From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 39403
Date: 2005-07-24
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Brophey" <TBrophey@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 24, 2005 3:36 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Short and long vowels
> Patrick,
> Where do *dhugH2ter- and *pH2ter- come from? And why are they
> reduced grade while *bhra:ter- and *ma:ter- are not?
>
> Tom
***
Patrick:
Tom, I addressed these differences in a proposal I made on list, Januay 28,
2005, entitled "The 'Mother' Problem".
I will first quote from it, thenattempt to answer your question directly.
===
"I would like to propose as a way to understand these anomalies that we
attempt to analyze the components of these compounds.
The first element I would propose to identify in the four words
designating members of the nuclear family is *H2éH2{e}-ter, 'fire', itself a
compound (a reduplication of **H2e-, '**bright' [cf. 4. *a:y-, 'burn'] + 3.
*ter-, '*make' [cf. Gk. toreía, 'preparation of embossed work in stone or
metal']).
This would, of course, yield *á:tr.-.
The camp-fire is an appropriate symbol for the nuclear family that
gathered around it.
If combined with *bheH2r-, 'what protrudes, **male genital', we obtain
*bhar- + *á:tr.-, which would give *bhrá:tr.-, 'male part of the family'. To
connect it with 1. *bher- is rather too broad. What, pray tell, did the
primeval son 'carry'?
I propose another gender designation underlies 'daughter' instead of
connecting it with 'milking' through *dheugh-.
Though 'milking' is certainly a related concept, I propose the better
identification of *dheugh- is 'pair of breasts', seen darkly in English
'dug'; and that the other meanings are denominal.
If combined with *dheugh-, 'pair of breasts', we obtain *dheugh- +
*á:tr.-, which would give *dhughá:tr.-, '(pair of) breasts of the family'.
Compounds of this kind are rare in IE but Ind. prá-pada, 'tip of the
foot', can be cited.
Explicit reference to distinguishing sexual characteristics is quite
common in languages around the world to designate male and female.
By contrast, I propose that the designations for 'mother' and 'father'
were functional rather than descriptive.
I suggest the basis for *ma:tér- is not 3. *ma:-, 'mother', but rather
*am{m}a-, '**nurser' (*H2e-me-H2e-me, 'family-breast' {reduplicated})
through **am{ma:}-á:tr.-. Though I employ *H2 for the reconstruction of both
'bright(ness)' and 'family', I believe the former was phonetically /ha/ and
the latter /?a/. Therefore, I question the reconstruction of *ma:tér-, and
believe it is accented in Indian to pattern with [pitár] but that this
accent is not original. It should be reconstructed as *má:tr.-.
Finally, we have 'father', the 'feeder'. Rather than connecting it with
*pa:-, I would connect it with the derived root *p6-t- (*pH2-té-), which,
when combined, gives us *pH2-t-á:tr.-. For euphony, this was simplified to
*pH2{t}-tér."
===
The short answer to your question is that the two sets have different
antecedents,
+ -*tér, occupational suffix, for *(am)ma:tér and *pa(:)(t)-tér.
+ -*á:tR, fire(side), for bhrá:tR and dhughá:tR; mechanically, we have
zero-grade of the first and third syllables with stress-accent on the first
syllable of the compounding element.
I am sure that everyone will agree that there can be nothing but educated
guesses here.
Unfortunately, the two major sources I use for attempting to triangulate
earlier forms, Egyptian and Sumerian, have nothing to contribute for these
words.
Patrick