Re: Sos-

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Torsten" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
> > > > 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 rather outdated.
> > >
> > > It was more like an observation, I think.
> >
> > Colored by the difficulty of fitting many of these words, e.g. Lat.
> > <cardo:> 'hinge', into the e/o/zero ablaut paradigm. But further
> > developments in 20th-century IE studies have removed much of the
> > apparent trouble with the /a/.
>
> I'll agree with 'schwa secundum' in phonetically difficult contexts, as Jens proposed.
>
> > To me it creates much more trouble to assume that Indo-Europeans
> > had a clearly defined "Hochsprache" and "Niedersprache", with the
> > low-brow rabble clumsily uttering /a/ rather than the refined /e/
> > and /o/ of the upper class.
>
> Why not? Most societies today have similar shibboleths. All mobile steppe societies divide people into those who matter (us) and the others (sedentary) who shouldn't get ideas. Besides, most likely the PIE thematic vowel /e|o|zero/ was PPIE /a/ (that way -i, -u and thematic stems were originally -i, -u and -a stems). If late, PIE invasions overran early, PPIE invasions, you'd get exactly such a vowel-marked Hochsprache/Niedersprache mix. Kuhn's 'Ablaut, /a/ und Altertumskunde'
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/30032
> which I recommend, notes such a temporal procession in loans, but ascribes it to 'fashion'. Besides, there is not really such a big difference between the sociolect and the dialect(loan) hypotheses, only the assumption of a conquest.

I have a copy of that paper, which I should probably revisit. I agree the Old PIE thematic vowel was */a/, and I believe this was preserved as */a/ in later PIE in heavy syllables in non-verbal forms. For example Lat. <falx> 'sickle', Sicel <zagkle:>, Liguro-Latin <daculum>, Gallo-Rom. dial. <dal>, <daille>, etc. (by dissimilation from *dalklom vel sim.) have what I regard as original /a/ in the noun *dHalgH-s, *dHalgH-os, etc. corresponding to the verbal root *dHelgH-. Likewise <albus> 'white' in my view has an old /a/.

And while I may not be able to disprove the notion of ablauting PIE-speakers overrunning earlier non-ablauting speakers, I find it hard to believe that the same scenario occurred exactly the same way in different areas, and that the pre-IE substrate was always insulated from the ablauting Hochsprache by this Niedersprache. It just seems too artificial.

> >
> > > 9) why *slaxan- : *slaGan- "Schläger, Mörder" (more like "drench,
> > > douse, snuff"), participating in a class VI verb
> > > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/61680
> > > is on the list
> >
> > If you have time, see A. Noreen, "Weiteres zum Vernerschen Gesetze"
> > (PBB 7:431-441). Much of my forthcoming posting on Verner's Law
> > and nouns will be based on this material. He uses many examples
> > from eastern North Gmc. so you should be right at home.
>
> I'll see what my library says. Möller uses him a lot (relating 'Noreen alternations' to similar phenomena in Semitic).

Try looking for the article title on Google Books. In the U.S. it gives only 8 or 10 hits and finding the right one is easy, provided you know that Sievers, the PBB editor, is cited as the "author".

DGK