Re: Laryngeals Indo-Uralic

> > Nothing prevents one of these being a loan (from some IE, Uralic
> > or related source) and one inherited. The two elements seem to be
> > of different age anyway: "ice" (zero initial?) would fall under
> > the IE *H <> Uralic *j correspondence, while "ickle" (< †gicel)
> > has likewise *j- and might thus be newer (within IE).
> >
> > Speaking of derivation, how much of your proposed derivation
> > *iNgs > *eis would be during the IE evolution and how much within
> > the donor language? I'm not aware of any regular law of
> > compensatory loss of *Ng. If anything, that looks like we should
> > get *ks.
>
> *in,-s- > *i:s- > *eIs-.
> And you just answered the question. It would have taken place in
> the donor language.

Basically an ad hoc change, then?

What is the alternate *g part, if not originally part of the root, and where do you think the *j- there come from?

> And since I assume that to be the ar-/ur-, geminate, bird language,
> it would have -VnC- / -V:C- / -VC:- alternations anyway

Let's not go there, please.

> > > 2) The limited and northern geographical distribution of the
> > PIE words cognates (except for the Iranian word, but who knows
> > what nomads pick up).
> >
> > It's only natural that words meaning "ice" might be lost in more
> > southern descendants.
>
> 'Snow' wasn't.

So it goes. Didn't say any of these *must* disappear.

I am continuing this part pretty much for the sake of the argument, tho.

> > Hm, but could it be Iranian palatalized this word to get *-s-,
> > and they loaned it to Germanic? Except the voicing doesn't quite
> > fit.
>
> You'd need a high vowel suffix for that.

Palatalized due to being a palatovelar, not by the law of palatals.

> > > 3) The derivation with a genitive partitive -s as in *gl-a-s
> > > (and, I suspect, *gr-a-s) points to Aestian or whatever
> > > preceded it.
> >
> > Where does Aestian come into this?
>
> Because the word glesum "amber" is Aestian, according to Tacitus.

I'm still confused. Weren't you using this only as an example of a zero-grade + s derivation, not as cognate? How can you tell "ice" is zero-grade, and that the -s here is the same suffix? If anything, that you need to devise the ad hoc loss of *N suggests you're on the wrong track here. And that still leaves it unexplained why there is a linking vowel here but not in "ice".

In other words, in what way is this better than Pokorny's meaningless suffixes?

> > > > Etherman brought up other examples of a correspondence
> > > > of PU *ä to IE *ei not long ago on the Nostratica list.
> > >
> > > That is not a counter-argument, loans of one and the same path
> > > also show regular substitutions.
> > >
> >
> > OTOH regular patterns should be explained as regular loaning only
> > if inheritance can be ruled out.
>
> Pokorny is only able to able to unify the "ice" root by postulating
> semantics-less -s- and -n- suffixes.
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/60884
> That means that root is not PIE

That means it isn't a *single* PIE root. Again, the only choices aren't "all inherited" and "all substrate". The fact that Germanic ends up with two forms > "ice", "icle" points to one form being inherited (at least to some depth) and another loan'd.

Anyway, what DO we make of the BSlavic form? We need only need nasals on the IE side for this form. Your "original *iN" fails immediately since this, too, is a long vowel, despite no loss of *N.

Given the geographics, I'm tempted to apply Uralic influence (direct or substrate-mediated) here, and keep the rest as IE-internal. That is:

Indo-Uralic #jäng-
Uralic inherited *jäNi
IE inherited *jeg'- > Germanic, Celtic, Satem Branch X
Iranian ends up with *eis loaned from SBX; later loaned by Germanic
Substrate Y ends up with *i:n- either by inheritance or by loan from Uralic, which is loaned to Balto-Slavic

> > (The correspondence is also non-trivial so the point of
> > divergence needs to be pre-PU or pre-PIE anyway.)
>
> I don't understand the last sentence.
>
>
> Torsten

Uralic *ä and IE *ei/*i: cannot be loaned from a common form.

But, as stated, I'm now leaning on *jeg' being the oldest IE form.

John Vertical