Re: caballus, couple

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "CG" <sonno3@...> wrote:

> > I saw in Ernout-Meillet's Latin Etymological Dictionary that the
> > first attestation of the Late Latin and common
> > Romance 'caballus' "horse" (instead of inherited 'equus') was

found

> > in an inscription in a Greek colony on the Black Sea coast; its
> > appearance in time in Latin fits with the Mithridatic wars. Loans
> > (according to E & M) of that term appear in Celtic, Slavic
> > ('kopyla') and Germanic (German 'Kop').
>
> As I understand it, caballus is a loan in Latin from Celtic, not the
> other way around - coming ultimately from PIE *ka:pho-/*ko:pho-

"hoof"

> (via a suffixed form *ka:ph-l-o-/*ko:ph-l-o-, with the not-uncommon
> Celtic voicing of -p- to -b- before a liquid).
>

How do explain the appearance of the word in a Pontic environment? It
occurs neither in ancient nor modern Greek.


You both's analysis might be as true as mine. Therefore we'll have to
look at metarules that pertain to aesthetics (or rather, mental
economy), not truth, namely Occam. Which hypothesis explains the most
phenomena?



Torsten