Re: Res: [tied] Reindeer domestication : two orig ins

On 2008-12-15 18:39, tgpedersen wrote:

> Proto-Germanic accent was initial. Let's be more specific.
> The accent of some ancestor of Germanic was not.

Well, it did not become initial till after VL, which means -- fairly
recently. Of course if one exclusively reserves the name
"Proto-Germanic" for the very last common ancestor of the historically
known languages, the PGmc. so defined had initial stress, but perhaps it
would be an exercise in hairsplitting to call a stage older by just a
couple of centuries "pre-PGmc."

> Possibly the accent
> of some major donor of loans to Proto-Gmc. wasn't either. Now wrt.
> glaesum there's ODa. glar "glass", wrt. Hase/hare the corresponding
> Latin is *k^a[s]-n- > ca:n-, thus with matching /a/'s as in Kuhn's
> list,

It may be a schwa secundum after all. There are some Gmc. forms with /e/
(ON hjasi), suggesting *k^es-o:[n]/*k^&s-n-ós. Then the Latin word
(which is not as exact match for the Gmc. one) would represent
*k^&s-nó-. Skt. s'as'a- could even reflect *k^eso-.

> and I can't think up any example of a Gmc. noun with Verner
> alternation that is without indicators that it might be a loan; could
> you cite an example?

You don't know 'wheel' (for example; there are many more)? There'a a
whole thick book about such nouns (S. Schaffner, 2001, _Das Vernersche
Gesetz und der innerparadigmatische grammatische Wechsel des
urgermanischen im Nominalbereich_, Innsbruck: Meid).

> I see that you have been thinking of ways to get rid of rthe laryngeal.

No, just trying to understand the structure and the derivational
mechanism behind it.

> I'm looking forward to your derivation from PIE *kVr- "red nose" ;-)

:-)

> In the meanwhile,
> 1) *xrinþiz- ~ *xrunþiz-, as if they should be divided *xr-inþ-iz- ~
> *xr-unþ-iz-, in which case the i/u alternation is a case of Gmc.
> suffix vowel alternation and we can leave out Verner effects.

I doubt if you can divide them like that, since I neever, niver, never
in my leaf, life, loaf saw an -nt- participle become an *-es- neuter.

Piotr