Re: Re[2]: Fw: [tied] Pferd

----- Original Message -----

From: Brian M. Scott

To: fournet.arnaud

Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 7:13 AM

Subject: Re[2]: Fw: [tied] Pferd

At 3:00:32 PM on Monday, August 6, 2007, fournet.arnaud
wrote:

> The rook *kwr- for "oak" also exists in LAtin : Quercus.

Except that <quercus> is from *perkWu-.

============================

A.F : Quercus comes from supposedly *perkwu if one is to accept that

This *perkw root can link Latin quercus oak-tree with German faraha fir-tree.

Neither Germanic nor LAtin helps determine if the root starts with *p or *kw.

Cf.  numbers five, four ; wolf. 

If one is to accept this relationship between Latin and Germanic , this is all the more reason to posit a *kwer- root meaning "tree", with possible relationships beyond Celtic and Italic.

I agree that quercus must be somehow dialectal, otherwise it should be corcus, because kwe- > cô, if you look at kwel-ô > colo inhabit, till the land. 

Personnally, I prefer considering a dialectal origin of a LAtin word to accepting a remote semantic relationship between a fir-tree and an oak-tree.

(Joke : ask a child what a Christmas tree looks like)

 

As for hyrst, it does not mean oak or tree but grove.

this is fairly vague and unspecific, so that it may have nothing to do with oak.

Personnally, I would use this word neither pro nor contra.

 

I cannot see any good objection against hypothesizing *kwer-kos "oak" from LAtin and Celtic, with possible extension to Germanic, if the root means "tree".

=============================

[...]

> Note that Irish has crann "tree" and Breton" has prenn
> "tree" from *kwr-enn.

From PCelt. *kWresno- 'wood, tree', according to Matasovic,
from PIE *kWres-; OE <hyrst> is cognate, and <quercus> is
unrelated.

> Note that this root *kwr- also gives :
> - portuguese car_v_alho
> - other names of tree : charme, charmille, etc in French

<Charme> is from Latin <carpinum>. After loss of the /i/,
the group /rpn/, like most groups of three consonants not
ending in /r/ or /l/, was reduced by loss of the middle
consonant, but not before the nasal was labialized; the
result was /rm/.

=====================

A.F : so !?

These phonetic details confirm the idea that *kw_r/k_r is an obvious root for oak and some other tree names in Celtic and Italic languages.

If this was meant as an objection, I failed to understand where the objection starts.

 

Note that kwrs- is a full vowel-less base

kw_res is a Theme II base, with vowel inserted in the second "slot".

quercus has -e- vowel inserted in the first slot.

All this morphophonetic "technicality" reinforces the hypothesis for a *kw_r-s root.

 

=========================

Brian