RE : [tied] Re: North of the Somme

> > > UEW
> > > 'pis^ka 'Baumharz' FU "resin"
> > > Finn. pihka (Gen. pihkan, pihan) 'Baumharz, Harz';
> > > est. pihk (Gen. piha) 'klebrige Flüssigkeit (im Euter einer
> > > trächtigen Kuh, als Harz od. Gummi aus einem Baume fließend)'
> > > (ostseefinn. > lapp. K Nol. pihk 'Harz') |
> > >
> > > ostj. (676) Trj. piG&L 'Flicken an einem Boote, gew. einem
> > > Einbaum', V piGli- 'mit Harz verstopfen (Spalten in einem Boot),
> > > mit erhitztem Harz dichten'.
> > >
> > > Ostj. i ist ein denom. Verbalsuffix.
> > > In ostj. piG&L 'Flicken...' kann ein Bedeutungswandel
> > > 'Harz' -> 'Harz zum Dichten des Einbaumes' -> 'Dichtung,
> > > Flicken' stattgefunden haben.'
> > >
> > > More likely resin never had any other uses so came to mean
> > > "caulking" and the word was later transferred to pitch as
> > > replacement.
> > >
> > >
> > > Proto Baltic Finnic /s^/ > /h/; most likely if the word was
> > > borrowed, it never had /s^/ in the first place.
> >
> > No, Germanic "pitch" is loaned to BFinnic as *piki.
>
> Except that the word is not originally Germanic, no words in p- are,

Sidenote: I've not managed to really grasp if this is actually true or just circular logic - "there are no common IE words with *b; ergo, all the words that look like common IE words with *b must be substrate loans". Even if (trad.) *b > *w somewhere in preIE looks likely, nothing prohibits *b from being reëstabilish'd later into PIE itself.

(I do admit that in this specific case, the alteration points to a substrate origin.)

> so why restrict the list of candidates to Germanic?

Because it's easiest? Germanic > BF loans are kno'n to exist. I see no advantage to positing independant loaning from a substrate (in this case, anyway).

Anyway, not the point - it is that the immediate BF cognate is *piki "pitch", not *pihka "resin". The two might be ultimately related in some fashion, but the regular Khanty cognate of the latter means it cannot be from the direction of Scandinavia!

Let it be said however that the vocalism is suspicious; *i_a is rare in inherited Uralic lexicon, and a little out of place too (it's the only place where *V_a and *V_ä contrast).

> > Plain *k is never reshaped as *hk; the cluster can only originate
> > from older *Sk.
>
> If it's derived within Baltic Finnic, yes.
> But some NWEuropean (Celtic, Germanic and Saami) languages
> pre-aspirate, cf.
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/59202
> and one might be tempted to ascribe it to a substrate language of that area, in which case it's likely *pikk- > *pihk-.

*S > *h is rather recent. Perhaps too new to be the result of any substrate *h. In coda position /h/ also remains to this day as a weak fricativ, not as preaspiration. And Germanic loans only ever have *-k- > *-k- (old) or *-k- > *-kk- (newer). So we should expect preaspiration(/preglottalization) from substrates, too, to simply disappear, not to become *-hk-.

> > > pec^ä ~ penc^ä 'Kiefer, Föhre; Pinus sylvestris' FP
> > > Finn. petäjä (dial. petäjäs) 'Föhre, Kiefer';
> > > est.
> > > pedajas (Gen. pedaja),
> > > pedakas (Gen. pedaka),
> > > pädajas (Gen. pädaja),
> > > pädakas (Gen. pädaka)
> > > 'sehr harzige, harte, nicht hochgewachsene Kiefer;
> > > Pinus sylvestris'|
> > > lapp. N bæcce -æ:3- 'Pinus silvestris',
> > > l. piehtse:, pä:htse: 'Kiefer, Föhre',
> > > K (1525) T piecce, Kld. pie1cc, Not. piehe
> > > 'Kiefer, Fichtenrinde (zur Speise)' |
> > > '
> > > mord. E pic^e, M pic^ä 'Kiefer; Pinus sylvestris' |
> > >
> > > tscher. (E. Itk.: FUF 31: 177)
> > > KB p&nc^& 'Kiefer', U pün´c´ö 'Kiefer, Föhre' |
> > >
> > > wotj. S puz^im, puz^im, K puz^&^m
> > > 'Fichte, Tanne, Kiefer; Pinus sylvestris',
> > > (Wichm.) G puz^î.m 'Fichte, Kiefer, Föhre' |
> > >
> > > syrj. S poz^em, P poz^u.m, poz^i.m, PO po.z^øm 'Kiefer'.
> > >
> > > Finn. jä, est. jas, kas, wotj. und syrj. m sind
> > > Ableitungssuffixe.
> > > Das Finn., Lapp. und Mord. weisen auf *c^, das Tscher. auf *nc^
> > > und die perm. Wörter auf *c^ oder *nc^ hin.
> >
> > Mari changes rather regularly *nc^ > *c^ (*ponc^a "tail" >
> > *paac^, *künc^i "nail" > *kööc^, *panc^a- "to open" > *paac^a-)
> > so this is dubbly unexpected.
>
> But not in the 'language of geminates', where this is expected.

So what? Perhaps it could cause insertion of *-n-, but said soundlaw would then delete it anyway.

> > To attempt a Uralic-internal explanation, the
> > *nc^ here could be by contamination with the next root. Or
> > hypercorrection with influence from the voiced Permic medial
> > (nasal + stop > voiced stop in Permic, which the Mari may have
> > generalized to voiced affricates).


> There is an interesting alternation in Estonian between the native actor suffix -ja- and the 'foreign' (also NWB) diminutive suffix -ka-

-ja is not the actor suffix here, it's a common tree name suffix derived from former *-ka by consonant gradation.
*kac^a "resin" > Fin. kataja, katava "juniper" (Votic kadag)
*pic'la > Fin. pihlaja "rowan" (Votic pihlaga)
*pec^a > Fin. petäjä "pine" (Livonian pietaag)
*s'äla > salava "crack willow" (back-harmonized by influence from:)
Gmc *salaka > halava "willow"

Additionally: Estonian orthographical -k- is a geminate /k:/, which in this case would be the common BF diminutiv *-kka. Plain medial /k/ is written -g- (and orthographical -kk- is overlong /k::/).

> > > p8¨n3 Fichte' FU
> >
> > (what's this *8¨ BTW? Am I seeing this right - eight + umlaut?)
>
> Yes. From page XV
> 'Für nicht bestimmbare Vokale in der rekonstruierten Grundform stehen folgende Zeichen:
> in erster Silbe —
> 8 = unbestimmbarer velarer Vokal,
> 8¨= unbestimmbarer palataler Vokal;
>
> in erster und nichterster Silbe 3 unbestimmbarer Vokal.' ,
>
> (substituting my best keyboard approximations of the weird signs
> they use).

As I was suspecting. StarLing seems to use <O> <E> for these.

> I add
> Lerchner
> Studien zum NWGermanischen Wortschatz
> 'pit, peddik "merg, zaadkorrel; kracht"

(etc.)

Stretching the semantics here. I don't think this can be related to "pitch", "resin", "pine".

John Vertical