Me:
>>Following your reasoning
>>then: Since Mandarin speakers always pronounce it as /d3/ and we
>>have /d3/ in our sound system, the idea that "Beijing" is a
>>borrowed name from Mandarin "must be abandoned".
Miguel:
> I wasn't aware that writing had been invented at the time we were
> discussing.
I wasn't aware that the topic of commonly mispronouncing foreign
words had any relevance to writing. Just another one of your
smokescreens to avoid accepting a valid point that IE speakers
could simply have just pronounced *s^idc^u as *sWeksa (> *sweks).
>>> PIE, to my knowledge, didn't have /ts/,
>>
>>Why wouldn't they?
>
> They just didn't.
Now you're just being inane. What is *po:ds? Are you going to
split hairs now because it's a *d instead of a *t? Don't be
stupid. There is so a combination *ts. Perhaps it may require
the addition of morphemes to create *ts (such as *pet- + aorist
*-s- should suffice) but it DOES SO exist so there is no reason
at all to propose your blundering rule. And "just because you
feel like it" isn't a good enough reason.
>>They could certainly have it in medial position,
>
> Examples?
Ugh. Already mentioned *po:ds for a final position dental
affricate combo. Also mentioned simple morphological rules
to attain *ts in medial position. There are probably attested
stems with ready-to-go medial *ts that I'm not aware of but
it's futile arguing against the existence of *ts, Miguel.
>>even in Mid IE, afaic. And even speaking of IE itself, how
>>would you pronounce *sedtos or *edti?
>
> /sedtos/, /edti/ later /se3tos/, /e3ti/.
Define "later". Those words had to have been pronounced with the
interloping fricative during _IE itself_ (Hittite /ezzi/ <
*edti [Etsti]). "Later" _is_ IE, although I can agree that this
fricativisation occured just before the breakup of IE. However,
the sound cluster *ts still exists in IE and earlier so there's
no point in your overly compensatory rule.
>>> Yes. Or *sWeksWu.
>>
>>No
>
> Yes, since -u is what the Semitic nominative has.
Hate to break the news to ya but IE isn't Semitic and you can
hardly take the phonetics of another completely different
language for granted in order to reconstruct an earlier stage
of IE.
Internal reconstruction, first. Comparison, second. Always.
Looking at IE internally, there is enough reason to support
final schwa, but anything more is assumptive. Since Semitic
unstressed *u /U/ and Mid IE unstressed *a /&/ are similar
enough anyways, there is no cause for alarm. In fact, I myself
pronounce "put" as /p@.../.
>>Simple: Semitic *dc^ -> IE *ks.
>
> That must be a use of the word "simple" that I wasn't previously
> aware of.
Yes, it was. The use of the word that avoids assumption whenever
possible.
>>But "_Why_ do you prefer #2?"
>
> Because Proto-Semitic is too old and to remote for it to have
> been in contact with PIE.
> Because it's more likely that a form with "advanced" features
> like gender polarization and mimation was borrowed later than a
> form without such features (both are Semitic innovations with AA,
> so we'd expect them to have arisen late rather than early).
Still doesn't make sense. Can we not date Proto-Semitic to around
6000-5500 BCE? If extended to Western Anatolia, even if it were
an almost identical para-Semitic (Semitish), your first objection
isn't a problem. Semitic would be in contact with Mid IE, which
would both be contemporaneous with each other.
Secondly, since we're dealing with Proto-Semitic itself or later
variants like North Semitic, your objection that we should find
Semitic-specific innovations "later" doesn't make sense. By the
time Mid IE is in contact with Semitic or para-Semitic, it is
fully Semitic already, complete with all the special "Semitic
innovations on AA". Your second point is moot.
>>It would most logically be easier for IE to have adopted
>>Semitic loanwords from the west than from the east
>
> Not at all. What language were the documents first showing
> evidence for Hittites/Luwians in Anatolia written in? Where did
> Mesopotamia get its metal ores from? The NW Semites weren't in
> contact with much anybody until the Phoenicians built themselves
> a fleet, but that was much later.
You're confusing Anatolian with Indo-European. The two are different
languages, and certainly different time periods altogether. The
Indo-European communities were not writing on tablets nor were
they being recorded by Semitic tribes. They were not getting
copper ore from Mesopotamia when they could get it from nearer
sources. And we can't be too sure who the NW Semites were in contact
with back then but the sea-trade had been flourishing since the
neolithic so they probably were in contact with somebody. Either
trade was coming to them, and/or they were going elsewhere and
back to trade their goods. It's unlikely that NW Semites missed
out on the biggest trade of the millenium when it was happening
on their back doorstep!
= gLeN