Re: Torsten's theory reviewed

From: Torsten
Message: 66669
Date: 2010-10-01

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <bm.brian@...> wrote:
>
> At 5:41:25 AM on Thursday, September 30, 2010, Torsten wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> > <bm.brian@> wrote:
>
> >> At 6:19:44 AM on Sunday, September 26, 2010, Torsten wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >>> But "arogis deda / alagu þleuba dedun" with two
> >>> separate(?) meanings of "do" sounds contrived.
>
> >> Not separate meanings; the first instance is (on this
> >> reading) merely pleonastic.
>
> > Can't be, it's the same verb
>
> Of course it can. In a linguistic context 'pleonastic'
> means '[i]nvolving the use of words which are redundant, in
> that they merely repeat information already expressed
> elsewhere' (Trask, A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in
> Linguistics).

I don't think Trask meant that to cover mere repetition, but no matter.

> I could also have said 'redundant'.

If that is what you meant, I think you should have.


> >>> Now if the scrabble rules allow me to subtract a
> >>> consonant, I think I'll pick a -t- instead of an -l-.
>
> >> They don't allow you to do so arbitrarily. Both <Gis-> and
> >> <-gis> are very well attested Gmc. name themes; <-gist> is
> >> not.

Not true; see below.


> >> Moreover, there was a fairly common <l>-suffix by
> >> which themes could be extended, so it would not be very
> >> surprising if an inherent final <-l> were sometimes lost.
>
> >> For that matter, it's not clear that anything has to be
> >> lost: the 'arrow-shaft, beam, staff' word may be an <-l>
> >> diminutive of an ablaut variant of the 'spear' word, in
> >> which case the theme *gæsa- may simply continue the variant
> >> itself.
>
> >>> Put differently, it might be plausible, but so is the
> >>> -gist interpretation, given the facts at hand.
>
> >> A rune carver's error for an unattested <Arogast>
>
> > Your claim. You forget the 'd' is actually there.
>
> You missed the point.

Your sentence was a claim. It didn't contain a point.


> What is actually there is <Arogisd>;
> if this represents unattested <Arogast>, both the <i> and
> the <d> require explanation. The <d> can be explained as
> the result of confusion following the High German sound
> shift, but the <i> remains an error.

The <i> is there. That it is there by error is your claim.


> >> does not seem to me as plausible as a reading that uses
> >> only attested elements. Support for a genuine <-gist>
> >> theme is nil.

Maybe you should check your books again.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/56259
And why are you so sure <Eregist> and <Erithegistus> are
just errors for <Fregist> and <Frithegistus> and no cognates of Arogisd?


> > You wish.
>
> I don't really care one way or the other.

If you say so.

> However, the word
> in 'Beowulf' certainly doesn't offer any such support, and
> not just because it doesn't appear there as a name theme.
> Whether that <gist> represents <giest> 'guest' or <gæ:st>
> 'spirit', the form is OE, and so far as I can tell not
> standard for any OE dialect. The PGmc. sources are *gastiz
> and *gaistaz, respectively, neither of which can be expected
> to produce <gist> in a southern German context.

I don't think so. The supposed PGmc. *gasti- has a cognates in Latin and Slavic, the supposed *gaista- doesn't have any outside Germanic.

de Vries:
'gista schw. V. 'gast sein, übernachten' (< *gastjon); also eig. *gesta zu erwarten; dass aber gista die lautform ist, schreibt man dem einfluss von verba wie sigla, nista, virða zu (s. E. Lidén BB 21, 1895, 115), nicht befriedigend, weil es mit diesen Zw. kaum anknüpfungspunkte gibt. Eine erklärung aus einer grundform *ga-wistōn (Sturtevant, Lang. 6, 1930, 257) ist abzulehnen. Eher könnte man an systemzwang denken, weil das grundwort gestr lautete und solche denominativa umlaut zeigen.
- nisl. fär. nnorw. gista, fär. auch gesta, aschw. gista, gæsta.
- ae. giestian 'gast sein'.
- vgl. gestr.'

So apparently 'gist' is not just OE. The fact that the supposed PIE *ghosti- has <o> in the a stressed syllable also points to the word being of non-IE origin, possibly Uralic.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/62525
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/62535
The semantic deviation of the
North Saami guos'se -ss- "guest, stranger"
from the descendants of
Finno-Permic *kanta "people; mate, friend"
which UEW gives as a reason for excluding it, is no bigger than that between the two senses "enemy" and "guest" accepted by IEists. I think that is the reason for the general vacillation of the vowel of the *gast-/gist- word: it is a loan from a non-IE language. The limited distribution of the word in IE points in the same direction.


Torsten