Re: The oddness of Gaelic words in p-

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

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Anders R. Joergensen"
> <ollga_loudec@> wrote:
>
> > However, I don't see any reason why the Brit. verbal stem *pex-
> > should no have been borrowed directly from Latin.
> >
> > A nice little Latin derivational system was borrowed by British
> > Celtic, namely *pex- 'to sin' (pecca:re), *pexOd 'a sin'
> > (pecca:tu-), *pexOdr, *pexadyr a sinner' (pecca:tor,
> > pecca(:)to:rem). While the reflexes of the agent noun suffix *-

Odr,

> > *-adyr became somewhat productive in W, this did not happen in
> > SWBrit., which is why a back-formation (noun -> verb) seems
> > unlikely.
>
>
> Erh, you see no reason why it shouldn't have happened, and it
> happened? I'm confused. Was the verb stem borrowed as such or not?

Yes, that seems by far the most straightforward solution.

Do

> you have other examples of Latin verb stems being borrowed by

Insular

> Celtic?

Sure, how about Brit. *pask- 'to feed, to pasture' (Latin present
stem pasc-) or *krIsk- 'to grow' (Latin present stem cre:sc-, with
secondary shortening in British Celtic). More could probably be found.

>
> Gol/a,b has
> Lat. pa:sto:r // OCS pastyrI "shepherd"
> *rod-tro- (Latin rostrum) // PSlav. rydlo "beak"
> Apparently Slavic loans these words from a language similar to

Latin,

> but with /o:/ > /u:/. It would seem the Welsh /y/ in the agens

suffix

> -adyr came that way too?
>

What I wrote above as *y (in lack of barred "u" on the keyboard)
gives W <u> (high central rounded) and Cornish and Breton <u> (high
front rounded). It is the outcome of PCelt. *ou, *eu and *oi,
probably through the stages /o:/ > /u:/ > /y/. Latin /u:/ and /o:/
are represented by this vowel in loans into British Celtic (with a
few exceptions). I don't quite see why an extra language is necessary.

Anders