From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 57276
Date: 2008-04-14
----- Original Message -----
From: "david_russell_watson" <liberty@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2008 9:17 PM
Subject: Horse Sense (was: [tied] Re: Hachmann versus Kossack?)
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
wrote:
>
> There is a steady association of the segment *k^(h)e- and 'fast'
> in PIE.
No, there's no steady association. Pokorny lists only
*k^e:ibh- and *k^e:igh- beginning with that sequence
and meaning 'quick', but no *k^(H)e-.
***
Patrick:
First, thank you for leaving my argument intact; it makes answering your
points so much more convenient.
Of course, there is a steady association between *k(^)e:- (also *k(^)e:i-)
and 'fast' as Latin 'citus' might possibly suggest - from Pokorny's *ke:i-,
'set into motion'.
I believe this is properly reconstructed as *k^(h)e:i-; and without going
into Nostratic data to support the point, the semantic connections alone
with *k^e:i-bh- and *k^e:i-gh- should suggest the possibility of an initial
palatal *k^ for Pokorny's *ke:i-.
As for it being an unvoiced aspirate, *k^h rather than *k, anyone who has
read Pokorny will be familiar with reconstructions like 1. and 2.
*(s)p(h)el- where the notation indicates that the root occurs with or
without *s-mobile, and without or without *(h).
Though for phonotactical reasons and chance this circumstance is not
demonstrable in the *k-section, it can rarely be seen under *s-:
*(s)k(h)a(:)i-, 'beat'.
I conclude that there were two phonemes, *k (and *k^, an allophone) and *kh
(and *k^h) which, like the other voiceless stops (*sta:-/*stha:-, though
Pokorny does not list the last in his heading) were conflated with voiceless
aspirated stops; and will be seen in Pokorny as a unitary *k (*k^).
Thus, I think the the possibility of an unpreserved aspirated voiceless stop
in *ke:i- is measurable; and I reconstruct *k^He:i-. The root extension -*i
is what transforms *k^he-, '*deer', into 'fast.
> I propose that early PIE words for 'deer', like our 'hind',
> contained the segment *k^(h)e- so that *k^em-, 'hornless',
> should be regarded as a generalization of 'hind' rather than
> 'hind' being derived from 'hornless'.
Why would the sense 'fast' be generalized as 'hornless'?
***
Patrick:
It would not.
The sense 'fast' is the characterization of any 'deer'; it can be augmented
by derivative -*y as in *k^he:i- but is unaugmented in words like *ken-,
'exert one's self', where both palatalization and aspiration have not been
reconstructed: properly *k^(h)e(:)n-.
'Hornless' is not derivable from 'deer' per se but rather from 'hind', which
_is_ 'hornless', and is properly 2. *k^(h)e(:)m-.
***
This is your semantic-chain game again, this time going
from 'fast' to 'deer' to 'hind' to 'hornless'.
***
Patrick:
As usual, you twist my words to serve your own rhetoric.
I _do_ suggest a semantic connection between 'deer' and 'fast'; the
connection with 'hornless' is through *k^(h)e(:)m-, 'hind', not *k^he:-,
'deer'.
Do we not sometimes say: 'he's as fast as a deer!'?
***
As I pointed out before, one can derive any meaning he
wishes from any other meaning whatsoever by means of
this "method", and so it has no probative value at all.
***
Patrick:
You cannot be expected to understand the method without looking at it more
closely.
***
> In my opinion, this presupposes a PIE **k^(h)em-, 'doe'.
***
Patrick:
Sloppy terminology on my part. I should have said 'hind' though it is rarely
used in the US.
***
> What application does this have to the present discussion?
>
> I believe that *ek^(-)wo-s is compounded of of the initial
> segments *e- (cf. *ai-ra:, 'kind of grass'),
There's no P.I.E. *e- meaning 'grass', so by what novel
method do you convert 'aira:' into 'e'?
***
Patrick:
Again, rhetorical devices to prove your point.
I did _not_ say *ai-ra:, the segmentation of which you (in)advertently
omitted, is relatable to *e- in *e-k^(h)-wo-s; but perhaps you just
misunderstood.
It is the element *a(:)i- that I relate to the *e-; it is this element which
carries the notion of 'grass' (and probably 'green' as well).
As for the interchangeability of *a(:)i- and *a(:)- to carry the notion of
'grass', compare *a(:)g^-, 'billy-goat', and *a(:)ig^-, 'goat'.
This is semantically where we would hope to be able to see it.
Thus, 'goat' is *a(:)(i)-, 'grass' + *g^-, which represents *gy-, 'chewer',
and which is the first segment of *g(y)eu-/*g^(y)eu-, 'chew'. Here, an
unpreserved **gei-, 'chew', has been supplanted by *gyeu-, 'chew up'.
When *a: lost its length for any reason (stress-accent, etal.), and reverted
to *a, it would subject to the rule which makes all short vowel into *A, the
Ablaut vowel, which manifests itself variously as *é/*ò [from *è]/*°/*Ø.
Hence, *é-k^h-w-o-s could be an unexpected development. The -*w-element here
represents a the 'deer' as a family group in contrast to the usual herds of
horses. I am sure you will be quick to want to point this terminology gaffe
out so I will say beforehand, it was a linguistic error made long ago.
***
> '*grass' + *k^(h)e-, 'deer', so that the compound should have
> the core meaning of 'grass-deer'.
If you're going to be allowed to invent your own roots,
as you've done with *k^(h)e- 'fast' and *e- 'grass',
I would think you could come up with a vastly superior
explanation for 'horse' than 'grass deer'.
***
Patrick:
I believe I have demonstrated above the possibility of both roots.
I believe the term makes immanent sense if we assume the people who spoke
the language in which it originated were forest-dwellers, familiar with deer
but not with horses; horses eat 'grass'; deer eat leaves and twigs as well
as other fruits of the forest.
If I have a Labrador, I might loosely term a Rothweiler a 'black Labrador'.
***
Moreover, why not follow the shorter route available to
you, from *k^em- in its properly reconstructed meaning
'hornless'? Horses are similiar to cattle and deer in
many ways, yet always hornless, and the insertion of an
'e' and the elimination (or conversion to 'w'?) of 'm'
surely involves much less voodoo than converting 'aira'
to 'e'.
***
Patrick:
If your data was correct, yes. But GIGO, from 'aira' the route is tortuous;
from *ai-ra:, as II have demonstrated above, it is far less problematical.
***
> If this is true, then it indicates importantly, that PIE's
> discovered horses long after they had become familiar with
> deer.
>
> A corollary is that the PIE-speaking ethnos could not have
> been situated on the grassy plains of Eurasia originally
> because deer are predominantly forest-dwellers.
It would be a very bad idea to try to build any further
extrapolation on such a poor basis as this 'grass deer'
explanation.
***
Patrick:
Sorry you think so.
***
Speculation built upon speculation built upon speculation
a fragile structure makes.
***
Patrick:
Informed speculation is a fact of life and science.
There is nothing wrong at all about it if other speculation is supportive,
and, above all consistent.
It is like when we propose *d in Language A -> *t in Language B. The first
step is pure speculation. Additional speculation either confirms or denies
the original speculation, and transforms it into a working theory because of
the overall Gestalt.
***
> Old habits die hard.
So we see.
David
***
Patrick:
It is so like you to end in a slight.
***