Re: [tied] Why Would IE Wait?

The usual reservations concerning linguistic palaeontology apply. The 'wheel' word *kWekWlo- does not occur in Anatolian, nor does the 'plough' (or rather 'ard') word *h2arH-tro- (also with *-tlo- and *-dHlo-, which strongly suggests independent derivation of nomina instrumenti from the verb *h2arH-je- 'plough, till' with productive suffixes). Hittite has the root <hars-> (e.g. <harsawar> 'work in the field'), but even if related it doesn't suggest anything more beyond the existence of *h2arH(-s)- or the like meaning 'till, break, turn up (the ground)' with whatever simple tool was available to the *IEs (a pointed digging-stick would have sufficed, I suppose).

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: x99lynx@...

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Monday, April 22, 2002 9:32 PM

Subject: [tied] Why Would IE Wait?

The existence in *PIE (note the asterisk) of terms for the wheel and plow bring up matters of the original semantics, the nature of early borrowing and the fact that such linguistic dating is totally dependent on archaeology. If these two words fell out of the sky on the exact C-14 date that the actual, verified first and unprecedented wheel and plow, born full-bore out of someone's neolithic brain, then there may be a case. Otherewise there is a bit of speculation to this particular piece of paleolinguistics. (I don't know how Piotr feels about this.)