Re: IE *p and *b

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 50819
Date: 2007-12-09

On 2007-12-09 21:10, Rick McCallister wrote:

> An ignorant question -- could Celtic "doublets" such
> as Gaelic sron vs. Continental Celtic *fron- (source
> of Sp. fruncir, etc.) have come via *spr-

The Brittonic languages have fr- here (MWel. ffroen, OBret. fron). This
'nose' word is etymologically opaque, but there are certain cases of
*sr- becoming Goidelic sr- and Brittonic fr-, as in *sru-to/u- 'stream'
(OIr. sruith, MWel. ffrwd). The latter resembles the Lat. development of
*sr- > fr- (medially *-sr- > -br-), where the intermediate stage surely
involved non-sibilant (inter)dental fricatives like [þ, ð], acoustically
close to [f, B]. One can therefore suspect that something like the
following happened also in Brittonic (or even Gallo-Brittonic): *sr- >
*þr- > *fr-.

> Also, how about English straw(berry) vs. Latin fraga
> -could there have been an intermediate *spr- form?
> Could Latin have borrowed fraga from Celtic?

I've never given any thought to Lat. fraga. I'll have to go and check it
up somewhere. But <strawberry> comes from OE stre:aw-berige, generally
regarded as connected with stre:owian ~ stre:gan 'strew' < WGmc.
*strawwjan, ultimately from *strow-eje/o- (the meaning of the first
element was perhaps 'creeping, spreading' rather than 'straw'). I can't
see a possible connection with fraga, barring the assumption of
irregular developments and folk etymology applied on an immodest scale.

Piotr