RE : [tied] Re: North of the Somme

> > > > No, Germanic "pitch" is loaned to BFinnic as *piki.
> > >
> > > Except that the word is not originally Germanic, no words in p-
> > > are, 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).
>
> You will. See next comment.
>
> > 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!
>
> Exactly. Which shows you shouldn't have taken the easy option of choosing Germanic in the first place. A language subtrate to both solves it.

You're not paying attention. Let's go over this again - there are two Baltic-Finnic words here, and you seem to be confused as to what applies to what:
*piki "pitch", a trivial loan from Germanic (which might itself be a substrate loan, but that's not relevant for BF)
*pihka "resin", regularly cognate with Khanty *peG@...; this link means it cannot be a West European substrate loan, and confirms that the *h is from former *S.

> > 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-.
>
> Only if the Germanic -> BF loans were from preaspirating Germanic languages.

They're anywhence from Pre-Proto-Germanic to Modern Swedish, so this would demand that preaspiration is a western Scandinavian innovation. (I think it could well be, tho, so perhaps this is surmountable. Irrelevant, however; see before.)

> > > > > 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.
>
> Not if the loans was later.

Too hypothetical for my taste, I like the contamination explanation better (thanks for bringing the 2nd word to my attention BTW).

> > *s'äla > salava "crack willow" (back-harmonized by influence
> > from:)
> > Gmc *salaka > halava "willow"
>
> That one is odd. I see that so many times: Uralic or FU word gets influenced in Finnish by some Gmc/IE word which happens to sound like it and mean something similar.

Many times? Other examples? The only thing coming to my mind are cases where an insecure and irregular Uralic etymology has later simply been replaced by a Germanic loan etymology.

Also, if you're suggesting that these kind of words would actually be loans between Gmc/BF, this is clearly not the case here since both words survive separate. Oh, and I forgot to add, the original meaning of *s'äla- is "to crack", in which function it also remains.

> > > 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".
> >
>
> I disagree.
> Pokorny *pei-, *pi- "fat" etc. (I'd say, rather *pi(:)-)
>
> Torsten

Via an indirect derivational link and a variety of suffixes - maybe. But not directly to the "resin" cluster (the different medial also prohibits that).

John Vertical