Re: [tied] All of creation in Six and Seven

Glen,

If I recall correctly, you once posited the existence of "Semitish",
a sort of para-proto-semitic, which influencing PIE. If the term for
seven was borrowed by PIE speakers from Semitish rather than from
Proto-Semitic how would that affect your argument below? Might not
the accents or number of syllables be different?

Regards,
Ned Smith

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...>
wrote:

>
> Miguel:
> >Hebrew has lost final (short) vowels, so penultimate accent

becomes final.

>
> Just like in IE... sorry, just had to rub that in.
>
>
> >To return to the word for "7", the Semitic reflexes would seem to

suggest

> >accentuation on the second syllable *sab`átu, in view of the

reduction of

> >the first -a- to /i/ in Hebrew s^ib`a: (besides s^ab`a:), Aramaic

s^ib`a:,

> >and to /ä/ in Amharic säbatt.
>
> Well, I don't know about *sab`átu. I'm counting on *sáb`atu. The
> question is: What can we be sure of about the relevant stage of
> Pre-IE when this loan took place (or rather what can _I_ be sure of
> because most of us on this List aren't getting involved enough in

Pre-IE

> to know what to be sure of)? I do know that Mid IE at the time
> must have had a strong stress accent, for one, to explain the strong
> evidence of heavy syncope by Late IE. This is a natural and commonly
> found conclusion.
>
> If the accent were on the second syllable, it would have to be a

mild

> enough accent for IE speakers at the time to have failed noticing

not

> only the second -a-, but the ayin as well! Based on my analysis,

there's

> no reason to think that Mid IE didn't have laryngeals while Late IE

did.

> It's simpler to assume that the laryngeals were there unless a

reason

> otherwise presents itself -- just Occam's Razor again. Yet where is
> that entire second syllable in Semitic represented in IE?
>
> It's not there because the Semitic form was indeed *sáb`atum. In
> rapid speech, we could expect something like *[sab'`(@)tHm] The
> Pre-IE rules that I propose are strict but simple and explanatory.

Yet

> there is nothing that can credibly change a Mid IE form **sepxátem
> (the expected reflex of *sab`átum) or even **sepxtem into
> *septm without inventing a whole new host of ad hoc rules for
> both accent AND phonology just for this one special case. That
> would be too Miguelian a solution for me and I wouldn't be able
> to live with myself :) In other words, this thought path is

outright

> fruitless.
>
> The absence of this second syllable in Mid IE *septem, the only
> form that can properly explain later *septm, would indicate strongly
> that the accent at the time was on the first syllable in the Semitic
> language that IE had borrowed from. And so, thus was the stress
> accent in Mid IE, as well as Late IE until syllabic nasals had

developped

> and the accent had shifted to a fully mobile one.
>
> This is the most economical solution available.
>
>
> = gLeN
>
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