--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> > > In the framework of this theory the direction of loan could
> > > very well be the opposite; it just predicts that, that from
> > > prehistoric times there are Vasconic loanwords in Latin. These
> > > are, it must be said, only detectable as such in the fortunate
> > > case in which they in spite of three thousand years of further
> > > development of both languages can be explained from the present
> > > Basque. Latin 'ca:seus' "cheese" is such a loanword.'
> >
> > [end of citation]
> >
> > No it is not, since intervocalic -s- was rhotacized in the 4th
cent.
> > BCE in Latin. Like <balteus>, <clipeus>, <puteus>, and several
> > others, <ca:seus> probably comes from Sabine (or the "rustic"
> > Sabino-Latin dialect) after the rhotacism. Since Sabine was a
> > P-Italic language, an inherited reflex of *kwa:t(h)- (better
> > *kweH2tH2-) should have begun with /p/.
>
> I think you are confusing PIE *kw- with PIE *kW-. But Slavic kvasU-
> points to *kWw- which really doesn't make much sense either. I think
> we must give up the hope of a direct descent.
I used to write *kW, but I am no longer convinced that anything is
gained by distinguishing *kW from *kw in PIE, as long as we recognize
that *u and *w were distinct phonemes. We already know that 'cheese'
is a Wanderwort; hopefully we can sort out the details.
> > Sabine itself probably borrowed the word from an IE language
which
> > reduced */kw/ to /k/.
>
> Why not dump Sabine altogether then?
Some of the other Latin words in -eus are likely to be from Sabine.
The alternation between <clipeus> and <clupeus> suggests that the
root-vowel in the source language had raised [u] to [ΓΌ], and this was
being unrounded to [i]. As we know, this happened independently with
Greek upsilon, and more importantly, we find it in Umbrian
<pir> 'fire' and other words. Umbrian and Sabine also share the
reduction of initial *dw- to d- (which Oscan keeps, but Latin
labializes to b-). In fact, this suggests another possible scenario
for <ca:seus>. If the word was borrowed in the form *kwa:s- after
the Sabine conversion of inherited *kw- to p- (which occurred no
later than the early 7th cent. BCE) and before the reduction of *dw-
to d-, conceivably this borrowed *kw- was also reduced to k- before
Latin borrowed the word (no earlier than the mid-4th cent. to avoid
rhotacism). But for the moment I prefer what I proposed earlier.
> If the ancestor ultimately is PIE *kwat-, it's difficult to argue
that
> it had -s- at the time of the Latin rhotacization. It might have
been
> *kwat-jo- > *kwatso- > *katso- > *ka:syo- cf. caussa > causa without
> rhotacization. Note also unusual metathesis -tz- <> -zt- in Basque.
You do have a point, in that *ca:sseus would have avoided rhotacism,
with subsequent reduction of the geminate after the long vowel. But
you need both a geminate -ss- and a long -a:- for that. Heck, my
proposal was speculative anyway; you can just as easily say that the
source language had *kwa:t-je-jo- > *k(w)a:ssejo- or the like, and
then you can bypass Sabine.
> If the interpretation of the first element of the recurring
ekupetaris
> as cognate with PIE *ekWo- is correct then Po-Venetic had *kW- > k-.
Good, now I know how you distinguish your (Paleo-)Venetic from the
attested Venetic. I suspect that in medial position -kw- became -kk-
(not necessarily written as a geminate in inscriptions), since one of
my hobbyhorses is deriving <accipenser> 'sturgeon of the Po' from a
Venetic compound whose first element was cognate with <aqua>,
something like 'water-horse' or 'water-ox' due to its great size.
(The accent of some of the Romance reflexes is incompatible with a
native Latin compound 'needle-hanger' vel sim. which someone recently
proposed in _Glotta_.) But in initial position, no geminate would be
formed from *kw.
At any rate I do not consider the <ca:seus> matter settled, and I
hope my previous criticism of Vennemann's position is not taken
personally by anyone here.
Douglas G. Kilday