---- Original Message ----
From: Sergejus Tarasovas
To:
cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2006 9:23 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] "Fish" in Slavic
>> The Toporov's hypothesis (on a link between "ryba" and "*re,b-"
>> 'colourful, spotted') is also inconvincible because of both
phonetical
>> and semantic problems, especially y2 (y : e,) is problematic.
> It is, but cf. Slav. *ly''ko, Lith. lùnkas, Latv. lûks, OPruss.
> <lunkan> 'bast' for the possibility of Slav. *y'' < *nH,*mH in
> inlaut.
> Sergei
Why I have termed y2 problematic? Because of too little examples for,
and because of some examples against. One could also expect the
parallel change ìn > i (i.e. long i in Slavic) to occur, and I have
collected both groups together.
1) Lith. brìnkstu, brìnkti "to swell, to distend" - Slovene
zabré,kniti, Polish nabrze,kac'. This is an example against.
2) Lith. gýsla "sinew", dialectal gí,sla - Russ. z^ila, Polish z.yl/a
"vein" (also "string in meat, sinew"). This example is problematic as
-n- may be unetymological here but see the lynx affair below with the
same problem. And, -sl- is permitted in Slavic and it should have
preserved if it had been after a vowel. It makes the presence of n
probable, and it would be an example for.
3) Lith. glìnda "nit" - Croat gnji"da, Polish gnida etc. It could be
another positive example but no languages except Baltic show (the
second) -n-. See OE hnitu without any traces of the second n, the same
Greek konís, konídos, Albanian thëni etc.
4) Lith. jùngas "yoke" - Slovene igô, Czech jho < *jIgo. The
Lithuanian form may be influenced by a related verb, and some Slavic
facts point to short -i-.
5) Lith. lùnkas - Russ. lyko, Croat li"ko "bast". This is the most
plausible example I have found.
6) Lith. mìnks^tas "soft" - Old Slovene mekàk, Russ. mjágkij, mjágok,
fem. mjagká, Polish mie,kki. I have problems with intonation here.
But if Lith. -ìn- < *nH, this would be an example against.
7) Lith. mìnti "tread" - Polish mia,c' "crumple, crash", Slovene méti
"to grate". This is an example which contradicts the hypothesis.
8) Lith. tìnti "to sharpen a scythe" - Pol. cia,c', Slovene té.ti "to
cut". As above.
[does anyone know more?]
So, one for, one against, several unclear... It is too little to
formulate a sound rule, in my opinion. But the fact that *re,b- has
never existed probably is of more importance. And even if I believe in
phonetic processes like i:N > i:, u:N > u:, and also a:i, a:u > a: in
Slavic, I do not believe in existence of *re,b-, and, as the result, in
any relation between "ryba" and Russian "rjaboj" (= Slavic *jere,b- :
*jare,b- : *ore,b-).
---- Original Message ----
From: Piotr Gasiorowski
To:
cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, July 21, 2006 10:22 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] "Fish" in Slavic
> Cf., possibly, *lunk^- > Lith. lú:s^is, Slavic *rysI 'lynx' with a
> hard-to-explain *r in the onset.
I see no real trouble here. First, many words develop irregularly, and
finding another means nothing special. I thing that finding reasons
why *l- > r- here is just like wasting time. In fact, this
as-if-hard-to-explain phenomenon is much more simple than, for
example, explanation why the Polish name for Urtica is pokrzywa and
not koprzywa (as it was in the past), or how Germanic dialects could
lost some initial sounds in the word "fox" (the view that fox < *puks
and other IE names for fox are not related is just naive), or even
how Old Greek alo:pe:ks could yield New Greek alepou.
> Inherited *CunC is a rare combination,
> since the normal PIE syllabification of //wn//, at least between
> obstruents, was *[wn.] rather than *[un].
But what points at *lunk^-? In fact, very few facts.
- Russian rys', Serbian/Croat ri"s, Slovene ri^s show no traces of *n,
- Lith. lú:s^is, Latv. lu~sis, OPruss. luysis (uncertain) show no traces of
*n, even if there are dialects that have it,
- OHG luhs (now Luchs), Old Swedish ló < *luxsu-, *luxa- (x like in IPA)
show no traces of *n,
- MIrish lug also is not any evidence for *n,
- Armenian lusanunk' has two -n-'s but none on the right place; in fact lus-
< *luk^-, not *lunk^-
- and finally only Greek has lyn,x, gen. lyn,kos and lyn,gos (-n,- spelt
with gamma of course)
Even leaving the variation k/g in Greek (secondary and
unetymological), why should we believe that -n- in Greek and
(partially) Baltic is not secondary? Which is more, one could expect
Grek **lax < **lwak- < IE *lwn.k-, rather than lynx.
Or even **la:k-, taking into consideration the view that Baltic and
Slavic forms must have come from *lunHk^- and not *lunk^-
> The latter appears regularly
> when the *n reflects the nasal infix in a *CeuC- root(presumably, in
> such cases *CunC derives from earlier *CuC-n- via metathesis).
Or, -n- is earlier than the suffix extension -C2.
> In *lunk^- the occurrence of the "forbidden" combination
> must be due to the initial liquid (*lwn.k^- would have violated
> a still higher-ranking phonotactic prohibition); thus also in your
> 'bast' example (see OInd. lun^c^ati 'peel, tear off')
> which means that PIE *(C)runC should also be possible.
> Piotr
IMHO, the explanation is much simpler.
1) the *l > r process was irregular (similarly like in many other words,
especially in names of animals) and, as such, needs no explanation (cf. also
Lith. glìnda "nit" with *n > l, above),
2) the Early Slavic word *lu:sis was influenced by the adjective *ru:sas
"russet, red, ginger, reddish" (cf. Czech rysý, Sorbian rysy (both Upper and
Lower), Polish rysawy (now rather dialectal, oldish, or bookish)),
3) the change of *lu:sis into *ru:sis may also be caused by taboo (ie.
"lynx" was changed into "ginger red", cf. a similar change of "bear" into
"brown" in Germanic, "shaggy" in Baltic and "honey eater", and even "cow"
into "a horned one" in Slavic).
Grzegorz J.
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