Re: Nordwestblock, Germani, and Grimm's law

--- In cybalist@... s.com, johnvertical@ ... wrote:
>
> Sorry for not combining this with the previous reply.
>
> > > > t > s is a weird consonant alternation?
> > >
> > > Like I just said, it's unmotivated, therefore weird (to see it
> > > in this supposed word, not in general).
> >
> > I assume one of the transmission languages was the language of
> > geminates (which I assume is the same as the ar-/ur- language),
> > and that type of alternation is included the defining
> > alternations for that language.
>
> So you get out of assuming one sound change by making some
> assumptions about the transfer route involved. I'm not sure if
> that's helping.

If you have any objections, please tell me.

> Also I recall the phonetically unconvincing *kunt vs. Uralic
> *kun´s´i "urine" vs. Baltic *ku:Si "pubic hair" (which doesn't even
> involve a plain *s at any point) as one "example" of this change.

That was Schrijver; I haven't included it.

> Was there ever any more?

I hope this refreshes your memory
http://tech. groups.yahoo. com/group/ cybalist/ message/62677

> > > Precisely the point I was making: wanderwords such as "tea" do
> > > not require assuming any sound laws just for the purpose of
> > > their propagation.
> >
> > That is assuming tea/chai is a typical wanderwort which it isn't,
> > since its two forms were borrowed into written languages, and
> > their propagation since then is thus documented. Here is a real
> > wanderwort from Pokorny:
>
> Shifting goalposts. I've not called that stuff Wanderwörts, and I
> would prefer not to.

I would prefer for you to call them Wanderwörter. But it's a free country.

> > You obviously have a beef with Pokorny and Prellwitz. Please keep
> > me out of it.
>
> Can't do, if your approach is to appeal to "the same privilege of
> exemption they enjoy". And it seems that I would not grant the
> words YOU were referring to any "privilege of exemption".

So if I choose a Wanderwort, you get to decide if it is?

> Most older etymological dictionaries contain plenty of invalid
> comparisions.

True. How is that relevant here?

>
> > > > You misunderstand. I was pointing out that such words would
> > > > be irrelevant to the new concept of placing the
> > > > responsibility for providing a certain number of cavalry on a
> > > > particular group or area.
> > >
> > > Sounds better.
> > >
> > > > No doubt some languages would use existing words, but others
> > > > used the new one.
> > >
> > > Yes, that sounds fine too. But it does not seem that this
> > > actual specific meaning ever surfaces in the words you have in
> > > there.
> >
> > What specific meaning and in where? Please be more specific.
>
> "Group of civilians tasked with providing a certain number of
> cavalry" for *LuN-.

Wrong, *kaN-t-. And there was no professional military. The society was the army was the society, as in to a certain extent until recently in Turkey and some Latin american countries.
A meaning attested anywhere at all, or made up by you?

In Latin America, the army has traditionally been the scourge of society, more like an anti-society or a legalized mafia. It's been a lumpen-based organization, one of the few means by which outcasts could accrue wealth, at least until the rise of the drug cartels