--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-
language@...> wrote:
[Jens:]
> You don't? Fair enough. The word for "earth" is Hitt. tekan,
gen.
> tagnas, which must represent a more original form of the
paradigm
> which was changed in the other branches by introduction of the
> product of the cluster *d(h)g^h- as it had been in the locative,
**d
> (h)g^h-ém(-i) > IE *g^h{th}ém(-i) (Ved. ks.ámi). This is one of
the
> mainstays of the understanding of the "thorn" clusters in IE. It
is
> of course also one of the basic arguments for an Indo-Hittite
model,
> indicating as it does that Anatolian was the first branch to
split
> away from the IE unity. This is all classical knowledge by now.
[Patrick:]
> Some very competent linguists of the past (Benveniste, for one)
looked at the disconnect between Hittite and _ALL_ the other IE-
derived languages, and concluded that Hittite introduced the
metathesis; so the original form was *g^h-Dem- (I will use -D for
bar-d, thorn).
[Jens:]
Did he really? Then he was wrong, and everyone who has chosen to
follow him has been wrong too.
[Patrick:]
> In order for _ALL_ the other IE-derived languages to have made
the metathesis instead of Hittite, we are forced to assume a
theoretical unity of _ALL_ non-Hittite languages which is barely
theoretically possible but highly unlikely.
[Jens:]
That amounts to a very strong load of praise to those who saw this,
the only viable solution, anyway. It goes to the credit of a series
of scholars, including Paul Kretschmer, Brandenstein, Burrow and
Schindler. The still living representatives Jón Gunnarsson and
V.V.Ivanov might take a bow on behalf of all. I wouldn't say with
reference to any of these or any other scholars, " And if you have
never heard his name, you are simply underread for this discussion
and discussion list: this is not Sprachenkindergarten." I for one am
not above giving a free class to someone who needs it; I would have
preferred a more pleasant climate of discussion, though.
[Jens:]
The fact is that the Anatolian paradigms are of a more archaic
makeup than the one unanimously pointed to by the other branches. In
fact, the Hittite paradigm has precisely the ablauting
(amphikinetic) structure one would assume as the starting point of
the levelled "zero-grade of root plus ablaut of suffix"-structure
seen in Greek, Indo-Iranian, Old Irish, Balto-Slavic and Albanian.
You may do wisely to consult the relevant paragraphs of the
introductions by Szemerényi, Meier-Brügger or Fortson. Our mutual
hero Sihler uses it correctly too.
[Patrick:]
> As far as "classical knowledge" is concerned, "classical
knowledge" once held the world was flat although there were, at all
times, those who asserted it was round.
[Jens:]
And therefore you stick to good old preclassical lack of knowledge.
I refuse to follow.
[Patrick:]
> Frankly, just the initial premise is preposterous.
[Jens:]
What do you mean by this? What premise?
[Patrick:]
But then to explain it, as you seem to be doing, by an _ALL_ non-
Hittite response to the phonological shape generated by the word in
the locative (really just an adjectival form) case, compounds
preposterousness with sheer incredibility.
[Jens:]
The locative of a word meaning `earth' is hardly something marginal.
In an amphikinetic paradigm the loc.sg. should have the structure *d
(h)g^h-ém(-i) with zero-grade of the root and accented e-grade of
the suffix. The form may be endingless or extended by the ending *-i
(Vedic has both ks.ám and ks.ámi). Melchert has published an
interpretation of Luwian /inzgan/ as meaning `into the earth' in
which in- is the preposition *H1en- `in', and z(a)gan is the old
accusative which he posits as Anatolian *dzg^ó:m, identical with
Ved. ks.á:m and Avest. zaNm. I find it more likely that zgan is the
endingless locative, if need be in the syntactic use as a Wohin-
Kasus which is not uncommon in Hittite. In that case there would
have been some development in the direction of assibilation or
affrication in the locative, the only case where the oldest paradigm
had a real cluster, in all the IE we have. But even here the
transposition of the dental or sibilant part (the "thorn" part) to
the final position of the cluster was posterior to the separation of
Anatolian from the rest of IE.
[Patrick:]
> What on Earth leads you (or anyone else) to think that *g^h-Dém-
i- would, in any way, merit a different phonological deveopmental
response from *g^h-Dém-??? This, by itself, is highly suspect.
[Jens:]
Could you explain what you are referring to? It seems you should be
marched ack to your desk to read again and be ashamed. As a special
service, you need only look above.
[]
[Jens:]
Out of kindness, I snip something here.
[Patrick:]
To my way of thinking, *-Dg^h- has no advantage whatsoever over *g^h-
D- as an initial cluster. Tell me what advantage you imagine here.
And forget about thorn. If our understanfing of thorn is based on
the premises mentioned above, the problem desperately needs a new
look.
[Jens:]
Your way of thinking would not account for the facts of Hittite:
nom.-acc. te:kan has a vowel between the dental and the velar, and
the two come in that order. The two consonants are not contiguous,
so there is no reason to assume they have switched places. That is
evidence for the order of the elements. Luwian has tiyammi-s from
*De:g-om- with the usual weakening of g-sounds. The order of the
elements also perspires, as Miguel points out, from the cases where
one of the stops is lost, because then it is always the velar that
remains which must then have been the second element. There is a
fine little list if examples of this; the ones I remember are: Ved.
turí:ya- 'fourth', IE *k^m.tóm '100', Gk. kteíno:/kaíno: 'kill', Gk.
khamaí (and cognates).
[Patrick:]
> You asked in an earlier posting about the "proof" for <*dh> in
the word: Greek <th> is the regular response to PIE <*dh>; and the
Greek reflex is khthó:n.
[Jens:]
You don't say? Well, Greek has no opposition between the reflexes of
d + gh and dh + gh, so its output /khth/ cannot show whether, in
this case, it is from *dg^h or from *dhg^h. It is however possiblé
that Tocharian A tkam. (B kem.) excludes *d which is generally lost
in clusters; however, that language could still hold its surprises.
If reliable this would mean the denbtal involved in 'earth' is
aspirated *dh (*t is excluded because of the iE root structure
constraints).
[Patrick:]
> It is an gross example of inbred pedantic scholastic thinking in
its very worst sense to reconstruct a PIE phone (thorn) to explain
the aberrant reponses to *dh in this cluster for the sake of three
or four words. I do not believe I have ever seen a reputable table
of PIE sounds that included it.
[Jens:]
Out of sheer unkindness, I let those words stand as you wrote them.
I have seen thorn being treated many times, practically always as a
problem of phonemicization. Brugmann posited [{th}], [{dh}], [{dh}h]
in complementary distribution; he didn't care much about phonemes,
and he assumed IE age of Bartholomae's law. The problem with "thorn"
is of course whether it should be ranked a phoneme, a question one
cannot really decide for an imperfectly known language. For the
earliest stage of the "Remainder-IE" left when Anatolian (and
Tocharian?) had left the unity, it is even more aggravating. Could
there be a case of *t + *k at that node that would not end up as
Greek /kt/, Sanskrit /ks./, Latin /s/? The Sanskrit sandhi product
of t s'- is c ch-, not anything like k s.-, so the matter is not
just trivial. The core of it is perhaps just one of temperament: We
are still some who do not want to say more than we believe we know.
I have made it my habit to specify the thorn examples by using the
Icelandic "thorn" for all combinations, because there is no
opposition between "thorn" and "edh" or even "aspirated edh". I do
not want to write the presumed input to the clustering if I do not
know what it was.
[Patrick:]
> The proper method is to reconstruct it as you seem to be doing
above as *g^hdhém-, and then seek to explain the aberrant reflexes
of _this_ cluster. This in no way necessitates or even makes
desirable the postulation of a new phone which is simply diletante.
[Jens:]
You are really putting your foot in it, aren't you? A new "phone" it
certainly was, discussion may be had over its phonemic status. It
does not seem to be an independent *morphophoneme*.
[Patrick:]
> I have come to expect a much higher level of argumentation from
you, Jens, and this line of reasoning seems, itself, 'aberrant' to
me.
[Patrick:]
> I have my own ideas about this word and its original
significance; and I think it is mandatory to incorporate into the
semantic and phonological explanation the relationship of
*g^hdhyés, 'yesterday', and *g^hdhu:, 'fish' to *g^hdhem-.
[Jens:]
This sounds alarming; tell me nothing about it.
[Patrick:]
> Sorry to have to be so negative but I am really disappointed.
[Jens:]
I wish I could say the same.
[Patrick:]
> Now when you write back to tell me what an idiot I am, just
remember, you are tarring Benveniste with the same brush.
[Jens:]
*Nobody's* mistakes should be accepted when they have been made out
to be that. Benveniste earned his laurels elsewhere.
Jens