Re: Cognates & etymology of English net

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

>
> On 2007-12-03 23:05, alexandru_mg3 wrote:
>
> > Romanian/Albanian nëpërkë <
> > *Dacian *neperka: < [k < tk; n < sn] <
> > *Early-Dacian *(s)ne-*pertka: <
> > PIE *(s)nh1-e *pert-(i)k-eh2
> > with the original meaning 'horned viper' too...
>
> I have a few objections to this:

I think the basic idea sounds fine, even if a few changes need to be
made.

> (1) Morphological: *(s)nh1- is the reduced form of a _verb root_
> (meaning approximately 'spin, twist'). No snake, anywhere, is called
> *(s)neh1-; Latin, Celtic and Germanic all have a *-tor-/*tr-ih2

agent noun.

Consider the possibility of (semi)haplology:

L > *natrica pertica > *nartica pertica > *napertica etc.

A similar series could be used for other borrowings, or maybe even a
native compound from a descriptive noun + adj. phrase.

> (2) Phonological: Why do you posit *e as a connecting vowel in a
> compound? Where are such compounds attested? Why wasn't this *e
> diphthongised to /ja/? And why is the *n asyllabic in this position?

> (3) Semantic: In IE endocentric compounds the second, not the first
> element is the head, i.e. an adder with a horn would have been called a
> "horn-adder", not an "adder-horn".

I wouldn't put this word's origin in PIE times, but it's not
impossible that it could be very old.