Re: Laryngeal theory as an unnatural

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex" <alxmoeller@...> wrote:

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Richard Wordingham" <richard.wordingham@...>
> > > The variation *n ~ *r ~ *w is fully explained by
> > > the soundlaws I have proposed [*]. Secondary regularisation

to fit

> > > the regular u-stem pattern is unsurprising.
> > <Snip>
> > > [*] I'll see if I can convert my suite of (f)lex rules to

Mark's

> > > "sounds" program.
> >
> > Did you ever get round to coding them up? I'd like to have

access

> > to your encoding if you did. (Mind you, I ought to finish off

the

> > Latin to Romanian rules first.)
> >
> > Richard.
>
> common Richard, this is useless work there:-))
> there will be always a lot of exceptions since Romanian has loans

from

> Latin and its own evolution from IE.
> Remember the discution about Latin "verus"? Well all romance as

that

> "cousin" & alike from Latin. Even the German language has it and

english

> dito. Romanian has "vãr"= cousin given as comming from

Latin "verus".

> And the truth (verus) in Rom. is "adevãr" given as comming from

Latin

> "ad de verum".
> In fact the whole family relationship is just partly new

Latinised. The

> archaisms ( but still in use and in fact very alive) have their

own way.

> Take a taste:
>
> brother = frate, but the Rom. word is "fãrtat"
> sister = sorã, but the ancient word is "suratã"

The problem being, I suppose, the surprising use of the Latin
suffix -a:tus (m.), -a:ta (f.), giving *fra:tra:tus and *soro:ra:ta,
which would have yielded *frãtrat and *sururatã. I always find it
disappointing to have to invoke dissimilation or haplology.

I must admit "sorã" puzzles me. Thank goodness you can assure me
it's a loan.

> mother and father is "mamã" and "tatã" nothing from mater and pater

English 'mummy' and 'daddy' aren't exactly Germanic. Latin
for 'mummy' is _mamma_, which also means 'teat'. What are the
Romanian words for 'mother' and 'mummy'? My _English_ Etymlogical
dictionary give the Romanian as "muma". When I applied the rules,
Rule 3 at message 18147 gives mâmã. If -mm- were another exception
to the environment, I would get mamã.

> child is simply "copil" which I put in the same top with Latin

'Kid' isn't exactly English; it's Norse. And English 'child' rather
isolated in Germanic. In the same grade (the e-grade) there are
Gothic kilþei 'womb' and zero-grade Scandinavian forms primarily
meaning the young of animals rather than human child. There don't
appear to be any South Germanic cognates.

> "copulare" and one like it or not the penis is simply "pulã" which
> seems to fit the relation copulare but of course cannot derive from
> Latin,

Back formation being ruled out. I presume there's no connection
with Latin pellere 'push' or pullus 'young animal'.

they belonging to the same more older root, IE or

> "mediteraneean".

> Thus in the very close family relationship there is no Latin stuff
> there.

As you can see, I'm not convinced.

> Interesant, there seems to be indeed directly from Latin the
> other words which means the extension of the family like

father/mother

> in law, etc. The whole point here is to delimitate indeed the Latin
> loans from the inherited words. But this is the very difficult

thing

> when some languages are close related.

>
> I gave these examples just for showing that you cannot derive in a
> regular way the "fãrtat" from "fratris" and "suratã"

from "sororis",

I'll concede that they're not regular. But then, English 'father'
from Old English _fæder_ isn't regular either. And the stress of
PIE *ma:te:r varies from branch to branch.

> this is why I am talking about loans from Latin and inherited lexic
> which must be sorted out. And after one sorts it out, it remains

enough

> Latin there:-))

And to that end it helps enormously to know how the Latin element
has developed.

Richard.