Re[4]: [tied] Latin -idus as from dH- too

At 4:25:56 AM on Monday, March 17, 2008, Patrick Ryan wrote:

> From: "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>

>> At 7:06:48 PM on Sunday, March 16, 2008, Patrick Ryan wrote:

>> [...]

>>> The root for 'protect (probably, closer to 'challenge
>>> danger by advancing to the front')' is clearly *po:(H)-
>>> not *pa:(H)-.

>> [...]

>>> *pa:(H)-, 'herder, leader to pasture, provider'

>> What makes this clear? If there actually are two roots
>> here, Gk. <pô:u> and <poimé:n> 'a shepherd' would seem to
>> point the other way. Given the close semantic connections
>> among 'protect', 'herd', and 'nourish', it seems much easier
>> to see a single root *peh2- with o-grade *poh2-. (And in
>> the other direction I believe that Hittite /pahs-/ 'to
>> protect' tends to suggest *peh2-, not *peh3-.)

> On P. 839 of Pokorny is listed: "1. po:(i)- . . .schützen
> . . .

> Is that clear enough for you?

It's clear; it's hardly dispositive.

> A single root *peh2- with an *o-grade?

> What utter twaddle!

<shrug> The notion that only one root is involved is hardly
original with me, and indeed I seem to be in pretty good
company.

[...]

> So, you want to make *p&tér- the 'Fütterer' of the family?

No, that's your choice of interpretation, clearly made for
rhetorical effect and not out of scientific necessity.

[...]

> There is no *H2 or *h3; there is only *H.

The evidence is very much against you.

> Hittite <pat> is cognate with PIE *poti, 'self'; it is
> therefore egregiously misleading to suggest that Hittite
> <pahs-> suggests PIE 'protect' was *pa:(H)-.

Oh? My understanding is that Hittite /h/ is far more likely
to represent *h2 than *h3, so that /ah/ suggests *ah2 rather
than *oh3. However, I freely admit that I have *not* read
Melchert, so I'm going only by what I've picked here and
from Beekes.

> What it shows is that a word for 'herder', *pa:(H)s-, was
> loosely taken to mean 'protector' but only in the sense of
> selfish interest.

Minus the special pleading, you've just acknowledged that
the semantics of 'protect' and 'herd' are quite close. If
you can't see that 'feed, nourish' is also close to
'protect', it's not my problem.

Brian