Re: Scientist's etymology vs. scientific etymology

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

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@> wrote:
> >
> > On 2008-06-08 22:25, tgpedersen wrote:
> >
> > > Actually I thought of casting the net wider and get all

the "four,

> > > square" words on board too. No one has explained the /a/ of

Latin

> > > quattuor...
> >
> > It's a "schwa secundum", i.e. a prop vowel inserted to break up a
> > hard-to-pronounce cluster. Its characteristic reflexes include

Lat.

> /a/,
> > Gk. /i/, OCS /I/. The pattern was m. pl. *kWetwores, n. (coll.)
> *kWtwo:r
> > --> *kW&two:r, compositional *kW(&)twr.- ~ *kW(&)tru-.
> >
> > Piotr
>
> I'm more partial to an explanation including:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, mkapovic@ wrote:
>
> > Lat. far and faba are not very conviencing in proving an IE *a

since in

> > Latin a/o difference is not very stabile after labials, that is

*o tends

> > to change to /a/ (mare, ca:seus, canis, parie:s, margo: etc.), cf.
> > Schrijver 1991.
> >
> > Mate

Latin <mare> and <lacus> go together in having /a/ where Celtic has
reflexes of /o/. Both these geomorphic terms were most likely
borrowed from a pre-Italic IE language which changed inherited /o/
to /a/. Latin <canis> can only be shoehorned into the model of Greek
<kúo:n> etc. with a whole slew of ad-hoc assumptions; Burrow's
derivation from *kan- 'small' (TrPhS 81:155-64) is much simpler and
better. Any greenhorn can find minimal pairs (portus/partus,
mors/Mars) showing that the alleged instability of the Latin a/o
distinction after labials is a bunch of baloney.

> That is, first e>o opt. by KW. Much later o>a as above. In

Slavic

> and Greek there are words that can be securely regarded as having

e>i

> for some reason (in cases in which, even if 0 instead of e somehow
> existed, could not be explained by breaking a difficult cluster with
> schwa). Without a complete understanding of the reasons for e>i it
> can't be stated that it couldn't occur in 'four'.
>
> In any event, I think the *kWe in '4, 5' are the result of 'and'

in

> counting 1-10 being analyzed as part of the numbers. If so, no
> *kWtru+, etc., existed.

Oscan <trutum> 'quartum', for *ptrutum, shows that the zero-grade
stem did indeed exist. The form <Ptroni(us)> from the Ager Paelignus
shows that Paelignian also had *ptru-, without dropping the p-;
likewise there is an Etruscan <Ptruni>, the gentilicium borrowed from
one of these conservative P-Italic languages.

Douglas G. Kilday