--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
>
> On 2006-09-22 10:01, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > It gets more difficult that that. Here's what Schrijver has in 'Lost
> > Languages in Northern Europe':
> >
> > Proto-Saami *ku:ti-
> > Norwegian Lappish guttâ 'fish roe, fish sausage'
> >
> > *ku:ti- or a derived *ku:tian-.
> > Middle Low German ku:t, ku:te,
> > Modern Low German (dialect of Mecklenburg)
> > kü(h)t 'entrails, weak parts of the animal body,
> > roe, calf of the leg'
> > Middle Dutch cute, cuut, kiet, kijte
> > Modern Icelandic kut-magi 'fish stomach'
> > kýta 'fish stomach, roe'
> > Frisian ku:t 'roe, calf
> >
> > *kunt-:
> > Middle Low German kunte,
> > Dutch kont,
> > English cunt 'buttocks, cunnus'
> >
> > *kutt-:
> > Dutch kut 'cunnus',
> > Bavarian kütze 'part of intestines',
> > Middle High German kotze 'prostitute',
> > Middle Low German kutte 'cunnus'
> >
> > and from elsewhere
> > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/34933
> > Finnish kusi, gSg kuden "piss"
> > Danish kusse "cunnus"
> > Da. kød, Sw kött "meat"
> > Eng. chitlings
> >
> > EIEC's *kutsós, *kutsnós is a Notbehelf
> >
> > cf. Da. fisse, Sw fitta, ON fuT, German Votze.
> > Same -tt-/-ss- variation that looks like it
> > goes back to dialectal variants of PIE t + t
> > (as in Chatti, cassis, hatt, ho:d-,
> > mado, Motte, mattuc (with NWBlock suffix))
>
> *kut-tó- and *kut-nó- are simply two alternative ways of forming a
> verbal adjective in PIE. The latter is probably older with roots
> ending in a stop, but the former was more productive and must
> have been gaining ground at the expense of its rival already in
> the protolanguage, hence occasional doublets of this kind. The
> change *-tt- > *-ss- is characteristic of the whole western fringe
> of IE (Germanic, Italic, Celtic) and there's every reason to
> believe that any lost branches in that region knew it as well.
> As for me, the <cunnus> connection is more persuasive than those
> fishy links with Saami, and I'd rather suspect a loan from Germanic
> into Finnish than the other way round in this case (and in this
> lexical field allowance must be made for taboo distortions and
> folk etymologies).
I'll read that as: and that is a reason to believe ...
If we assume that every lost branch in NWEurope had -tt- > -ss-
we will have to separate the words in -tt- from those in -ss- or
account for them as taboo distortions. I find it strange that the
taboo distortion in both words went -ss- -> -tt-, ie. back to
where it had come from. I don't think your restriction holds.
I hadn't proposed a loan from Finno-Ugric, and Schrijver downright
denies it. The 'hand' word, with a similar -t- : -s- : -nt-
distribution is restricted to Finno-Ugric proper, it doesn't
occur in Samoyedic.
> At any rate *kut-nó- etc. makes sense in terms
> of IE morphology ('that which is covered/hidden'). See also the
> O-derivative *skout-áh2 'concealment, protective covering', possibly
> underlying PGmc. *skauðo: > OIc. skauð 'sheath'
Related with s-mobile to these roots:
(Angela della Volpe: Indo-European Architectural Terms)
"
To cite only a few examples, scholars reconstruct a late
Proto-Indo-European o-grade root noun, *k^ouH2-os from a root
(1) *k^euH2- with the meaning of 'swell, vault, hole'. This root is
attested, for example, in MIr. cûa, Lat. cavus, Gk. kóos, all lexemes
with the meaning of 'hollow'. Among the suffixed forms of this root
are PIE *k^ow-H-lo- in Gk. koîlos 'hollow' (<*kówilos), Myc. ko-wi-ro,
Alb. thellë 'deep' and a zero-grade suffixed form *k^u-m-olo-, Lat.
cumulus 'heap'. Also listed, though separately, by Pokorny (1959:588)
is a root
(2) *keu-H- 'bend, arch' with the extended proto-form *keu(H)-b/p-
evident in Lith. kaupas, OCS kupu 'heap' OE he:ap; OHG hu:fo 'heap'
Gmc. hu:fi, OE hyf, 'hive', OS hu:va, OHG hu:ba 'bonnet'; and with
zero-grade, Gk. kupséle: 'hollow, chest, vessel'. Yet, the
realizations mainly in o-grade and zero- grade of the first root (1)
*k^eu-(H)-, and the s-mobile of the third root
(3) *(s)keu-(H)- suggest that further investigation is needed to
explore the notion that these may be polysemic forms. Support for this
stance is the semantic shifts of the second root (2) *keu-H- 'bend,
arch'.7
Further reference to roundish or apsidal structures are the parallel
developments of the PIE root *ge:u- 'bend' and its extended forms.
Thus, PIE *gup- is evident in ON kofi 'room', OHG kubisi 'hovel', OE
cofa 'cove, bed chamber' Gk. gúpe: 'nest'. Evidence of the PIE root
with a t-extension is found in Lat. gutur 'throat', Gk. gúe:s 'bent
wood of the plow' gúalon 'hollow' OIc. kúla 'knob, hump', Latv. guzma
'heap', MHG ku:te 'hole, pit hole', Norw. dialect kota 'pothole', but
also 'hut of branches', OE cytwer 'fishnet'.
"
An unholy mess of *g- and *k- forms which don't follow the division
lines between Germanic and the rest as they should. It can't all be
taboo distortions (and are they to be preferred for methodological
reasons over substrate words?)
Check out again the Kuhn quote in
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/46126
Torsten