Re: Gemination in Celtic

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "fournet.arnaud"
<fournet.arnaud@...> wrote:

> >
> > I never talked about H2-g
> > Maybe some inadequate examples made you think
> > that we were discussing that kind of examples.
>
> Yes, since I depart from a standard PIE system, that may easily
> happen.
> ==========
> May I know why ?
> Arnaud
>
> ==========

When I, and I would suppose many others, see -(:)g- etc. in Germanic
(+ sound shift), Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian, Armenian (+ sound
shift), Greek, the reaction will be to posit PIE *-(H)g-. Positing *-
h2.x+k- takes some getting used to. That was why I misunderstood your
law (though not the basic correspondence).

> But I think we still have to see one convincing example of this
> correspondence, let alone enough to posit a new H phoneme.
>
> ==============
> *bhel-H2-k "beam"
>
> Gaulish bala:kon
> Welsh balog < balokk- ?
> SKrt bhur-i-jau < -H-g-
> Greek phalan-g-s
> Latin ful-c-io
>
> Isn't this clear ?
>
> Arnaud
>
> =============

No, unfortunately it isn¡¯t, at least not to me. You previously
derived words with W <ch> (i.e. /x/ < *kk) from *-h2k-, yet now you
derive a word with W <g> (lenition of postvoc. _single_ *k) from the
same. Which one is it?

>
> So it impossible to find counter-examples to your law? Or what would
> a counter-example look like?
>
> Whenever we have a direct reflex of *-h2+k- in Eastern IE it's a
> different kind of *h2, right? Or whenever we have *-h2g- in all
> branches, it's just underlying *-h2g-. Aren't you afraid of a
> circular argument here?
>

This is still a major concern of mine. What would a counter-example
look like? Haven¡¯t you achieved complete circularity?

> There is a chain of changes
>
> Inherited -tt- > Celtic -ss- > -s-

So cais, cas ¡®hatred¡¯ < *k¡¯h2t- has been dropped as an example?

> Inherited -?-C > Celtic -CC- > -C-
> Inherited simple -c- > Celtic -H-

What does the above mean? Voiceless stop becomes¡­ aspirated?

>
> -?p- > pp > p
> -p- > F > z¨¦ro
>
> Where's the problem ?

Doesn¡¯t the absence of a letter for /p/ (or /pp/) in Ogam bother you?

>
> LAtin LWs like clan < planta
> are probably influenced by the fact
> Irish speakers knew Oirl -c- = Welsh -p-
> So they applied this equivalence to LAtin words.

I don¡¯t think this kind of borrowing is very unlikely.

> I don't think you can say that p > k directly.
>

I would never suggest that Lat. /p/ was borrowed as Ir. /k/; Lat. /p/
was borrowed as /kW/, which in turn gave OIr. c /k/. Cf. the rounding
effect of *kW in OIr. cothraige < *kWaTrixiya- (vel sim.) <
Patricius.

Similarly, Lat. f- was borrowed as Ir. *hw-, which only existed as
lenition of *sw-, hence the surface relationship Lat. f- ¡ú OIr. s- (<
*sw-), in e.g. Lat. furnus ¡®oven¡¯ ¡ú OIr. sorn.

Anders