Re: Laryngeals Indo-Uralic

From: tgpedersen
Message: 64980
Date: 2009-09-04

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "caotope" <johnvertical@...> wrote:
>
> > > 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?

No, since that is part of the ar-/ur- etc language.

> What is the alternate *g part, if not originally part of the root,

It is part of the original root. *in,#- > *i:g#.

> and where do you think the *j- there come from?

There seems to be an alternation *i- <> *je-, for whichever reason.
>
> > 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.

Don't 'us' me. If you don't want to accept that, state why or keep your opinion to yourself.


> > > > 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.

Latin glacie:s

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

The argument in itself, or the result?


> > > 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?

Yes.

> How can you tell "ice" is zero-grade, and that the -s here is the
> same suffix?

I'm guessing, of course. Linguists do that.

> If anything, that you need to devise the ad hoc loss of *N suggests
> you're on the wrong track here.

Not ad hoc, see above, so invalid argument.

> And that still leaves it unexplained why there is a linking vowel
> here but not in "ice".

The -a- is a participle suffix.

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

As you can see there aren't any meaningful objections to it.

> > > > > 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.

OK, so you want to posit three PIE roots instead of two.

> Again, the only choices aren't "all inherited" and "all substrate".

True. How is that relevant?

> 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.

No it doesn't. It's your choice among several possible alternatives.

> Anyway, what DO we make of the BSlavic form? We need only need
> nasals on the IE side for this form.

Now you're making no sense at all.

UEW
'jän,e 'Eis' FU
Finn. jää 'Eis';
est. jää |

lapp.
N jiegn,â -n,- 'id.; glacier',
L jiekn,a,
K (484) T Kld. ji:ññ,
Not jieññ 'Eis' |

mord. E ej,ev,en,,ij, M jäj,äj |

tscher. KBU i B ij |

wotj. SG je, K d´o. |

syrj. S P ji, Pec^. ji, PO ju. |

ostj.
(OL 160) V jön,k, DN jen,k, O jon,k,
(160) V Vj. Trj. DN jen,k, Ni. Kaz. ji:n,k, O jin,k, 'Wasser' |

wog. (WV 2) TJ l´ä:n,, KU jö:n,k, P So. ja:n,k |

ung. jég (Akk. jeget, dial. gyég) 'id., Hagel'.

Vgl türk. (nur in den sibirischen Türksprachen):
soj. t´en,, koib. nen,, bak. nin, 'Grundeis'.

FU *n, wurde
in den perm. Sprachen zu Ø,
in den Ug. Sprachen zu * n,k (> ostj.-wog. n,k, ung. g).'


> Your "original *iN" fails immediately since this, too, is a long
> vowel, despite no loss of *N.

The ar-/ur- etc alternation is -VNC- / -V:C- / -VC:-. This is -VNV-. No fail.

> 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

What is Substrate Y?

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

*jän,- and *in,- can.

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

OK.


Torsten