Vacillate

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

>
> On 2008-12-04 23:10, Arnaud Fournet wrote:
>
> > What is this model capable of predicting what is not already
> > known by other means ?
>
> It makes quite a few non-trivial predictions. For example, that
> high-frequency words will be universally conserved (resistant to
> lexical replacement) but at the same time they will evolve
> phonetically much faster than the bulk of the lexicon. I don't know
> of any other model that can reconcile the general regularity of
> sound change (i.e. the group behaviour of lexical sets) with the
> observation that "chaque mot a son histoire" in a natural way.
> Those individual histories are the more unique, the greater the
> success of the word as a replicator (because it has more
> opportunities to "mutate").

À propos "chaque mot a son histoire":
I fell over this looking for something else:
Ernout-Meillet:
'uacillo: (uaccillo:, Lucr.3,502 tum quasi uaccillans consurgit et
onnis | paulatim redit in sensus), -a:s, -a:ui:, -a:tum, -a:re :
vaciller, chanceler (sens propre et dérivé).
Mot favori de Cicéron; non attesté avant lui, rare dans la 1.
impériale. Formes savantes dans les l. romanes, M.L.9112.
Dérivés: uacilla:tio:, -tor (Gloss.).
Mot expressif (cf. le type sorbillo:, etc.), d'origine obscure.
Le -cc-, attesté chez Lucrèce, est un exemple de gémination expressive.'

cf. Germ. wackeln "totter", Eng. waggle.

The standard approach is to see the Lat. word as inherited, but given
the late attestation, could it be a Germanic loan (with 2LV to boot)?
Gladiator talk become fashionable? Or something picked up from the slaves?


Torsten