dive (was Re: Sos-)

> I think I'll write out all the variants.
>
> Original form in the ar-/ur- language: *daN- (*duN-)
>
> Alternation
> *daN-/*daNG-/*daNw-
>
> Denasalization
> *da:-/*daG-/*daw-
> *du:-/*duG-/*duw-
>
> 'Venetic Verschärfung' (*w- > *b-, *w- -> *g-)
> *da:-/*dag-/*dab-
> *du:-/*dug-/*dub-
>
> Prenasalisation of voiced stops in the pretonic syllable:
> *dá:-/*dág-/*dáb-/*dang´-/*damb´-
> *dú:-/*dúg-/*dúb-/*dung´-/*dumb´-
>
> 'Half-Grimm'
> *dá:-/*dák-/*dáp-/*dank´-/*damp´-
> *dú:-/*dúk-/*dúp-/*dunk´-/*dump´-

Why do these reconstructions keep looking like they're based on assumptions rather than hard data?

(At least the last three steps propose actual conditions. The initial six-way split does not seem to be even falsifiable.)

> We could do that again with a root *saN- "slush",

One that you just will into being?

> and get
>
> *sá:-/*sák-/*sáp-/*sank´-/*samp´-
> *sú:-/*súk-/*súp-/*sunk´-/*sump´-
>
> which would solve the 'Suomi' mystery

What "mystery"? Several possible etymologies exist, there's no need to posit a yet another one (at least one involving all sorts of hypothetical forms).

> and on the connection to supposed PIE *pen- "swamp"
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/63881
> Funky.

_Bagno_ with voiced stops and a common Slavic distribution quite clearly cannot be a loan from Finnic.

Old Indic _paNka_ "swamp, mud" is interesting; Uralic *pëNka "mushroom" looks like a potential loan from it (or rather, from some more northerly Indo-Iranian precedessor or cognate).

> Instead a loan *paN- ? Cf.
>
> 1 pin´: (Sal. pinli), pl. pi`n´n´&^D (neu: sùomli, pl. -st)
> finne (finnländer);
> s. pin´-mo:, pi`n´n´&^mìez.

Transparently a loan from _Finn_. This provides no new insight.

> So:
>
> the forms with sVl- are most likely from *saN-l-, those with sVr from *saN#
>
> Torsten

Thus far it sounds unlikely either of those exists at all.

I would leave this at *sal- and I do not see any explanation for an l/r alternation required to connect BF *saari.

BTW note that there's no a/u "alternation" in "salt" in Uralic. *a is regularly reflected as Komi /o/ ~ Udmurt /u/, and the latter under some conditions can be delabialized to "island". Connecting this to "salt" has semantical problems, /ï/; long *a: regularly > *o: in Finnic. I see no reason to make it anything but an IE loan.

John Vertical