Re: Sos-

From: dgkilday57
Message: 65086
Date: 2009-09-22

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Torsten" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> > >
> > > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Peter Schrijver
> > > > > Lost Languages in Northern Europe
> > > > > in: Early Contacts between Uralic and Indo-European
> > > > >
> > > > > [...]
> > > > >
> > > > > A second example of direct contact between the language of
> > > > > geminates and a branch of Uralic is the Germanic word hand
> > > > > (Gothic handus etc.) < Proto-Germanic *hand-. All attempts at
> > > > > an Indo-European etymology of this word remain unconvincing
> > > > > (see recently Kluge & Seebold 1989:353). Yet if we take
> > > > > Grimm's and Verner's Laws into account, we may reconstruct
> > > > > *hand- as *kant-. This looks strikingly like a cognate of
> > > > > Proto-Finno-Ugric *käti 'hand, arm', but with a nasal infixed
> > > > > into the root. Since this nasalization is not a feature of
> > > > > Finno-Ugric, or of Indo-European (outside the nasal presents,
> > > > > that is), and since it is a feature of the language of
> > > > > geminates, it is reasonable to conclude that Finno-Ugric
> > > > > *käti was borrowed by the language of geminates, from which
> > > > > it subsequently entered Germanic before Verner's Law and
> > > > > Grimm's Law.
> > > >
> > > > I find it hard to believe that Proto-Germans would have
> > > > assigned a loanword lacking final /u/ to the feminine
> > > > /u/-declension, rather than one of the more common paradigms.
> > > > During historical times the Gmc. fem. /u/-decl., never high in
> > > > members, loses ground. Old High German has already brought
> > > > 'hand' into the /i/-decl., although traces of the /u/-decl.
> > > > persist in Old and Middle HG. In Old English, beside <hand>
> > > > only a handful of fem. /u/-stems are in common use. Indeed if
> > > > the substratal protoform was *ka(n)t-, the Proto-Germans must
> > > > have appended a stressed feminine *-ú- in order for Verner's
> > > > Law to yield Gmc. *hanðu-, whence Gothic <handus> and the
> > > > rest. This is not merely implausible, but without parallel.
> > >
> > > Why couldn't it be borrowed into PPGmc. as *kantú-?
> >
> > Why don't loanwords into modern English form plurals like
> > <children>?
>
> Because it's an inflected form. They are generally not borrowed together with the root as separate loans, but derivatives are.

Fine, but in order for your theory to be plausible, you still need a parallel.

> > > > Identifying substratal loanwords in Germanic requires more than
> > > > just throwing Grimm's and Verner's Laws at the alleged
> > > > protoforms. The morphology of the attested forms must be
> > > > considered as well. In this case I think that *handu- is an
> > > > inherited Indo-European word of archaic formation.
> > >
> > > How do we know those supposed archaic formation aren't chimeric,
> > > and actually belonging in the donor language? Anyway, that's what
> > > I'll propose.
> >
> > In your extensive citations from the UEW I don't see any *kantu-,
> > or anything suggesting *kantu-, in the donor language. Whence -u-
> > if not an inherited IE formation?
>
> But the donor language is not necessarily Uralic, we have to consider the fact of Yeneseian *k-t- "hunt". On the other hand, the semantic spread of the root (hunt, hunting lodge, mooring on side of river) seems to point to water-borne seasonal migration, which fits with the picture from Proto-Uralic.

An appealing picture indeed, but the tail of visual pictures should not be wagging the dog of comparative linguistics.

> > > > My best guess at a PIE protoform is *kóndHu- 'pincher,
> > > > squeezer', from *kendH- 'to pinch, squeeze, compress', in turn
> > > > an enlargement of *ken- 'compact, compressed'. This primary
> > > > adjectival root is Pokorny's *ken-(1) (IEW 558) under which are
> > > > listed mostly nominal extensions of zero-grade *kn-, and some
> > > > words whose IE origin is doubtful (Sanskrit <kanda-> m. 'bulb';
> > > > Greek <kóndos> 'horn, ankle-bone', <kóndulos> 'knuckle').
> > > > Nevertheless the enlargement *kendH- 'to make compact,
> > > > compress, squeeze' has a good parallel in *weidH- 'to make
> > > > apart, divide, separate' from the adjectival root *wei- 'apart,
> > > > disjoint, in two' (mostly in zero-grade *wi-, sometimes dual
> > > > *wi:- < *wih-, IEW 1175, 1127). As a morphological parallel to
> > > > *kóndHu- I regard Greek <kórthus> 'millstone' (Theophrastus) as
> > > > derived from PIE *g^Her- 'short, small, fine-grained'; here the
> > > > adjectival root (Pokorny's *g^Her-(6), IEW 443) is enlarged to
> > > > *g^HerdH- 'to make small, grind' which in turn yields the
> > > > agential *g^HórdHu- 'grinder, millstone', Proto-Greek
> > > > *kHórtHu-, by Grassmann's Law <kórthus>. The same adjectival
> > > > *g^Her- appears in two other archaic IE formations in Greek:
> > > > *g^Hén-g^Hro- 'small-grained material', Greek <kégkhros>
> > > > 'millet; fish-spawn'; *g^H´n.-g^Hru-, Grk. <kákhrus>
> > > > 'winter-bud' (Thphr.), 'parched barley' (Aristophanes). The
> > > > latter's variant <kágkhrus> is probably a cross between these
> > > > forms.
> > >
> > > de Vries:
> > > 'knoka schw. V. 'schlagen, prügeln',
> > > nisl. hnoka 'unruhig sein', nnorw. knoka,
> > > nschw. dial. knåka,
> > > ndä. knuge 'drücken, klemmen'.
> > > — mhd. knochen 'knuffen' und
> > > ae. cnocian, cnucian 'schlagen, stossen'.
> > > — vgl. knúi und knjúkr.
> > >
> > > usw. usw. usw.
> > >
> > > How can a root that behaves like that be considered IE?
> >
> > I already expressed doubt that everything referred to *ken- by
> > Pokorny is really IE. The 'knoll' word fits poorly semantically,
> > since it means more like 'swelling', and the 'knob' word has a
> > geminated media; I'm willing to concede that many of these are NOT
> > inherited by Gmc. from PIE the usual way. I think 'rye' both with
> > and without -gg- came from an IE lg. of the Illyrian type (sorry,
> > not Venetic)
>
> Not to worry. Pokorny uses the term Veneto-Illyrian.

As does Hubschmid. That was back when Venetic consonantal phonology was poorly understood. Venetic is more like Latin in its treatment of PIE mediae aspiratae.

> > and will say more later; I suspect that both Kuhn's NWBlock lg. and
> > Schrijver's lg. of gemm. are "really" NW Illyrian, with some loans
> > from the West Mediterranean substrate.
>
> Presumably you have bona fide Illyrian onomastics to back that up?

A bona fide theory of Illyro-Lusitanian. I am working to incorporate the Macedonian material.

> > > > Verner and several contemporaries regarded 'hand' as connected
> > > > with the Gmc. strong verb *henþ- 'to capture' reflected in
> > > > Goth. <frahinþan>, <-hanþ>, <-hunþans> 'id.', Swedish <hinna>
> > > > 'to obtain, reach', Danish dialectal <hinne> 'id.', in which
> > > > case *hanðu- would be the correct Gmc. form and my explanation
> > > > would fail. More recently however Seebold saw "keine sichere
> > > > Vergleichsmöglichkeit" between 'hand' and *henþ-. Such a
> > > > connection would require an oxytone /o/-grade agent, PIE
> > > > *kontú- 'catcher', to be formed from *kent-, then inherited
> > > > into Gmc. in the sense 'hand'. This is, in my opinion, more
> > > > difficult to justify morphologically and semantically than what
> > > > I proposed above.
> > >
> > > Actually I considered connecting them, but outside IE, in the
> > > donor language, whichever that is.
> > >
> > > Note that those Germanic nouns for which alternations show the
> > > effect of Verner, smell funny too:
> > > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/62159
> > > which might lead one to believe that PPGmc had no mobile stress
> > > in nouns, only in verbs, and those cases which which seem to have
> > > had that only show the effect of loaning from language which did
> > > have mobile stress in nouns. Note that *glas-(/*glar-) is one of
> > > them, and that is suspected of being Venetic (as spoken by
> > > Aestians).
> >
> > I'm working on 'glass', have some old papers to read. Regarding
> > the long list of words with gramm. Wechsel, I'll pick a few and try
> > to prove they are IE, inherited the usual way.
>
> Don't forget to explain also why they,
> 1) in spite of alternating stress, supposedly of IE origin, show very little ablaut
> 2) why what ablaut there is seems to be a/u
> 3) why the root vowels seem to a|i|u, not the expected IE a(?)|eI|eU
> 4) why *kas-an- "hare" has Latin 'mot populaire' cognates, also with /a/, in Latin cascus and ca(s)nus, as does *laGu- with lacus
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/38063

I have argued for years that <lacus> and <mare> are geomorphic loanwords into Latin from a language of the Illyrian type.

Meillet's theory of /a/ as a marker for 'mots populaires' is rather outdated.

> 5) why derivatives seem to carry stress in *gl-á-s, *xr-ínt- and cause root zero grade, where possible
> 6) why the documented pre-Saami *skaid- "division" occurs on the list
>
> etc etc. Maybe I'm just being too critical ;-)

No, your points are appreciated. If everyone agreed with me, something would be wrong.

> Note also, re your concern wrt. PPGerm *kant-ú- section VII containing 'Die maskulinen u-Stämme mit grammatischem Wechsel' and 'U-stämmige Adjektiva mit grammatischem Wechsel'. Feminine gender could be imposed on the basis of "hand" f. / "foot" m. found in other IE languages.

A real stretch, since 'hand' is masc. in some IE lgs. And note the discrepancy of Frau Sonne, Herr Mond vs. Latin/Greek.

> > > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/62525
> > > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/62535
> > > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/64139
> > > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/61079
> > > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/59612
> > > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/63465
> >
> > Mixed bag of memories. I missed the obvious problem the first time
> > around with your reading Venetic <ka.n.ta ruma.n[.]na> as 'Roman
> > tribe' or whatever.
>
> More like "(of the) Roman community" vel sim.
>
> > In <dona.s.to> the first <o> represents /o:/ (cf. Lat. <do:na:vit>)
> > so <u> cannot represent /o:/ in the same position.
>
> It doesn't have to. *Ruma is an old and/or by-form of Roma, cf. Etruscan Ruma, Arabic Rûm, Slavic Rim-.

Etr. has no phonemic distinction between /o/ and /u/, and class. Arabic has only /a:/, /i:/, /u:/ for long vowels.

> > It looks like <ka.n.ta> is a praenomen,
>
> No, it doesn't.
>
> > and if we can't etymologize it, it won't help us with 'hand'.
>
> True, but we can.
>
> > I've read all of Kuhn's papers that you posted except "letzte
> > Idg.", and comments on some will follow separately. I agree with
> > many of his points, as you know.
>
> Try getting his 4-volume 'Kleine Schriften', if you can.
>
> > On the IE dog kennel, I consider both Lat. <canis> and Gmc.
> > <hunda-> to be unrelated to Greek <kuo:n> and the rest. That's
> > another posting.
>
> Yes, yes. We know now the dog came from China. I believe *k-n- "dog" is even one of Ruhlen's world language words. We must look east for the origin of that word. Its appearance in a culture expanding (because of the dog?) into river-borne nomadism is not incongruent.
>
> > > In short, I see a semantic development
> > > "carry, support" ->
> > > "carrying pole/beam", and since there are two of those ->
> > > "edge", and, used in warfare ->
> > > "wing of battle formation" (remember the Roman caput porci, ON
> > > svínfylking, battle formation of several cunei, the various
> > > nations in an alliance fought separately beside each other,
> > > cf. Caesar's description of Ariovitus' battle formation,
> > > cf. Gmc *folk-, Russian polk "regiment") ->
> > > "troop, people".
> > > In that development the first element "carry, support" is found
> > > only in Uralic, not in IE so we must look east for the donor.
> >
> > If we need a donor in the first place.
>
> While I'm at it on that root, I found some more suspected cognates
> http://tinyurl.com/lxawe2
> look at the 'hindana' entry
> OHG hunno "centurion",
> and
> Burgundian hend-inos "king",
> Gothis kind-ins
>
> ie. leader of a *kent-
>
> hent-tar "on the edge"?

You come up with new stuff faster than I can deal with the old stuff.

DGK