Re: full (was: swallow vs. nightingale)

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

From: Richard Wordingham

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Sunday, December 09, 2007 5:09 PM

Subject: [tied] Re: full (was: swallow vs. nightingale)

--- In cybalist@... s.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@ ...>
wrote:
>
> For PIE, the root *pAl-, where *A is the Ablaut vowel (*e/*o/*ø),
does mean 'fill/full'.
>
> But it also means 'drive', 'dust/meal', 'fold', 'cover', 'pot',
'buy', 'gray', 'burn', and 'flat' (*pela:).
>
> I cannot believe it is _not_ useful to be able to distinguish among
them by recovering an earlier form, wherever it is possible.
>
> This word, 'fill/full', apparently drives from the idea of the
inflation that occurs when a skin bag has either air or liquid/solid
put in it.
>
> If we allow that Sumerian is related, then Sumerian bul, bul-4, and
bul-5, 'inflate', indicate that the vowel which became PIE *A in this
word was earlier *o/*u. That is why, among other reasons, I
reconstruct *PHO-NHA as a preceding form: *po/ul.

But why shouldn't this be associated with PIE *bHel 'grow, spread,
swell' instead?

***

Richard:

In my opinion, the nuance of *bhel- is 'grow by spreading out in various directions'.

If my correspondences have any validity, I would expect Sumerian **pil, which is, however, not found.

However, Sumerian has bulug^ (3/5), 'grow'.  This may be equivalent to PIE *bhlew- if *bhel-, from which *bhlew- is derived, if it is a doublet of *bel-, 'strong'.   Then Sumerian **bulag^, through vowel assimilation, would have become *bulug^.   

Sumerian, like Armenian, etc. changes *w to *g(^) under certain circumstances.

Patrick

***

> If we are willing to expand our sights to PIE *(s)p(h)el-, 'split,
split off, tear off', we can compare Sumerian pe-el (for pi+il(i)-5 =
*pil), 'dig, excavate'. If this is valid, it tells us that the form
preceding *(s)p(h)el- was *PHFE-NHA: *pe/il-.
>
> With this latter, we can compare Arabic falaHa, 'cultivate, till'.
With the former, Arabic ?aflaHa, 'prosperous' .

(FalaHa has cognates in Aramaic and Hebrew).

Or indeed yet other Semitic extensions with a meaning of 'cut' or
'divide' - p-l-q, p-l-x, p-l-g, p-l-y.

***

Definitely, yes.

 

Patrick

 

***

Going further afield, one might suspect that the key idea here is
actually 'two' - see http://www.angelfir e.com/rant/ tgpedersen/ Opr.html .

***

Quite possible.

 

PCR

***

> There are a number of prefixes like ?a- that can be added to Arabic
verbs to produce various nuances of the basic verbal idea but note:
these are added to triliterals. ?a to f-l-H.

> Your idea that prefixes can be added to biliterals, which hardly
exist in Arabic, such as H-, r-, ?a to f-l. which preserves its
meaning of 'fill/full' is totally contrary to established theory.

You surprise me. I can find an account (e.g.
http://starling. rinet.ru/ Texts/semroot. pdf ) which states that 'w, y,
?' (and, with hesitations, much less common t, &#661; and h)' can, as a
historical rather than synchronic process, be added to a biliteral
root in any of the three positions, apparently without changing the
meaning. In the same paper, Miltarev goes on to list the following as
'fossilised formants', i.e. possibly having meaning: m, n, t, r, l, ?,
h, b and k. These he says are basically restricted to initial and
final position.

Richard.

***

Militarev considers a geminate like z-q-q a biliteral root; I do not. For me, it is triliteral.

In any case, thank you for the reference. I will read it (58 pages) and comment if appropriate.

 

Patrick

***