From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 39432
Date: 2005-07-25
----- Original Message -----
From: "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2005 5:52 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Compound Roots? (was: Short and long vowels)
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
<richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "elmeras2000" <jer@...> wrote:
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
> > <richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
>
> > > I can see only two objections:
> > >
> > > a) Polysyllabic stems
> > > b) Unpredictability of stress.
> >
> > The
> > desired extra vowels have been put in just for this purpose. As
I
> > have just written in a response to Tom Brophey, the monosyllabic
> > nature of the IE root is not a thing to be given up lightly.
>
> > > There are many roots currently reconstructed as ending in *-
h2g^
> > which
> > > may actually be compounds of *h2eg^ (make that **hag^) 'lead',
so
> > it
> > > is not obvious that these are insuperable objections.
> > >
> > > So what is the problem with these roots?
> >
> > What "many roots" are you talking about? Would (Pokorny-
notation)
> > *pa:g^/k^- 'fix' be a compound? Would *wa:g^- 'split'? Of course
> > everything has a prehistory, but is it always transparent to us?
>
> 'Many' does seem to be an overstatement. I thought the lists I'd
seen
> were longer. There's been some previous discussion here,
epitomised
> by http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/24015 and
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/23999 . Neither
> *pa:g^/k^- 'fix' nor *wa:g^- 'split' was listed in those postings.
>
> Incidentally, are there any deeper thoughts on the origin of
> *pa:g^/k^- 'fix'? I'd like to show it's unrelated to the
> Proto-Malayo-Polynesian roots *ipen / *lipen / *nipen / *ngipen
> 'tooth'. The question arose when I was trying to show that English
> _fang_ and Thai _fan_ 'tooth' were totally unrelated. Thai _fan_
> appears to derive from a proto-form very close to *lipen ( -
> proto-form cited as *l-p&n for the Kra branch, with & = schwa), and
> the Austronesian element in Thai appears to be closely related to
PMP.
> I'm not completely sure the -n- seen in various derivatives of PIE
> *pa:g^/k^ is *historically*, as opposed to synchronically, an
infix.
> I can't convince myself that pnh2g^ > pah2g^ didn't happen in pre-
PIE.
>
***
Patrick:
For whatever it may be worth, I analyze *pa:k^- as *pa?-, 'flat' +
*k(^)(h)e, 'work', yielding *páHk^(h)- or *pá:k^(h)-. It is cognate with
Egyptian pH (for *pjH), 'reach ('come into contact with')'.
A second root is *pa:g^- which is *pa?- 'flat' + *ng(^)e, 'gum', yielding
*páH(n)g^- or *pá:(n)g^.
The idea of the first of 'force together', the second, 'glue together'.