Miguel:
> It's not a case of "mishearing" at all. It's "misreading".
> Clearly that's irrelevant to the question of early
> Semitic-IE contacts.
You can find your own appropriate examples then. All I'm
trying to say is that we may speak of "tendencies" but
certainly not "sound correspondances" as we do with mutually
related languages. There is a tendency for Sem *s^ => IE *sw
or Sem *q => IE *q but it's not always the case nor should
we expect so.
>>>>> PIE, to my knowledge, didn't have /ts/,
>
> PIE didn't have /ts/ within a single morpheme.
Compare the two quotes. Solution: Be more accurate next time
to avoid further confusion. Yes, no "single morpheme" but
there WERE instances of *ts, whether seperated by morpheme
boundaries or not. Don't split hairs. Semitic *dc^ was
evidently heard as *ks. Unless you can effectively demonstrate
otherwise, there's nothing to discuss. So far, you're merely
restating unattested assertions ad nauseum -- Please stop that.
We see *sweks, never **swets. So you must deal with that fact
or supply _internal_ evidence to justify your silly rule.
> [...] s^idc^- to s^iks^- [...] It may have happened in an
> intermediary language.
Yes, this is true but I refuse to take on your responsibility
of supporting yet another baseless assumption. Pray tell WHAT
intermediary language? Exactly. You don't know. You assume.
Sem *dc^ => IE *ks remains the default, unassumptive and
therefore superior solution until you can work out your
theory better.
> Other than in the case of "7", where a borrowing directly
> from Semitic is likely, in the case of "6" the likelihood that
> the borrowing was indirect is much greater, given the total
> lack of Semitic morphology.
The "lack" of Semitic morphology in *sweks is a false issue.
It is also senseless to conclude that both "6" and "7", being
in differing gender forms, shows that the two numerals were
borrowed at different times. Not necessarily so, and I've just
mentioned numerological possibilities. You're jumping the gun
and assuming everything and the kitchen sink. Slow down.
>>Can we not date Proto-Semitic to around 6000-5500 BCE?
>
> Surely not. I would put the (Pre-)Proto-Semitic area in
> Palestine, [...] [9th millennium, [...]
This cannot be supported seriously. Putting aside the fact
that Semitic is not sufficiently diverse to even consider
such a ludicrous date, reconstructions like *kaspu "silver",
*ti?n- "olive", *kuna:t_- "emmer", *h.int- "wheat", *s'i`a:r-
"barley", *`inab- "grape", *gapn- "vines" and *wayn- "wine"
negate your untenable point of view completely. You must
have got this ugly brainstorm based on archaeology alone.
> There never was, or at least there's not a shred of evidence
> for, significant Semitic presence in Western Anatolia.
Then why the Semitic loans in language groups all situated in
Eastern Europe like IE and Tyrrhenian? Why does everything
show overwhelmingly a spread of culture and genetics from the
Middle-East into Anatolia and Europe without a single language
doing the same spread? All your conclusions, unmainstream as
they are already, run counter to common sense. Would you dare
say that Catal Huyuk had no influence from the south such
as older cities like Jericho?
> I don't think so. Gender polarity was used inconsistently in
> the oldest NW Semitic sorces (Ugaritic), which might indicate
> that it was a recent innovation at the time, [...]
_Might_ indicate. And yes, other BETTER solutions are possible.
Since gender polarity is a feature of AfroAsiatic based on
Cushitic evidence, I should likewise say "I don't think so"
back.
> All of which means that a form *sab`atum (the undeniable
> source of *septm.) can only be East Semitic.
That's a weak arguement. Mimation IS a feature of Common
Semitic. So we accept that *sab`atum is from Common Semitic
or a para-Semitic of that time period.
> The NW Semitic area had early contacts with Egypt, but did
> not interact much with regions to the North.
What are you talking about now? Are you denying cultural
spread from Western Turkey into Europe. You couldn't possibly,
so you must accept that much. And we know that there is earlier
southern influence into Anatolia... so we have a sturdy chain
to support the linguistic movement I'm taking about. I'm
saying that the North Semitic area or at least a para-Semitic
at the time of the neolithic must have been further north.
Certainly with words like *`inab-, this idea is made even more
likely.
= gLeN