[tied] Re: Eggs from birds and swift horses (was: the palatal sham)

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

> The problem with irrational criticism is that it doesn't really

matter

> how solid your evidence is or how purist you are about not

including any

> uncertain material. And who cares, anyway? If a theory really

works,

> people will slowly come round to accept it. It may appear unfair

that

> "laws" established on less secure evidence or marred by still
> unexplained irregularities (e.g. Winter's Law) are nevertheless
> considered kosher by most historical linguists while your infix

theory

> apparently isn't, but it's neither the first nor the last fine

idea to

> have been given an undeservedly cold reception. I don't mean to

flatter

> you, but it's a really well-argued proposal. I accept it, at any

rate,

> which I suppose gives me a licence for experimenting with it :-)

I thank you very much for these very kind words which are highly
appreciated.

>
> You yourself give examples of environments (*o-hC-V-, *o-rC-V-)

that

> prevent the *-o- from appearing in its usual position.

Yes, I did that because I thought I was forced to it by very
suiggestive etymologies. I do not see the same in your examples.

> > Advice is not related to throw by any obvious connection,
>
> <boule:> also means 'will, determination, design' etc., and that's

close

> to various figurative meanings of <ballo:> ('conclude', 'put in

mind'

> and the like). Cf. the semantics of Latin (-)mitto:.

I am no more daft than I can understand that the etymology *may* be
right, but we need something that *must* if we are to make whole new
rules.

>
> > and Gk. ple:- is also the result of zero-grade (which Ved.

pári:man-

> > is not).
>
> True, but where you really _can_ tell the reconstructible pre-

Greek full

> grade is *pleh1-, not *pelh1- (thus in *pleh1-jos- and *pleh1-isto-

, as

> well as *pleh1-tu- if Birgit Olsen's theory is correct). *pelh1-

is easy

> to explain as a secondary full grade to *pl.h1-, eliminating the
> awkwardness of the latter's samprasarana status.

You are changing the subject: *plH1- is the zero-grade of both
*pleH1- and *pelH1-, and in both cases it yields Greek /ple:-/; so
when you find /ple:-/ in Greek you cannot know whether it is from
*pleH1- as you hope, or from *plH1- as you hope not. Therefore, the
example is invalid in this context.

> > [...] I actually have included this; my finding was that the "o-

derivative"

> > from *gWyeH3- was PIE *gWiH3w-ó-s 'living'.
>
> How about Slavic *gojI 'welfare, peace' (*gWoih3-o-s)?

That will be from *renewed* *gWoyH3-o-s. These must be two layers in
the treatment of the same morphological class. The other examples I
have found of the old type are *g^nH3w-o-s (Lat. gna:vus 'well-
behaved', semantically like French 'sage') and *prH3w-o-s 'first'.
All three are from roots of the structure *TReH3-. I suppose there
was some phonetic interference between the infixal consonant and the
surrounding sounds which changed the sequence *-ROH3- into *-RH3w-
(or what developed like it). I wouldn't know what a suffix *-wo-
would be doing here.

Since tomos-derivatives retained their productivity, later
formations get -o- in its synchronically expected place. The old
phonologically regular forms are then only retained in lexicalized
survivals (the same story as with the "preaspiration" thing).

There is a troublesome complementarity in this: We only get regular
examples of old stock if they have changed their original meaning
enough to survive unrepaired; and then we cannot diagnose them with
certainty, since they are lacking in semantic exactitude. That can
be very frustrating.

Jens