Re: *ka/unt- etc, new conquests

> > > > > "This is above all its distribution area. It is bigger than
> > > > > that of Krahe's name groups and seems by far to go beyond
> > > > > the borders of Europe, which I included in my works.
> > > >
> > > > I notice he doesn't actually demonstrate this claim here.
> > >
> > > True. But I'll trust him on this one. He's usually reliable.
> >
> > I don't tho, and I don't plan on starting to back on trust in
> > matters of science. Or hey, I could just tell that I trust
> > Pokorny or Redei or Sammallahti or whomever on the matter and
> > we'd have nothing to discuss. (Which might actually be the smart
> > choice if the experts were still cracking at the topic too, but
> > Krahe won't be around to defend anything anymore.)
>
> You're mixing up things. When I say I trust Kuhn on this one I obviously mean that I believe that he has the data he says he has. When you are talking about Pokorny or Redei or Sammallahti or whomever you are talking about taking on faith their interpretation of the data. Those are two different things.

No, you mean that he has the data, that he has interpreted it correctly, and that you have assumed correctly *what* data he has. I see nothing suggesting that by "far beyond Europa" he means Siberia specifically.

And at any rate, this tangent won't take the burden of proof off your back.

> > I get the impression your view here goes beyond Krahe's, too.
>
> You mean Kuhn's do?

Oops, yes! I'm getting the two confused.

> > > It would mean that some substrate in Europe
> > > had a root *ka/unt- "hunt etc" which was unrelated to Uralic
> > > *kunta "group, to hunt", *kan-ta "to carry" and *kënta "stump,
> > > base".
> >
> > This was Germanic, no? Perhaps I should look deeper into past
> > discussions.
>
> No, it's more than that. Try
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/56153
> taking keywords from that.

"Hate" and "woven"? Try connecting the latter with "hidden" et al if you wish, but to "hunt"??

> > Okay, so there's *kan-tho- "edge" which looks like it could be
> > related to Uralic *känta (up to minimal quadruplet now). The
> > distribution and semantics here are sufficiently bad that I can
> > believe it might be two separate words, with Samic "shore" related
> > to the IE complex.

In fact Samic *kánté could be simply a loan from Proto-Scandinavian. No extra intermediaries required.

> > I continue not to see the semantic link to "hunting group" or the
> > other Uralic words. The idea of a link in the form of "edge" ~
> > "cavalry wing of 100 horsemen" ~ "group" is unconvincing even for
> > Germanic alone.
>
> Who talks about Germanic? The Chatti weren't.

Says who?

> From your Pokorny *kan-tho- "edge":'cymr. cant ,Schar', dazu mir. céte (*kantya:) ,Versammlung', wohl als *,Hundertschaft' identisch mit cymr. cant ,100' oben S. 92;

Oh hello, homophony. Or will you insist that "100" is also a part of this substrate loan complex? Judging by the recent posts you would seem to. This messes up the dating pretty bad, y'kno.

> It's apparently Venetic too:
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/61079

Interesting. Which Venetic is this?

> BTW, just found this one, I wasn't aware of it:
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/9416

Looks coincidental.

> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/55551

Is within Germanic area.

> > That makes about as much sense as "edge" ~ "a sharp-toothed
> > animal" ~ "hound", or "edge" ~ "knife" ~ "handheld tool" ~
> > "hand",
>
> I don't think so.

I do think.

See, the key problem with expanding the "flank" connection is that it is a very culture-specific one. There is no automatical connection between "group" and "edge", especially not between "hunt" and "edge". Moreover, a flank is a special case of both, so whichever direction you begin from, you'd need first a specialization of meaning, then a re-generalization in another direction with a full loss of the older specialized meaning, and even while still retaining the original meaning, it seems. That's a tall order! You'll need to toss in something more before I'll buy it.

Also, remind me, which one DO you hold to be the original meaning?

> > (OTOH hound ~ hunt might have something to it, but it's
> > not directly relevant now).
>
> Of course it is.

No, we have no sense of "dog" in Uralic. I'm most of the time not sure what you are discussing exactly, but I'm discussing the issue of if any of these kVNT words have been loaned to Uralic.

> > Finnic *kansa is a kno'n loan, so not relevant.
>
> Finnic *kansa is an assumed loan, so relevant.

Clarifying: it's not relevant to the issue of if PU was in contact with these ar/ur/geminate substrate thingamajigs, because this lacks an Uralic etymology. Again, we do not assume it to be a loan, we conclude it to be.

Or are you referring to there being a regular Permic cognate (*gooz "pair")? Yes, it could in theory be inherited until Finno-Permic. Nothing in Mari and Mordvinic (or Ugric/Samoyed) however, so possibly a loan thru Finnic? I'd need to check if that correspondence exists in any other supposed F > P loans. It does look a bit too old for that.

> > "Hat" ~ "hose",
>
> I'm trying to keep 'hat'/'hood'/'cassis'out of the picture, but it might be necessary to include it (as 'helmet' as implement for war).

And then "hand" as something you hit people with? I don't think this will fly. "Loosely having something to do with war" is not sufficient (what doesn't link that way, if you have some imagination?)

> "hidden",
> Check these
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/50960
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/51056
> for 'hude'.

Just because we have a word that could go with the "hide" etymon, or with the "edge" etymon, we don't have to make them one and the same (at least not the same on the post-PIE timescale).

> "cunt" ~ "kusi" etc.
> If there's any connection, it's as "fish meat"/"inferior meat", cf. Sw. kött and Eng. chitlings, ie. as the food of the conquered, originally the object of the hunting/fishing expedition.

"Food of the conquered"? I'm going to say this idea is stillborn. Especially from the Uralic POV, given that *kuns´i is near pan-Uralic with the exclusiv meaning of "urine". You could much better argue for "that which is to be hidden" (not that I would think of that as convincing either, however).

> > If you are saying what I think you are saying (ie. that these are
> > all "related somehow") the criteria for related-somehow-ness seem
> > to come down to:
> > 1) Forget all about MOA
> Isn't that a kind of bird?

Manner of Articulation. nt~t~tt~nd~d~dd~ns~ss~s~... anything goes!?
Likewise, POA = Place of Articulation.

> > 2) Forget all about semantics
> No.

Only a minor exaggerration what I think you're doing here. Sticking with the "people" words first is what I would do in your stead.

> > 3) Look for vowels that adhere to a pre-decided set
> Are part of.

As you will; keyword being "pre-decided" however.

> > Heck, why not change #3 to
> > 3b) Forget all about vowels
> Because that would not be in the ar-/ur- language.

That's a telling answer.

> > > > > > Also the distinction between Uralic *kunta "group, to
> > > > > > hunt", "to hunt", *kan-ta "to carry" and *kënta "stump,
> > > > > > base" is by all evidence one inherited from PU;

> > > > > If you give up your assumption that they are native Uralic
> > > > > words, you will.

> They occur far to the west of the Uralic area,

Something very very loosely resembling them. Do you have anything that actually means "to carry", or "base (of tree)"? If not, just admit that these are unrelated.

> and by using Uralic sound laws you get no further than claiming three, possibly four Uralic roots.

Not a problem. They contrast in numerous languages, and have consistently distinct semantics and phonetics.

> > If you use a method other than the presense of phonetical
> > irregularities, or spotty distribution combined with parallels
> > elsewhere (or the lack of a deeper etymology - but that's not
> > applicable here) for identifying latter loanwords in a
> > protolang's reconstructed lexicon, I'd like to hear about it.
>
> That's the one I use.

Good, we agree on something.

> > More seriously tho, there is an obvious semantic connection
> > between "democrat" and "democracy" that does not exist between
> > "stump" and "to hunt".
>
> No, you'd have to assume a semantic historic development that went "support" -> "one of two supports, carrying pole" > "flank" > "social/military organization".

As I said, no obvious connection. Too many assumptions. The meaning of "pole" is limited to Ob-Ugric, ie. east (and you seem to be sneaking in a polysemy of "carrying pole", as "weight-carrying" vs. "that which is carried, standard" - only the 1st is attested); west there is only "tree stump", "base". Again, you also cannot extrapolate ~Germanic society to Proto-Uralic.

> > > > Down that road, we could as well decide that all words are
> > > > substrate loans and call it a day.
> >
> > The correct objection to that is that taken to its logical
> > conclusion, it would abolish the concept of regular descent of
> > lexicon from a reconstructable proto-language.

> > An English word resembling a German word? Must be because they're
> > cross-loans, or both loaned from the same substrate... hm, looks
> > like this substrate contains alternations such as -k ~ -x... and
> > -t- ~ -ts-...
>
> And you'd end up with a huge corpus from that 'substrate' which would turn out to be regular descent.

Yes. Thus concludes our demonstration of Why Words With Regular Correspondences Aren't Later Substrate Loans. Next we could put said result to use.

> > Also external comparisions can just as well point to common
> > inheritance
>
> I usually avoid that.

Because?

> The words I stumble over look from the semantics to be Kulturwörter.

Are "tree stump", "to carry" cultural words too? "Urine"? "Hate"?

> > (if not straight out coincidence).
> Hardly.

Oh, but you'll need statistical proof to be able to back that up.

> > All I'm saying is that these go back to proto-Uralic.
> I thought you had a lot to say on method?

Well, all I'm saying on the origin of *kunta *kanta- *kënta within Uralic. And some method inevitable comes up with even that, if I need to explain how does one end at that conclusion.

> > > > > > And I have no idea what you are getting at with the other
> > > > > > roots with *ka- you list in msg #62525.
> >
> > I'd appreciate if you for once just told us what your thesis is
> > on them, insted of expecting others to read your thoughts on the
> > matter.
>
> I don't even have a final conjecture, because new unexpected discoveries still send me on new tracks. But I think it's this: a way of life developed in the forest-steppe, the home of the Uralic and Yeniseian speakers, which had to do with hunting storages and hunting for small animals and fishing, and the social organization resulting from that was somehow transferred to the steppe, home of the Iranian-speakers and somehow ended up in even the westernmost IE elites.

Proto-Uralians invented hunting-gathering and/or storing food? Either you're having problems communicating the gist of your idea, or you're doing comedy.

And anyway, I meant: what is your thesis on the relationships of the Uralic words you list? Think a little smaller, please.

Getting something — anything — solid together first, insted of trying to juggle all the strings simultaneously, would definitely help others to agree if you are on to something at all, too.

> > Or are you trying to say that *ka is an un-Uralic combination and
> > therefore sufficient grounds for a word being a loan? ;)
>
> You tell me. It's an un-IE combination.

> The paucity of *k and *a in PIE is a fact.
>
> Torsten

Yeah, I'm not contesting that, it just doesn't matter diddly squat when dealing with another language family. They're quite common in Uralic, especially together, in case you didn't gather yet (apparently you have access to the UEW to check, too).

John Vertical