Re: oldest places- and watername in Scandinavia

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

>
> On 2008-11-09 23:20, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > That claim is impossible to fulfill. The corpus of Venetic
> > inscriptions basically contains a few verbs of sacrificing and
> > donating, as you very well know.
>
> How convenient. No evidence, nothing to constrain you.

Actually a lot of inscriptions with other verbs have been found, but
I've bought them all up in secret and and keep them in my basement.
Hehehe. But don't tell anyone.

> > Instead I have another criterion I'd
> > like them to fulfill: present stem in -a- in both Germanic and
> > Latin.
>
> And this argumentum ad ignorantiam makes them Venetic of all
> things, just like that?

Argumentum adversus ignorantiam, if you don't mind.
Or adversus ignorantes?

> The root *skabH- has an /a/ also in Greek (aor. éskapsa),

I have no problem with positing a loan into Greek from Venetic. After
all, they at Troy too.

and a long /a:/ in Lat. perf. sca:bi.

Sko:p? Perfect.

> The ablaut pattern *wag^-/*wa:g^- 'break' (including perf.
> *we-wa:g^-e) is attested in Greek and Tocharian.
> See Jasanoff (2003) for a detailed discussion.

ON vega "kill" could be cognate, depending on Verner.

> There are some staunch a-deniers, but many mainstream IE-ists now
> admit that *a/*a: is a legitimate PIE alternation beside *e/*o and
> *e/*e:.

I'll have to take your word for it. Jasanoff doesn't convince me.

> There is accordingly nothing "foreign" about
> *skábH-e/o-/*(ske-)ska:bH- > *skaBa-/*sko:B-.

As I said, a layer of loans might do it too. Those *d/tran,W- river
need an explanation too.

> > Very simple. That was three verbs.
>
> Tres faciunt collegium.
>

But not a summer make.

> > So it's a class of composite origin?
>
> Possibly. Convergence of at least two originally different types
> (plus, possibly, a few *Cah2C- or *Coh3C- roots), establishing a
> pattern to which o-grade presents like *molh2-e/o- or *h2woks-e/o-
> were assimilated. If you think your "Brugmannian lengthening"
> explanation could work without invoking analogy, you're wrong.

Two's company.

> There could be no original Brugmannian lengthening in such roots as
> *h2weks- (= *hweg-s-),

That's a possible generalization of an s-aorist of *awg- which is a
class VI verb.

> *perh3-, *melh2- or *h2anh1-, with a final consonant cluster.

I've grown suspicious of those roots with laryngeals in auslaut,
ghosts of departed quantities, most likely.


Torsten