[tied] Re: morsha

From: stlatos
Message: 49861
Date: 2007-09-08

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
>
> On 2007-09-07 22:14, stlatos wrote:

> > Changing theories is fine, of course, but you've done so in the past
> > without telling anyone (on the list) and seemed to expect me to know.
> > For example, I was arguing that Ktl > Ksl in various IE languages; in
> > your last post on the subject you argued against such (saying veslo <
> > *wes^tlo+, -dlo- MUST come from *-dhlo-,
>
> Where did I say so? Certainly not in my last post on the subject.


At the time you said you believed Ktl > Ksl, I looked at the last
post on Cybalist in which you discussed it (with Jens Elmegaard
Rasmussen); in that:


--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

> Slavic has generalised *-dlo-. Since it's hard to believe that
Slavic *d
> should have developed out of *tH, you seem to be suggesting that *-dlo-
> is a reflex of *-tlo- (with assimilatory voicing?). However, apart from
> this morpheme, old *tl survives unchanged in Slavic, and even in the
> instrumental suffix we have occasional traces of *-tlo- in words with
> obscured morphological divisions: *veslo 'oar' (which I'd suggest comes
> from *vez-tlo < *weg^H-tlom), *c^islo 'number' < *c^it-tlo, *teslo
> 'adze' *tes-tlo < *tek^T-tlom


The next time you mentioned these (in response to my arguments
concerning Ktl):


--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

> Some other examples:
>
> *weg^H-tlom (*'implement for propulsion') > *wek^þlo- > *wekslo- >
> ve:lum 'sail' (vexillum 'flag'); cf. Sl. *veslo 'oar'.
>
> *h2ag^-tlah2 (*'lever' >) 'upper arm, shoulder' > *h2ak^þlah2 > Lat.
> a:la 'wing' (axilla 'little wing, armpit'); cf. Gmc. *axslo:. Compare
> the similar development in *h2ak^-tlah2 'whetstone' > Sl. *osla.
>
> *te(t)k^-tlah2 'carpenter's tool' > *tek^þlo- > Sl. *tesla 'adze', Gmc.
> *Texslo:

You made a complete turnaround without mentioning it on this list.
That's fine, but I had no way of knowing it then, so I had kept
attempting to give evidence I thought was good enough while you
remained silent (apparently unconvinced, as I assume you usually are
by my theories).

I would have prefered to have been told this earlier so I could move
on to other aspects of my theory, but there was a lot going on at the
time so I couldn't blame you for talking about other things first or
forgetting you hadn't mentioned this where I was likely to know about it.

However, when I looked back in the archives to learn about your
specific views and theories in an attempt to learn enough to provide
specific evidence to get you to modify or discard them I found a
number of times when you disagreed with a theory at a time, then the
next time it's mentioned you're arguing for it. For example:


--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:
>
> 21-01-04 02:18, Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen wrote:
>
> > Hey, you don't *really* mean "*-dHlom" with a voiced aspirate? Has
my poor
> > wife Birgit Olsen been preaching in vain that the IE alternation was
> > *-tlo-/*-thlo- (after roots without liquids) ~ *-tro-/-thro-
(after roots
> > containing a liquid), in both cases with the aspirate restricted
to the
> > position after non-syllabified laryngeals H1 and H2?
> >
> > Balto-Slavic has generalized -l- and so is of little value for the
> > assessment of the distribution of the liquids. Since Baltic has only
> > *-tl-, I would suppose Slavic -dl- is the product of IE *-tl-.
> >
> > There are no examples of *-dhlo-/*-dhro- following a voiced
aspirate known
> > to me. The reconstruction with a voiced aspirate seems only to be
a myth.
> >
> > Don't get the tenor of this note wrong. Birgit's thesis is not above
> > criticism, so if she is wrong, let's hear what exactly is amiss.


> I'd like to discuss it, actually. It's ingenious, but I have my doubts.
> One uneasy aspect of this explanation, as far as I'm concerned, is that
> it depends so heavily on the testimony of Latin (<po:culum> vs.
> <pa:bulum>), but doesn't work consistently even there. Apart from the
> *-tlom- suffix and the suggested interpretation of <ple:b-> (and Gk.
> ple:tHu-) as *pleh1-tw- (I have to say I particularly like this
one), is
> there any independent reason for thinking that *tH developed into a
> voiced sound in Latin? One has to resort to analogy to explain away
> quite a lot of counterevidence. OK, let's admit that *mah2te:r and
> *bHrah2te:r may owe their unaspirated *t to the analogy of *p&2te:r and
> *dHug&2te:r (already in PIE). But why don't we ever find *-to:r or
> *-tr-ih2- with reflexes of *tH, in Latin or any other language where
> they could be seen (Greek, Sanskrit)? Lat. terebra apparently shows
> vocalised *&1 (if what we see in the second syllable is a laryngeal at
> all). What is it analogous to? *tr.h1-tro-, unattested in Latin? What
> about <stabulum>, where vocalised *&2- must be assumed?
>
> Slavic has generalised *-dlo-. Since it's hard to believe that
Slavic *d
> should have developed out of *tH, you seem to be suggesting that *-dlo-
> is a reflex of *-tlo- (with assimilatory voicing?). However, apart from
> this morpheme, old *tl survives unchanged in Slavic, and even in the
> instrumental suffix we have occasional traces of *-tlo- in words with
> obscured morphological divisions: *veslo 'oar' (which I'd suggest comes
> from *vez-tlo < *weg^H-tlom), *c^islo 'number' < *c^it-tlo, *teslo
> 'adze' *tes-tlo < *tek^T-tlom (there are only isolated traces of
> *-tro-). Isn't it more realistic to assume that Balto-Slavic had both
> *-tla- and *-d(H)la-, and that either the one or the other was
> generalised in the descendant groups? Which of course would mean PIE
> *-tlo-/*-dHlo-.

Yet when I gave criticisms of the theory much less severe than those
above, you argued against any modification whatsoever. Then both you
and gens gave different timings, whether H+syl. caused t>tH or not,
etc., that I wasn't sure what kind of arguments to make to whome,
especially after many of my requests for clarification went unanswered
(and yours to Jens, also). So when I looked back to get more info.
that you might have given in the past, I was surprised to only see
your arguments against, with no reason for you changing your mind.
Even the ev. I gave you against the theory matches some of what you
gave for the same purpose, but you never indicated that any of it was
of any worth, saying something like "analogy then, analogy of another
type later, then maybe some more for good measure" to explain all
problems.

I'm just not sure why you changed your mind so thoroughly in favor
of this theory that my differences in timing and environment can't
even be considered, even though they leave much less analogy and
explain the restricted environments the rule's found in in each IE
language.


I came
> round to accepting Birgit Olsen's analysis of the instrumental
suffix as
> *-t(H)Ro- a few years ago and haven't changed my mind since.

You may say you accepted the theory, but when you later talked to me
you argued that it occurred before the syllabification of H, contrary
to what Jens says above. Later, he gave yet another set of
modifications, and I don't know where you and he (or Olsen) stand in
regards to timing and environment. I hope you understand why I would
have trouble giving specific ev. to argue against PIE timing, and why
I need to request clarification or notification of your changing views.

> As for
> *veslo, see the link below. That's still my current opinion.

> > (a search
> > here showed nothing from you accepting Ksl).

> What I have accepted all along is the "thorny" treatment of
*-K(^)tl- as
> originally proposed by Benedicte Nielsen, I think.
>
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/48965

I know about that message; it's the one in which you first said this
to me, and happened after I gave arguments for Ktl > Ksl. I didn't
say you switched at that time, just that I had no way of knowing it.
Your previous message on the subject is above (*wes^tlo+), so it
wasn't "all along", that's the only thing I had ever seen you say
about it. If you said more away from Cybalist, I'd be unlikely to
have seen it.

> I have been familiar with this proposal for some time and didn't switch
> to it in the middle of our discussion. I have mentioned it here before.

When I said "a search here showed nothing from you accepting Ksl"
I meant previous to you telling me in the middle of that discussion.
I didn't have to search to find that; you sent it to me. That's why I
looked back to see what you had said before.

> > But do you still say phallos < *bhl,no+ << *bh()lon+ ( << *bh()lo+
> > or dir. << stem)?
>
> Yes.
>
> > What about phalos? Why both ll and l?
>
> Both? <pHallós> 'phallus' is always written with double <l>. <pHalos>
> 'horn of a helmet' is a different word.

But thalos and thallos are; I'm sure you're thoroughly familiar with
all the means through which one word can split into two due to option
rules, dialect mixing, etc.

I thought only the accent on -o- was known, was the accent on -a-
just a mistake or from some other dia.?