Re: Scientist's etymology vs. scientific etymology

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

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> > >
> > > [...]
> > >
> > > 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 [ü], 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.

My bad. Umbrian only unrounds inherited _long_ [u:] this way. The
nom./acc. sg. <pir> is from *pu:r.

> That reminded me of something.
> Hans Kuhn: Das letzte Indogermanisch, p. 19
> 'In Latin /u/ in the position between /l/ and /b/ or /p/ has partly
> become /i/ (libet beside lubet, clipeus beside clupeus etc). This

mix

> is documented early and probably arrived with language in Italy.

This

> since we have en exact correspondence in our river name Lippe, which
> the Romans only knew as Lupia (et sim.). But no Germanic nor German
> sound law can explain how that became Lippe (first documented as

Lippa

> in the Geographer of Ravenna). But also the city of Lecce in
> Calabria - supposedly occupied by Illyrians - was called Lupiae or
> Lupia in antiquity, but seems early also to have been written Lipia
> vel sim., such as the present form presupposes. It is thus an old
> Western IE sound transition, and we can this time establish it in

the

> Nordwestblock. Perhaps the river was already then in its lower

course,

> where the Romans became acquainted with it, Lupia, above the Borken
> boundary, which crosses it, however Lipia.'

He raises several important points, but I would be reluctant to
bundle these geographically disparate vowel-shifts together. While
clupeus/clipeus may be an ambiguous example, lunter/linter 'boat,
skiff' is not, since there is no labial following the vowel.

> This after a paragraph, where he documents (*kW >) k/p confusion in
> German/Low German, quote:
> 'kriechen and LG krupen,
> streichen and streifen,
> tauchen and taufen,
> nd. Siek und Siepen "wet depression in terrain',
> engl. shrink and HG schrumpfen,
> Strunk and Strumpf,
> Goth. *auhns/OSw. ugn and Germ. Ofen,
> ON ylgr "female Wolf" and ulfr "Wolf"
> Germ. leihen and bleiben
> and more'

Also 'four', 'five', 'leave' (with its cpds. 'eleven'
and 'twelve'), 'sieve', and 'soap' have labials.

> and he compares Gmc. *kak-/ko:k- "cake" with *kwekw- <- *pekw-.

That is probably wrong; I am more inclined to assign 'cake' to PIE
*geH2g-, Western IE *ga:g-, *gag- 'round object'(?).

The name of the great oak-forest, the Hercynia Silva, can hardly come
from anything but PIE *perkwu-, in an Old Celtic form whose
evanescent /p/ was still audible as [h] to the Greek geographers.
But this cannot be a native Celtic form since Celtic, like Italic,
assimilated *p...kw... to *kw...kw..., as shown by words for 'five'
and 'cook'. It must have been borrowed from a language which did not
make this assimilation, retained /p/, and probably reduced *kw
to /k/. We are a long way from the Baltic, and I prefer to see NWB
as the source language.

Also, Kuhn himself in "Anlautend P-", p. 5, cites *pink- 'kleiner
Finger', in ndl. und nd. (ostfries.) <pink> (borrowed into Eng. as
<pinky>) as NWB from PIE *penkwe 'five' (actually an ordinal would be
more plausible as 'fifth (finger)'). This is one of his more
convincing NWB lexemes, and also shows no assimilation of *p to
following *kw.

> In all, if he's right, the Sabellian tribes could have brought their
> version of ca:seus all the way from Central Europe. Which means we
> could argue from West Venetic/NWBlock/West Urnfield.

And perhaps the urns were really recycled containers in which the
Salted Cheese Folk had stored and transported their product. Let's
not get too far ahead of ourselves.

> > 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.
>
> Here's why I think we get so many explanations of these words as
> Sabine etc in Roman authors. I think the dichotomy in Latin between
> 'normal' Latin and the layer of 'mots populaires' comprising at

least

> those in b- and -a- goes back to the dichotomy between Patricians

and

> Plebeians which were of different ethnic origin. we know alreadsy

one

> social shibboleth which I think goes back to that too: /au/ vs. /o/.
> By classical times, this conflict was history, which is why the only
> association Roman writers get to these words is to the various

rustic

> dialects they knew in those areas where the two classes had come

from.

The situation is complicated, but I believe it is possible to resolve
different strata of Sabine loanwords in Latin, including those from
the "rustic" Sabino-Latin dialect which had, inter alia, precocious
monophthongization (Clo:dius, fe:dus, o:rum, etc.) and secondary
aspiration in certain positions (pulcher, lachrima, sulphur, mamphur,
Orchus, etc.); the rudiments of Sabino-Latin theory are outlined in
my sci.lang postings entitled "pulcher" and "sulphur".

> > > 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.
>
> Cf. Da. kvæste, Du. kwetsen "injure"

... and Greek <mástos>, <mázos> 'nipple, breast'. This is not all
that unusual. See also ME <claspen>, <clapsen> 'to clasp', OE
<a:scian>, <a:csian> 'to ask'.

> > You do have a point, in that *ca:sseus would have avoided

rhotacism,

> > with subsequent reduction of the geminate after the long vowel.
>
> Yes, if you want to strictly believe that reduction took place not
> before Latin. I assumed loss of -t- *-ats- > *-a:s- with

compensatory

> lengthening of the vowel, but of course that's ad hoc, until

further.

Latin doesn't have comp. leng. for stops; see e.g. <anas> <
*anats 'duck', <lapis> < *lapids 'stone, stone seat'. <pe:s> 'foot'
vs. gen. <pedis> is inherited gradation, not comp. leng.

DGK