Re: The palatal sham :) (Re: [tied] Re: Albanian (1))

On Mon, 02 Feb 2004 17:29:34 -0800 (PST), enlil@... wrote:

>Miguel:
>> If /s^/ was borrowed as /sW/, *s^ids^ must have been borrowed
>> initially as sWetsW ~ sWeksW.
>
>If you want me to listen to your preaching that we should not follow
>preconceived notions, you should at least walk the talk. Since there is
>absolutely (and I mean _absolutely_) no evidence for *-ks once being
>**ts(W), why theorize it?

Because if we don't assume a development ds^ > ts > ks, the Semitic
borrowing hypothesis must be abandoned.

>Why theorize a mysterious and completely
>hypothetical dialect of early IE that changed **ts(W) to **ks(W)? Loans
>can be misheard, making for unexpected changes in the recipient language.

When a word is borrowed, it's usually adapted to the phonotactics of the
recipient language (your "misheard"). PIE, to my knowledge, didn't have
/ts/, so it's conceivable that the word was changed so that it included the
cluster /ks/ instead. That's all I'm saying.

>I could come half-way with you and say that the original form could have
>been *sWeksWa,

Yes. Or *sWeksWu.

>since it is clear that IE did not allow labialized phonemes
>in final position.

It did allow them, but labialization was lost in consonant clusters. Cf.
Armenian nom.pl. -k` < *-esW vs. acc.pl. -s < *-ns < *-m-s.

>> And how is that in contradiction to what I said?
>
>You were speaking of not succumbing to preconceived notions. Your
>preconceived notion is, among other things, that *ks in *sweks must derive
>from earlier **ts(W). This is a preconceived notion because there is
>nothing in IE that suggests this. This is just your own whim. Therefore,
>you contradict your own sermon.

I don't understand what your problem is. We have Semitic /dc^/ or /ds^/,
we have PIE /k^s/. What do *you* suggest the development was?

>I compare quotes from Miguel in different posts
>>>> I mentioned East Semitic and North-West Semitic together (they
>>>> both share the development *s > *s^).
>>>> [...]
>> As I said, not in East Semitic (Akk. sebettum).
>
>Nope that looks like a contradiction. East Semitic could not have
>shared the development of *s > *s^ if Akkadian has /sebettum/,
>not */s^ebettum/. Is it any wonder I don't understand you?

You weren't paying attention. Here's another quote:

[*] note that "7" is irregular in East Semitic: we have <sebe> for expected
*<s^ebe>.

>At any rate, I can agree with you that *sweks and *septm could be loaned
>from different times and/or different Semitic dialects.

Why not? It's obvious. If the two words had been borrowed through the
same channel, we would have had **sekstm. and *septm. (c.q. **swekstm. and
**sweptm.), or **seks and **seb (c.q. *sweks and **sweb).

If we assume that (pre-)PIE borrowed Semitic /s^/ as *sw and Semitic /s/ as
*s, and that this did not change through time, we have the following
possibilities:

1) *septm. was borrowed from Proto-Semitic *sab`-atu-m
*sweks was borrowed later proto-North Semitic *s^idc^-u

2) *sweks was borrowed from proto-North Semitic *s^idc^-u
*septm. was borrowed later from East Semitic *seb(`)-etu-m

I much prefer (2).


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...