Re[2]: [tied] 'Dug' from PIE? (was: Rg Veda Older than Sanskrit)

At 3:31:30 PM on Sunday, April 20, 2008, tgpedersen wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> <BMScott@...> wrote:

>> At 1:11:00 PM on Sunday, April 20, 2008, Patrick Ryan
>> wrote:

[...]

>>> I propose that English 'dug' is the inherited reflex of
>>> *dheugh-; our good fortune is that it shows the required
>>> meaning.

>> An obvious difficulty is that it first shows up in the 16th
>> c. And in the two earliest citations in the OED it refers
>> specifically to a woman's breast ('Tete, pappe, or dugge, a
>> womans brest' 1530, and 'Her dug with platted gould rybband
>> girded about her' 1583), though I shouldn't put too much
>> weight on that.

>> It's also very difficult to concoct a history that works.
>> OE *dugV would have yielded something like ME *doue, *dowe,
>> so you need a geminate *dugg-, and I don't see where it
>> would come from.

> Well, one could always propose a substrate language
> containing words with geminates? [...]

OE had all sorts of geminates. This particular one,
however, is a problem. And do note that I'm specifically
addressing Patrick's proposal, *not* casting about in search
of an etymology. (Yours is a non-solution to the more
general problem anyway: at this point, at least, it's just a
fancy way of saying 'We don't know where this came from'.)

Brian