Re: Octha or Ohta?

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

>
> W dniu 2012-02-08 03:34, stlatos pisze:
>
> > Though it makes little dif., they're from the same root; I don't know
> > why'd you put 'rake, scrape' w 'comb' but not 'cut'.
>
> First, because raking has more to do with combing than with reaping, and
> a rake is more similar to a comb than to a scythe or a knife. Secondly,
> the verb meaning 'comb' and its derivatives have no satemised reflexes
> anywhere (and I don't mean only Balto-Slavic; in particular, Luwian has
> initial /k-/ before a front vowel in <kisa:(i)-> 'comb').

I just said they were from both *k- not *kY-; your expl. doesn't address that. In-Ir has forms w both, as I wrote (also ruc- / ruç-, which, by your logic, would mean they were unrelated).

> Thirdly,
> Slavic has parallel derivatives from *both* of them with completely
> different meanings ('braided hair' vs. 'scythe'). There's no need to
> lump them together, and my reference books, including LIV, don't do so.

Look at:

kast = rake, kasît = scrape Lat; kàsti kasù, kasý:ti kasau~ Lith;
vs.
kai~s^ti = scrape/rub/smooth Lith; coysnis = comb OPr;

kosa = hair OCS;
vs.
késara- \ kes.ara- = hair / mane S;

Gmc.
*xaizda- = hair
vs.
*xaizda- = flax fiber / etc.


Exactly the same meaning range, but *kays- differs from *kas- in having an entire phoneme added WITHIN the word, not just a possible k vs kY (considering all the apparently irregular changes among them in families that differentiate them). Is scrape > cut impossible? Would you prefer *kays- > *kyas- > *kYas-? Because you need some relation among them in any good framework.

Also, Skt varies s/s. here for no apparent reason, the kind of change almost always attributed to foreign infl.

>
> > Dividing roots when the dif. is likely due to currently-unknown sound
> > changes is wrong; it's how, for example, Buck put *taikna- w
> > unknown/suffixed *digY- not *dikY-.
>
> Buck happens to be wrong here. The modern revised formulation of Kluge's
> Law takes care of *taikna- without any need to postulate *deig^- (which
> would have had a prohibited root shape anyway).
>

Yes; that's my point: he's wrong in exactly the way you are wrong, just more obviously so to you since you are incapable of seeing your mistakes.