Re: Torsten's theory reviewed

At 4:29:40 AM on Friday, October 1, 2010, Torsten wrote:

> --- 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.

I said what I meant. Don't blame me for your failure to
understand a normal usage. (In fact I find that I simply
followed the word choice of my source for that
interpretation.)

>>>>> 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.

The sentence, which you've silently curtailed, was:

A rune carver's error for an unattested <Arogast> does not
seem to me as plausible as a reading that uses only
attested elements.

Your response 'You forget the 'd' is actually there' clearly
indicates that you did not understand my comment. That's
why I had to spell it out in my last post:

>> 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.

And of course instead of actually thinking about it, you
failed to acknowledge that you'd missed something even after
it was explained.

>> >> 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

Maybe you should get your hands dirty with some real
linguistics instead of spending all of your time on
grandiose (and often scientifically vacuous) armchair
theorizing. OWN <-gestr> (ODan <-gæst>) is the normal
reflex of PGmc. *-gastiz and provides no support for a
southern German <-gist>. When OWN *<Friðgestr> ~ ODan
<Frithgæst> was borrowed into OE, the second element was
typically replaced by its WSax. cognate <-gi(e)st>. This
even more obviously provides no support for a southern
German <-gist>.

> And why are you so sure <Eregist> and <Erithegistus> are
> just errors for <Fregist> and <Frithegistus> and no
> cognates of Arogisd?

These names are from post-Conquest forgeries with 9th
century dates. The names and their protothemes are
otherwise unattested in OE. (And while the alternation
between <Fre-> and <Frith-> in the OE borrowing of
<Friðgestr> ~ <Frithgæst> is easily explained, an
alternation between <Ere-> and <Erith-> is not, save as the
result of substitution of <E> for <F> in the known name.)

>>> You wish.

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

> If you say so.

I do. I also say that I take your comment to be a
deliberate attempt to suggest that I'm lying without
actually coming right out and saying 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.

I have no idea to which of the preceding statements this is
supposed to apply. It really doesn't matter, however, since
none of them is particularly contentious.

> 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.

Considering what you're trying to accomplish, that's a
remarkably pointless, not to say silly, statement even by
your standards.

> 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.

There isn't any 'general vacillation' of the vowel of the
reflexes of *gastiz. With the exception of <gista> (if
indeed from *gastjon) and its relatives (e.g., <gisting>),
the developments are regular, and <gista> admits plausible
explanations, even if we don't know which (if any) is right.

Brian