Re: [pieml] Labiovelars versus Palatals + Labiovelar Approximant

It was interesting to see these arguments.
I am a novice to many of these details, but I want advice on something rudimentary.
I met a guy from Kurgan, Russia where some say this whole language family 'originated.'

I started trying to explain this whole idea of a common ancestral language, and started off with the word he used 'sto', Russian for 100, and I explained to a group (of math students) its roots and relation to 'hund' of hundred, following that centum/satem argument from introductions to etymology. I explained the detail, but it wasn't impressive, because it wasn't obvious to others that these relationships were not accidental. On the other hand, if you use common words like 'mother', some assume that similar words in faraway places are an accident, or a more recently globalized word.

What kind of examples will bring the average person uninformed of p-IE ancestry to give it any attention, since common words like 'dog' and 'perro', as you said here, are from sidestreams?

I know this jumps the whole conversation backwards, but for me, in the real world, it's hard to strike up a conversation where I can make the argument about common ancestry believable at all.

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2008 1:04 PM
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: [pieml] Labiovelars versus Palatals + Labiovelar Approximant

On 2008-10-31 16:08, Arnaud Fournet wrote:

> When unstressed, all vowels disappear in PIE stage,
> so kuH2on- when stressed on kuH2on-""i
> becomes kH2n-""i > kan-""i
> U disappears like all other vowels do.
> No big deal.

Well, it didn't disappear in Greek, Sanskrit, Avestan, Lithuanian,
Latvian or Irish. They all show clear reflexes of *k^un-, not *k^&2n-
The PIE zero-grade of *-uh2V- is *-uh2-, not *-h2-.

> What about Latin can-is ?
> You still have not explained how Latin fits here.

It doesn't. I'm under no obligation to include <canis>. It doesn't match
the other forms, so it's probably something else, e.g. a derivative of
the root *kan- 'young, little' (used of humans and animals), cf. Skt.
kï¿½ni:yas- 'younger'/kanis. t.Hï¿½- 'the youngest', kani:- 'girl', Gk.
kainï¿½s and Lat. recens 'new, recent', MIr. cano 'wolf cub', etc.

> You little cheap cheater...

Mind your step, Arnaud.

> You can't choose which data you want to explain
> and which data you want to discard
> because of your preconceived dogmas.

I _can_ choose what I want to include, based on common sense. If I don't
include OCS pIsU, Eng. dog or Sp. perro, is that dogmatic of me? You
include <canis>, reconstruct the root as *kuh2on-, and what do you gain?
One problem remains in Latin (no matter how loudly you shout, this *u
should not be allowed to disappear; PIE *u does not disappear in the
zero grade) and plenty of problems arise in several other branches: in
Greek and Tocharian, *uh2 would have given *wa:, in Indo-Iranian and
Celtic, long *u:, in Baltic, an acuted long *u:, etc. Your
reconstruction solves one problem (Lat. /a/ in <canis>) but screws up
everything else. Please don't ask me to take it seriously.

> it ruins the premice
> this word is PIE stage
> I suppose you understand that.
> It makes a big difference.

It can be reconstructed confidently for non-Anatolian IE, so it has at
least the same status as a verb like *bHer-e/o-. Whether there was a
cognate of *h1ek^wos in Anatolian or not depends on what one makes of
the Luwian data. Melchert (1987) has a rather solid case for reading the
HLuw. 'horse' word as <azu(wa)->, distinct from what we find in the
Hittite horse-training manual (i.e., from the actual Mitanni-Indic
loan). And if <azu(wa)-> is native, why not Lyc. esbe?

> The problem is the forms that don't match the others.

Like what?

Piotr