From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 54592
Date: 2008-03-03
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" <miguelc@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, March 03, 2008 4:03 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] PIE 'inflected' Compounds
> On Mon, 3 Mar 2008 08:22:05 -0600, "Patrick Ryan"
> <proto-language@...> wrote:
>
> >I believe this suggestion has great merit; and I propose that we can find
> >another example of such a locative in *bhoi-dhe:(H)-, 'put (someone) in
> >fear', 'scare'.
> >
> >After much discussion of metathesis and other considerations, I presently
> >believe the best reconstruction of 'be afraid' is *bhó:(H)(e)y-.
>
> I would rather reconstruct *bheh2i- "to fear", of the same
> type as e.g. *dheh1i- "to suck", with variants *bheh2i-,
> *bheih2-, *bheh2-. The perfect *(bhe-)bhoih2- "to be
> afraid" is the only productive formation outside of
> Indo-Iranian.
***
On the face of it, there is certainly nothing objectionable about your basic
argument.
I have yet to understand why you prefer *H2 rather than *H1 or *H3 but this
is actually a small matter to me since I reject coloring 'laryngeals'.
Quite aside from other considerations, what is decisive for me is:
1) I believe Pokorny's *bho:i- is a correct reconstruction of a root in
which an earlier *o-quality vowel was preserved by lengthening through *H:
*bho:(H)i-.
2) The Lithuanian <baidýti> requires *bhoi-; you seek to accomplish that by
supposing a perfect form; but in order to make that viable, you must provide
for a suffixed *dh(e:(H))- and additionally, a causative -*ye. It is obvious
why you want *dhe:(h)- to be able to mean 'make': so you can interpret
*bhoidh- as 'make to be afraid' but 'make to ...' is nothing more than a
causative; and if this were a correct analysis of <baidýti>, we would have a
causative (-*ye) added to a causative (-*dhe:(H)-).
I find that impossible.
Lacking an explanation for *bhoi- as a perfect, my suggestion of an original
*bho:(H)i- has to be preferable.
***
> >From this, we would expect zero-grade *bh&y-, a form mentioned by Pokorny
> >as
> >*bh&i-.
>
> A vocalized laryngeal is impossible here. The only possible
> zero-grades are *bhh2i- (> *bhi-) and *bhih2- (> *bhi:-).
> The forms with *bhai(h2)- that Pokorny sought to explain by
> positing an impossible zero-grade +bh&i- are simply perfects
> based on *(bhe-)bhoih2- in languages that merge /o/ and /a/.
***
Who says a vocalized laryngeal is impossible in *bh&y-?
Your perfect solution, as I have shown above, is quite imperfect.
***
> >[...]
> >Along the way, Miguel mentioned that he believed PIE *dhe:(H)- had the
> >wider
> >meaning of 'make, do' as developed in Germanic languages;
>
> Ved. dádha:ti 'setzt, schafft hin, macht'
> Lith. dé:ti 'legen, setzen, machen'
> OCS dêjati 'tun'
> Lat. facere 'machen' (also Oscan, Umbrian, Venetic)
> Phryg. ad-daket 'macht'
>
> >I reject this
> >suggestion categorically. If we cannot interpret PIE *dhe:(H)- as 'place'
> >or
> >'put', then, in my opinion, we are misunderstanding the phrase or
> >context.
>
> The verb baidýti was coined within Lithuanian, so the only
> relevant circumstance is what *dheh1- means in Lithuanian
> (c.q. Baltic).
>
> =======================
> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
> miguelc@...
***
If you want to persuade anyone that *dhe:(H)- can mean 'make, do' in a
compound, produce one or two PIE compounds in which this meaning is mandated
semantically. Citng derived languages in which words derived from it mean
'make do', proves nothing for our discussion.
Patrick
***