Re: [tied] West bird

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
wrote:

>
> On 2006-01-25 16:31, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > There's no way around assuming that the two are examples of the

same

> > type of morphological construct, therefore, if a *ni-zd- is

something

> > you sit down on, then an *o-zd- is something you sit on, not

something

> > that sits on something else. And on branches not much else sits

but

> > birds.
>
> Well, there's always the possibility that *hosdos (Hitt. hasd-wer-
> 'branch' requires *h2 or *h3) contains an indivisible root *hosd-

(the

> structure of the Hittite word would be more consistent with such a
> solution). The connection between birds and nests is undeniable.
>Birds
> _make_ nests, after all; they don't merely sit in them.

Good point, if someone had denied that connection. Ex my hypothese
PIE *sed- meant originally not "sit", but "chicken-sit", if you'll
pardon the expression.

>Sanskrit even
> has the athematic compound <ni-s.ad-> 'sitting motionless',

Where did 'motionless' come from? Perhaps from an original
sense 'roost'?

>with
> agentive *-sed-, which is just what we would expect to underlie

*nisdos.

Erh, and therefore ... ?

> There is no such evident connection in the case of the 'branch'

word,

> though of course I admit it as a possibility.

The battle of the PIE Urheimat has determined, if not much else,
that they had no monkeys around, which was the other possibility.
Using 'perch' for 'branch' seems natural enough for me.


Torsten