From: Torsten
Message: 65859
Date: 2010-02-15
>No, that's what Vilhelm Thomsen said might be the case in 'Über den Einfluss der germanischen Sprachen auf die finnisch-lappischen. Eine sprachgeschichtliche Untersuchung (1870)'
> > > > I proposed that the *IE* s-stems were based on a
> > > > reinterpretation of the *IE* genitive -Vs as nominative (which
> > > > BTW I think is the origin of the IE nom.sg. -(V)-s.
> > >
> > > Okay. Then what does Finnic have to do with it?
> >
> > It borrowed both from PIE thematic stems (Germanic a-stems) (like
> > rengas) and PIE s-stems, and PIE (and Germanic) s-stems (like
> > lammas), with the same result (the vieras declension). One
> > explanation for that is that they borrowed the stem of the
> > nom.sg., which would have the same *-os ending (<- *-as in PPIE
> > and -> *-as in some dialects, including Germanic), but *not* in
> > Germanic, which had lost the s-stem nom.sg *-s. The cognates of
> > the borrowed items may be found in Germanic, but the donor
> > language can't be PGmc, as you also remarked (below).
>
> Aaah. So the lack or presence of -s in Finnic would be not so
> erratic after all? It IS commonly left away entirely or substituted
> (hanhi "goose" < B. *Zansis, karja "cattle" < Gmc *xarjaz, mair-ea
> "smeering" < Gmc *smairjaz), but you're saying that where it does
> appear, all have it if not from the nom.sg, then from an old -s-
> stem. Right?
> The words of wider Finnic distribution where this -s appearsThere's no way of avoiding it being an issue if we insist that its origin is in loans from Germanic.
> appended to an Uralic root seem, then, like an issue here, if we
> are to make this suffix unproductiv.
> Some of them could beAs you can see in the Thomsen locus
> explained by being original -ks stems that were changed to -s due
> to the example of IE loans (old Finnic words in -aks are rare), as
> _oras_ "thorn" vs. Livonian _voraaks_ explicitly suggests. The
> Uralic status of _uros_ "male" and _nauris_ "turnip" is uncertain -
> Hungarian _úr_ "lord" "has been considered a separate Iranian loan"
> according to Häkkinen, and Ob-Ugric _*nëëG@... means "cedar nut"
> (this would also be the only Uralic root featuring *-kr-), with no
> other internal cognates.
> Also have you spotted any examples of -s- stem correlation other
> than *lambaz?
> A word lacking an IE etymology is not really a primeThat's what I thought too.
> candidate for loaning from a para-Germanic language, or
> pre-Germanic.