Re: The role of analogy, alliteration and sandhi in counting

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex" <alxmoeller@...> wrote:

> tgpedersen wrote:
> > A loose idea (as usual): Suppose the substrate language of NW

Europe

> > (Pre-IE Nordwestblock) had dialect variations p/kW. That result

in

> > doublet (p/kW) loanwords in the successor IE languages (example:
> > http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/pd.html , check the

Cushitic

> > forms, and *panna/*kanna?),

*pag-/*pak-/*ka:k- (Danish 'kag' (ka:G), Swedish 'kåk' (kå:k),
Dutch 'kaak' "pole, pillory"
And in a comment to 'kåge' "look", Norw., Sw. dial. 'koga', Sw
dial. 'koka' (cf. English peek): "As so often otherwise, next to
this root with guttural auslaut, there exists a synonymous one
ending in labial: OHG 'kâpfen' "look"."

> > perhaps to the point where the
> > Sprachgefühl demanded "resolution", preferring p-forms over kW-

forms

> > or vice versa, whereupon the same preference spread to th rest

of the

> > language? Is this a good way to explain the Irish 'cothrige'-

forms?

> >
>
> I don't believe in a substrate of NW-Europe, Pre-IE Nordwestblock

as being

> the factor for this cahnge. We see the alternance in Celtic ( Q

verus P), we

> see the alternance in East Of Europea ( Anicent Illiric/Thracian
> Ulkiana/Ulpiana), we stil have this alternance living in Rom

so "NW-Europe"

> is not singular for a such afirmation. Apparently

the "sprachgefühl" should

> fit more better but it will have the disavantage of letting

uncovered the

> "scientific" aspect of the thing. The phonetic change of "kW"

to "p" cann be

> just one way I think:
>
> -the lost of velar and consonating of the frontal "w" to a clean

labial,

> thus kW > W > b/p
>

The non-IE (as opposed to the later IE) Nordwestblock language is
probably identical to Kuhn's ar-/ur- language, although he is not
very clear on this point. That language is found in scattered
instances also in Eastern Europe. Kuhn himself thinks there is
somehow a connection between the kW/p alternations in Celtic, in
Dutch/German and Latin/Osco-Umbrian, the latter he since imagines
several emigration waves from the Nordwestblock to Italy.


Torsten