Re: [tied] *kap-

----- Original Message -----
From: "etherman23" <etherman23@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 8:52 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] *kap-


> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> > >
> > > I don't retract my suggestion that *xopiti is a loan.
> >
> > The question is from where. Kuhn has examples of NWBlock words with
> > only partial application of Grimm.
> >
> > Haps! is Danish too.
>
> Ehret reconstructs a couple PAA roots that look quite similar with
> similar semantics. The are *k'ab (k' is an ejective) and *gaf. In
> pre-Proto-Semitic we have for the first *k'-b. I don't think a Semitic
> borrowing is out of the question.

***
Patrick:

No borrowing is ever out of the question completely as some future
etymologist will, no doubt, exclaim when he sees what the Japanese have made
of 'McDonald's'; however, why should we consider a loan until all ancestral
possibilities have been thoroughly rejected? If I understand the question,
the major problem with *kap- for some is two voiceless stops in the root, a
PIE no-no. Without boring you with details, I suspect strongly that the word
should be reconstructed as **k(h)a(:)p- from a pre-PIE *kho?ap-, which would
radically change the root form. By itself, *kap- implies *kaHp- or *k(h)ap-,
leading to **ka:p- since *a cannot be maintained in PIE without having
undergone (temporary) lengthening through either a laryngeal or lost and
compensated aspiration.

***