Re: Germanic KW

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
>
> > There's dissimilation in some branches (l>0 or l>n)
> > and t>s between l_l (sim. to *pYuLtLos 'very small
> > (child/animal) > L pusillus 'very small' but
> > analogical (with *pYutLos > pullus) putillus
> > 'nestling').
>
> You can find that root or something like it all over western Europa
> in the vague general sense of "dirty/women's work". I don't think
> it's safe to assign a PIE origin to it.
> http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/KuhnText/09paut-faulen.html
>
>http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/KuhnText/18pun-geschw_r.html
> http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/KuhnText/22pusl-klein.html
> http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/KuhnText/23pust-blasen.html
> http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/pu.html
> Basque mutil "boy" (supposedly from Latin putillo-),
> MDa. pusill, Sw.dial. pysil "little boy, fellow"
> Da. pusle "nurse; potter about",
> Germ. dial posseln, bosseln "potter about"
> Da. pog, Scanian påg "boy", cf Engl. puck
> Finn. poika, Votyak pi, Vogul püw, "boy", Mordvin pijo (=
> grandchild)
> Est. poiss, -i "boy", poeg "son"
> Eng. boy?

Now if p- > m- wasn't only Basque, then this might be relevant:
Palmer, The Latin Language, p. 171
"
Certain characteristic features of later Latin mentioned in the
preceding analysis, some of which have survived in Romance, are
attested also in Early Latin, but are absent from the language of
classical authors. This phenomenon of the 'classical gap' was
discussed long ago by F. Marx. fabulari, for example, as we saw in
Chapter IV, was constantly used by the writers of comedy as one of the
colloquial words for dicere. It was avoided by Caesar and Cicero, yet
that it remained in constant colloquial use is evident from the fact
that it survives today in Spanish hablar. Yet another Spanish word
mozo (Portuguese moço) 'lad' derives from musteus, mustus being a
rustic word meaning 'new, fresh' which in Cato used of a young lamb
and in Naevius of a girl (virgo). But classical literature knows only
the substantivized mustum, 'new wine'.
"

Ernout-Meillet calls mustus 'terme de la langue rustique' and 'sans
étymologie claire'.


Torsten