[tied] Re: Pre-Germanic speculation

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

> 30-10-03 11:38, Marco Moretti wrote:
>
> > These suffixes are not necessarily Anatolian. But they are surely

of

> > non-IE origin and very widespread in pre-IE toponymy. They are
> > substratum item. In Etruscan they were still productive in common
> > words such as am-inth, calu-s (pl. calu-s-ur, adject. calu-s-na,

all

> > derived from calu), etc...
> > Also the Thracian suffix -intho- is a substratum feature.
>
> Why? Because you say so? Judging from the attested Thracian

vocabulary,

> the language had a stop system with a fortis/lenis (rather than

simply

> voiceless/voiced) contrast, which is why Greek loans often show

<tH> for

> Thracian fortis /t/ and hesitate between <t> and <d> to represent
> Thracian lenis /d/. As far as I can see, <-intHo-> may simply be IE
> *-n.t-o- filtered through Thracian itself or through an IE language
> closely related to Thracian. I'm willing to admit other analyses in
> individual cases, but I don't care much for the practice of dumping
> together all cases of Gk. -intHo- as "non-IE" ("Pelasgian" or

whatever).

So, as for you, Etruscan doesn't exist.
In Thracian bolinthos, "aurochs", there is -inthos, but it hardly can
be some kind of participial suffix.

> The same, a fortiori, goes for Gk. -ss-, which can derive from a

number

> of sources, including native ones (< *-tj-, *-dHj-, *-kj-, etc.).
>
> > Germanic *-und- comes from IE *-ntó- in IE words such as Gothic
> > fijands, frijonds, and so on, but in toponyms it may derive from
> > different sources.
>
> This is just another stipulation. It may, but does it?

It does. For example, there is Harund in Norway, that derives from
the roor *kar-, "rock".

> > This *sam- may be unrelated with Saami, Suomi, due to phonetic
> > difficulties, but this doesn't imply that this *sam- is IE.
> > What IE cognate do you have for Sams ??? Your arguments suffer of
> > severe difficulties.
>
> _All_ my arguments? :-) Look, I'm not a specialist in Danish

onomastics.

> I can't pretend I have a convincing etymology up my sleeve, though

of

> course *sam- _could_ be Germanic (if anything, we need more data to
> constrain the inevitable embarras de richesse, since more than one
> possibility could be considered). One ought to examine all the

available

> historical evidence (especially the oldest attested forms of a

name)

> before even beginning to speculate; otherwise one's practically

bound to

> make foolish mistakes. If Torsten, or anyone else, can provide some
> reliable historical info on Samsø, we can discuss the name.

Otherwise a

> discussion makes no sense.

Not _ALL_ your arguments, in general, but only your arguments about
this toponym Samsø. If you have no clear etymology for it, whatever
you say of a Germanic *sam- in it makes no sense. I only affirmed the
non-IE, pre-Germanic nature of the item, without linking it with
something else. Perhaps the protoform of Samsø was more convoluted,
but it remains clearly non-IE.

Marco