On 2007-09-25 19:27, fournet.arnaud wrote:
> I have studied the matter better than you think :
> Chinese quan3 from *kuH2on is a loanword.
> Nothing fortuitous.
More's the pity that the *h2 is incompatible with the way the word
behaves in IE. Incidentally, the Old Chinese pronunciation is given as
something more or less like *kHWir by the new school of OCh.
reconstruction (Sagart); it matches regularly the Tibeto-Burman forms
(*kW&j or the like). Chinese gou3 is regarded as an early loan from
Proto-Hmnong-Mien *klu, unconnected with the Tibeto-Burman words.
> If you accept "honey" *mjit was borrowed from Tokharian :
> then it means Tokharian had things like i: or yi as nucleus.
> I let the specialists ponder what it means for (proto-)Tokharian
There isn't much to ponder upon. Proto-Tocharian consonants were
palatalised before front vowels: *medHu > *m'etHu > PToch. *m'&t& > TB
mit. The PToch. form is a perfect match for MCh. *mjit. It's precisely
the palatal glide before the vowel that poits to Tocharian as the source.
Piotr