api, or something? He doesn't show at all that the connection
is "easier", or more convincing, or superior in any sense. Closer
connections can be demonstrated using shared innovations, but not
shared archaisms. That's the ABC of historical linguistics.
Territorial contiguity? There are many Iranian loans in Slavic, but
very few in Baltic; that tells you something about the early
geographical configuration of the three groups. "Thracian material"
is scarce and should be used with utmost care.
Piotr