Re: Limigantes

From: johnvertical@...
Message: 66944
Date: 2010-12-08

> > > Note that UEW is again fighting with the problem of explaing
> > > away cognates between Germanic and all of Finno-Permic; they
> > > resort to claiming that the Finnish sense of FP *lama was
> > > influenced by Swedish lam "lame" and not that of the other FP
> > > cognates, which have similar senses.
> >
> > The modern stance on *lama is that it is a loan from Germanic >
> > Finnic and that the Permic cognates are unrelated (the
> > palatalization and the vocalism are not explainable from a common
> > FP root).
>
> Obviously there is a problem

It's not obvious at all to me.

> > Distribution in Komi but not Udmurt, and the a~a correspondence
> > may however suggest loaning from BF.
>
> How? By what movement?

The eastward expansion of the Vepses and Karelians. There are a number of other words that have been explain'd as loaned in this way (see Janne Saarikivi, "Substrata Uralica"). BTW, Veps and (northern dialects of) Komi also share the soundlaw *l > w (> v).

*l > w also explains the initial palatalized lateral, as this sound change occur'd initially in Komi, but not Veps. So initial plain /l/ could have then been interpreted as palatalized /l´/ upon loaning.

> The least problematic proposal is one that ascribes the glosses I listed to a pre-IE, pre-Uralic layer.

Fails to explain the shape of the Komi word. Normally *a > o or ë (*kama "crust" > komyl´).

If you're talking about ALL the words (not just *lama), the least problematic proposal is to keep them separate so far.

-You didn't say anything of your own about Pit-Comb Ware Culture and lime trees, but it happens there is an "Uralic" word #lemeS- "lime, bast" (BF *lehmus, Mordv *leveS, Mari #lemeSte) which I've seen attributed as a substrate loan from precisely there.

> > > Note in support of the proposed sl-/sw- alternation also the
> > > l-/v- alternation in Komi S leń, P veń "ruhig, still
> > > (Wetter); windstill"
> > >
> >
> > It's not "alternation", it's a regular dialectal development
> > l > v.
>
> It's not "is", it's "has been proposed to be"
>
> Torsten

Using "is" for statements of estabilish'd theory is perfectly acceptable. "The Earth is the third planet from the Sun, its mean distance from the Sun is 1.5*10^8 km, and its mass is 6*10^24 kg".

John Vertical