From: stlatos
Message: 61999
Date: 2008-12-10
>to *z, should'nt it?
> How to explain the cluster -sg- in Greek Pelasgos? *sg should shift
>If you consider:
> Is it possible to relate Pelasgos to Faliscus and Peleshet?
> JS Lopes
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Dennis Poulter" <dpoulter@...> wrote:
> Here's another idea.
> I have already posted that in Hesychios' dictionary, an alternative
form is
> given as PELASTIKOS, which when combined with Philistia and Egyptian
prst,
> makes me think that in fact PELAST- is the original form. John's
post above
> concerning Phlastia is, to my mind, additional evidence.
> Further, the sequence /-sg-/ seems unlikely, or at least un-Greek. Other
> than before or after a voiceless stop, or word finally, /s/ in Greek
> aspirated to /h/ and ultimately disappeared.
Wrong, but not relevant.
This, to me, lends weight to
> the idea that the original form had a /t/ not a /g/.
> Now, further to Rex's info above that Pelasgos was originally an
adjective,
> and if
> the original form was *pelastos, this suggests the possibility that
what we
> have here could be a superlative of /palaios/, /*palai+istos/ (the
> comparative
> /palaiteros/ shows that the thematic /o/ could be dropped).
> So /*pelastos/ could simply mean "oldest, most/extremely ancient".
> The name Palaechthon also looks like /palai/+our old friend /chthon/
> "earth" as in autochthon.
>
> Even if my derivation is wrong, I'm still pretty sure that the
original word
> had a /t/, which would rule out parallels with /g/ words that have been
> cited, such as Paeligni and pelagos.
>
> If I'm right however, this bears out my contention that Pelasgian is
not the
> name of any one people, but of extremely ancient people in general.
>
> The problem I've always had with this macro-Pelasgia idea is the
> relationship of the non-Greek Pelasgians with the Pelasgians of
Argos who
> must have been Greek-speaking. If not, where did the Greek language come
> from?
Though I don't agree with everything above, there are good points
made that should be re-examined.
I'd say that *peLai / paLai 'long ago' formed a superlative
*peLaistos 'oldest' which itself formed *peLaistikoí 'oldest
inhabitants' with the common -ikos suffix.
*peLaistikoí
*peLastikoí ... (dissim. of i-i)
*peLastkoí .... (opt. V-loss in long words)
*peLazdgoí
*peLazgoí
The sequence considered as /sg/ above was almost certainly /zg/ at
the time in spite of an origin from s. It was not the result of
graphic confusion of t with g (tau / gamma) as implied above.
The sequence had 3 obs., became voiced, and was immediately followed
by a stressed syllable. Assuming these were all needed, I'd tie in
the odd changes in '7th' and '8th' as pt > bd / kt > gd under similar
conditions. The rules may have been conditioned by stress, with more
voicing the further stress moved away from the cluster toward the end
of the word:
no sequence became voiced when preceded by stress
2-stop sequence did not become voiced when immediately followed by stress
fric.+2-stop sequence became voiced when immediately followed by stress
2-stop sequence became voiced when non-immediately followed by stress
fric.+2-stop sequence became voiced when non-immediately followed by
stress
The optional e/a in *peLai / paLai came from opt. e>a by velar (as
by k/g, sim. to obl. by x = h2) as in *pYeL-x-to+ / *pYaL-x-to+ 'bent,
old, grey' etc., with evidence of both e and a in many IE languages.
With this meaning of the word in place its oddity of use in ancient
sources becomes more clear. From the point of view of historical
Greeks, both "indigenous" people AND earlier waves of Greek conquerors
were both older inhabitants who could be described as Pelastikoi.
Though there may have been confusion even at that time, the apparent
use for both does not itself indicate confusion; saying that P. lived
there before Greeks and that P. were Greeks would mean that there were
non-Greeks, then Greeks, then other Greeks.
Going as far back as I can, the sequence would be:
?
non-IE people
Indo-Iranian-speaking conquerors
Greek conquerors 1
Greek conquerors 2
Greek conquerors 3
This doesn't imply that each group COMPLETELY conquered everyone in
every place in Greece at the time they arrived.