Re: HORSA vs. EXWA

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

>
> W dniu 2012-03-09 12:52, Tavi pisze:
>
> > My own reconstruction is **XrC-o-*, with *C being an affricate

sibilant.

>
> There's nothing to be gained in this way. The reconstruction doesn't
> explain more evidence than the orthodox analysis, and it *fails* to
> explain some of it (Hitt. hartakka-) without arbitrary special

pleading.

> You also complicate the reconstruction by proposing an otherwise

unknown

> PIE phoneme. Ockham's Razor applies here.
>

This is no Ockham's Razor but a strict application of the IE ortodox
theory, which allows you to dismiss external linguistic data.

IMHO, this is a rather extraordinary case of a genuine PIE root which
has been preserved through many millenia, because in most cases the
original PIE words have desintegrated like meteorites, whose fragments
are then labelled as indepedent "PIE" roots.

> > You might redefine "PIE" to designate the most recent lexicon layer

in

> > the IE family, but then you should create new names for the older

strata.

>
> No, I'm not *redefining* anything. I use "PIE" in the standard sense.

if X is a language family, Proto-X

> means (and has always meant) the latest common ancestor of all its

members. If you want to refer to its

> earlier stages, you can use "pre-" (pre-PIE etc.).
>

If we follow this definition to the letter, "the latest common ancestor
of all IE languages" must have been spoken in a very remote past,
possibly in the Upper Palaeolithic. Then we would speaking of post-PIE
linguistic facts, not "pre-PIE".

> One does not even have to insist that *h1ek^wos referred originally to
> domesticated horses. Wild horses were very common throughout Eurasia
> and they may have kept their name after domestication.
>
> > Only that there's no actual evidence this domestication was done by

IE

> > speakers.
>
> This is irrelevant.
>

On the contrary, it's extremely important, because domesticated horses
are no different than other animals such has pig, goat, cow, etc. which
were imported from non-IE speakers.

> > My theory is that **h1ek´w-o-* specifically designated the

domesticated

> > horses from the Pontic-Caspian steppes. As in the case of other
> > domesticated animals, this is a loanword which originated in the
> > language of the domesticators.
>
> If you put forward such a theory, the burden of the proof lies

squarely

> on your shoulders. I am not aware of any IE language that shows a
> consistent generic distinction between the terms for wild and
> domesticated horses, like that between "wolf" and "dog" (while

different

> types/breeds of domesticated horses are often distinguished).
>

I think you missed my point entirely. Most names of domesticated animals
in IE were imported in the Neolithic, either as direct loanwords or
Wanderwörter.

> > Of course, as horses were also domesticated in more than just one

place,

> > there're also other 'horse' words. For example, I've already

suggested

> > that Germanic **xurs-a-/*xruss-a-* must have coined by people

familiar

> > with the wild animal.
>
> Just about everybody was familiar with wild horses in all putative IE
> homelands. Show me one scrap of evidence that the Germanic word meant
> specifically 'wild horse' before you claim that it *must* have been

the

> case.
>

I've already linked this word to external cognates meaning 'deer' or
'roe deer'. This would imply the word was originally applied to the wild
horse in a remote past. I also think this root was fragmented into
several IE verbs meaning 'to run' or 'to move quickly'. I must remind
you of the deep chronologies involved.