Re: floor

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Tavi" <oalexandre@...> wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@> wrote:
> >
> > I never said that I thought these words were borrowed. I regard
> Basque <txakur'> as inherited from West Mediterranean.
> >
> But its phonetic shape is mostly un-Basque. Also Basque has lots of
> loanwords from extinct languages.

The phonetic shape agrees well with <lapur'> 'thief'.

> > The only plausible cognates which I have seen are those cited by
> Hubschmid, namely Corsican <ghia'garo> 'hunting dog' and Sardinian
> <g^a'garu> 'id.'.
> >
> Don't forget Balkanic zagar and Greek zágaros, zágari 'a k. of
> bloodhound' (Trombetti). But IMHO these words aren't related to zakur
> but they reflect a Mediterranean Wanderwort found in PNC *tsEhwo:le (~
> -a) 'fox, jackal', Kartvelian *dz\aGl-, Dravidian *dZa:[v]il- 'dog' and
> ultimately from the Eurasiatic root *dZE:lGV ~ *dZE:GlV 'a small
> carnivore animal (fox, weasel)' (Dolgopolsky's ND 2776).

I have seen the Greek words explained as involving the prefix <dia->, and I am very skeptical about the alleged connections among the rest of the words.

> > For the phonology, cf. Bq. <etxe>, <etxa-> 'house' from Celtic
> *tegja:,
> >
> This etymology is highly unlikely.

And yours is ... ?

> > As (e.g.) <txori> was regarded as the diminutive (properly
> hypocoristic) of <zori>,
> >
> This is a case of homonymy, as txori 'bird' is semantically unrelated to
> zori 'luck'.

What?? You never heard of divination from bird-flight?

> > so has <zakur'> been formed in Basque as the augmentative of
> <txakur'>.
> >
> But there also exists the forms kakur and ttattur /cacur:/, the last
> with expressive palatization, which suggest the initial consonant was
> formerly a velar, assibilated in txakur, zakur.

All these suggest to me is back-formation from <txakur'> by analogy with different sets of words in which hypocoristic palatalization was actually applied to the primary.

> I'd also suggest we continue discussions involving Basque in my own
> list: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/vasco-caucasian/

I agree, since most of this material is only marginally relevant to IE studies, and I will check out your list as time permits.

DGK