Dan Waniek wrote:
> So, in conclusion, what would the vocalism of Albanian declensional
> patterns, in your view, yield as a root for both _fyell_ and
> _fluier_ ?
Phew! :-)
Seriously, I don't know where you have taken the following idea from:
"I know you are a partisan of arbitrary linguistic signs and
that you abhor the fleshy multidisciplinary approaches...". If it's
supposed to mean that I don't believe in onomatopoeia, you're tilting at
a straw dummy. For formal reasons, I oppose the idea that <fyell> and
<fluier> are related in terms of descent from a common ancestor via
regular sound change. But if you claim that one of them (and perhaps the
other as well) is imitative, I can only support this view by pointing
out that the words for 'flute' in various languages are commonly
onomatopoeic, and very often (even if they are unrelated) begin with a
labial stop or fricative; moreover, they typically contain a high vowel
and often a lateral liquid (Eng. pipe, Skt. piccHora:, Lat. fistula,
OFr. flaute, etc.).
Of the two (<fyell> and <fluier>), the Romanian word is more likely to
be onomatopoeic (and unlikely to be terribly ancient). The vocalism of
<fyell>, whose /ye/ results from the secondary breaking of *รถ before a
liquid, seems to have a longer history, but the word may also be
ultimately sound-imitative. This is precisely why I refrain from
reconstructing e.g. pre-Albanian *spo:lo- or the like, although such a
form would have yielded <fyell> by regular development. I would do so
only if other IE languages had something relatable to *spo:lo- with the
meaning 'flute' (or 'reed', 'tibia', 'tube', etc.). I see no such
potential cognates at the moment, so the reconstruction would have no
explanatory value.
Piotr