Re: root *pVs- for cat

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...> wrote:

>
> At 10:18:08 AM on Friday, July 20, 2007, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> >>> You seem to have left out a number of non-foreign pairs
> >>> of items in p-/b- in McBain:
>
> [...]
>
> >>> babag "tassle" / pab "shag, refuse of flax"
>
> >> It's distinctly disingenuous to call this non-foreign
> >> when you've read the <pab> entry in McBain. <Babag> is a
> >> diminutive of <bab>, which may be from ME; <pab> is from
> >> EIr <pop(p)> 'a shoot, a tendril (of a plant), also
> >> <pap>, which may be from Latin.
>
> > This is McBain's pab-entry:
> > "
> > pab, shag, refuse of flax, woolly hair, and (M'A.) tassel
> > (= bab), M. Ir. papp, popp, sprig, tuft, E. Ir. popp,
> > bunch, which Stokes refers to a Celtic *bobbú-,
> > *bhobh-nú-, from *bhobh, *bhabh, Lat. faba, bean, Gr.
> > pomphós, blister, pémpiks, bubble, Lettic bamba, ball, I.
> > E. bhembho-, inflate. Eng. bob, cluster, bunch, appears in
> > the 14th century, and Sc. has bob, bab correspondingly ;
> > the Gadelic and Eng. are clearly connected, but which
> > borrowed it is hard to say. The meaning of pab as "shag,
> > flax refuse" appears in the Sc. pab, pob. Borrowing from
> > Lat. papula, pimple, root pap, swell, has been suggested.
> > "
>
> Precisely: McBain explicitly notes the possibility of ME,
> MScots, or Latin origin. (My comment on EIr <pop(p)> is
> based on the DIL.) Therefore it is at least disingenuous
> (and I would say downright dishonest) to offer <babag> and
> <pab> without qualification as 'non-foreign' items when
> citing only McBain.

The decision what was foreign and non-foreign was mine. I accepted as
foreign what was obviously from French or Latin and which was
non-foreign in that language. 'Pab' failed that criterion.

> After reading the rest of your post, it occurred to me to
> wonder whether 'non-foreign' was an error for 'non-native',
> but that doesn't seem to help, since some of your examples
> aren't clearly non-native.

??

> > Let's first reiterate our positions:
> > I think the Celtic p-/b-words are borrowed from some
> > substrate language. You think they, if borrowed, are
> > borrowed from a classical language (loans in p- from
> > English can only be indirect, since they are foreign in
> > Germanic too).
>
> I've not taken a position;

You follow standard procedure by not considering a local, non-Germanic
source for Celtic words in p-; that's a position.

> I've simply addressed the shortcomings of most of your evidence.
> Oh, yes, I also
> agreed with someone -- Rick, if I remember correctly -- that
> the apparently greater frequency of examples in Sc.Gael.
> than in Irish could well be due to the Sc.Gael. realization
> of /b d g/ as unaspirated [p t k].

Yes you did. Is that a position? How is this relevant?

[...]

>
> >> McBain also notes that Thurneysen took the Sc.Ga[e]l.
> >> word to be a borrowing from French.
>
> > I am not aware of a Latin pedigree for that word.
>
> That's odd, since McBain gives the Latin pedigree suggested
> by Thurneysen.

You must mean French broche, Latin *brocca. The asterisk means that
the word is not documented in Latin. The geminate makes it unlikely
there ever was one. Further, cf.
http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/KuhnText/28prang-dr_ngen-dr_cken.html

> > If it exists in French, Sc. and Sc.Gael. it must be of
> > NWBlock or similar origin.
>
> If it's a borrowing from French in Scots and Sc.Gael., its
> presence in Scots and Sc.Gael. tells you nothing about its
> provenance.

That's right, if it's a borrowing, but the fact before us is their
existence in those languages; that they are there because of borrowing
must be argued for.

> [...]
>
> >>> biorraid/pioraid "hat, cap"
>
> >> McBain notes that this is from English <biretta>, from
> >> Late Latin <birretum>; the DIL s.v. <birrét> makes it a
> >> Latin or Romance loanword. In any case it's clearly not
> >> native.
>
> And therefore your claim that it is 'non-foreign' in
> Sc.Gael. is false.


> > Ernout-Meillet:
> > "
> > birrus, -i: (byrrus) m. (et birrum Gloss.): capote à
> > capuchon, en tissu raide et à poils longs, en usage dans
> > toutes les classes sous les derniers empereurs. Le grec a
> > aussi bírros. Sans doute mot d'emprunt; cf. Hesych. bérros
> > beíron dasú, birroks: dasú Makedónes; ou irl. -berr, gall.
> > byrr "court", qui irait assez avec la définition de CGL V
> > 410,80 byrrus cuculla breuis; cf. Thurneysen, Fetschr.
> > Kuhn, 8a. M.L. 1117a. Sans rapport sans doute avec birrus
> > "roux", doublet de burrus
> > "
> > It's clearly not native in Latin either.
>
> So what? Irrespective of the details of transmission, EIr
> <birrét>, Irish <bairéad> (also <birréad> and Donegal
> <bearád>), Sc.Gael. <biorraid> and <pioraid>, English
> <biretta>, etc. are all from late Lat. <birretum>, from
> <birrus> 'a hooded cloak'. The b-/p- alternation in
> Sc.Gael. is pretty clearly a Sc.Gael. innovation, whatever
> the source of Lat. <birrus> (which may in fact be Celtic).

I'm willing to accept Romance ancestry on that one because of the
diminutive -et- suffix, which isn't NW'Block; but then there's Danish
bør "old hat".


Torsten