Steve posts:
>I don't assume anything. I'm just repeating some conclusions
>reported by the Finnish comparativists.
Alright, we'll blaim it on Ante then {wink, wink}... ;)
>I do assume that the correspondences must show some evidence of
>a regular pattern of borrowing and not cognacy, because I must
>assume that these comparativists considered the other possibilities you
>mention.
Why must we assume this? There isn't much in way of understanding
about how IndoEuropean and Uralic are related to each other to
this day, and so, if the words were indeed inherited from some
previous mother tongue, we would not be able to readily tell these
words from the true loanwords (if there really were any).
>I believe *toxi- is reconstructed for p-Uralic, so I'm not sure
>where *tuwi- comes from.
Well, whatever. My point is that I'm questioning the *x in Uralic
because, if I remember, there is no direct substantiation for it
except in a very small minority of languages belonging to a
specific subbranch. We know that *w can always become *G through
simple velarisation as well.
>>Now we have the following messy proposal:
>> *?- (*H1-) => *k
>> *-h- (*-H1-) => *x
>> *x (*H2) => *k
>>[...]
>I am sorry, but am I to understand that you find the correspondences you
>give above objectional on some phonological
>grounds?
Well, for example, *H1 is more than likely a glottal stop, at least
in initial position (and we've talked about this before on this
list). I have trouble with initial glottal stops becoming *k,
even in loans. More often than not, common sense would tell us
that the glottal stop of Language A would simply be ignored if it
does not exist in Language B. As far as I'm concerned, any list
with *?- <=> *k- is highly suspect and certainly *?- => *k- is
most strange. If *H1 were *h (the other possibility), I still
fail to see how a simple aspirate can end up hardening to a
velar *k in such loans.
As for *H2, I strongly feel that it was pronounced *[h.] (uvular)
given the colouring effects it had on neighbouring vowels and so I
don't see how *[h.] can become *k unless this *k were in fact *q
in Uralic.
>>That's funny. I could swear 4000 BCE for Uralic and 5000 BCE for
>>Uralic-Yukaghir.
>
>I cited Hajda for a 5000 BC terminus for p-Uralic because that date
>is based on the wide dispersal and geographic separation among
>assumed Uralic populations by that time. The only rationale I've
>seen for the 4000BC date is that it somehow locks in with the Ukraine
>theory of PIE origin - 5000BC being a difficult date to show material
>contact between p-Uralic and the usual candidates.
Well, let's see if I have this right... 5000 BCE is based on a
certain assumptive model concerning Uralic populations, while
4000 BCE is based on the assumption of a Ukraine-based IE with
Indo-Uralic exchange.
May I provide another "assumption"? Perhaps IE and Uralic were not
in direct contact with each other at all AND IndoEuropean was
in and around the Ukraine. The "loans" are then a mixture of
inherited roots and faux amis (especially the words showing
the *H1- <=> *k- correspondance).
- love gLeN
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