Re: HORSA vs. EXWA

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

>
> > Turkic has a velar suffix not found in the other groups. From what

I've

> > seen of the EDAL, this kind of suffixes are rather frequent in

Altaic,

> > and sometimes are included in PAltaic protoforms (between

parentheses).

> >
> > My point is Hittite *hartagga-* has a similar suffix not found in

the

> > other IE forms. Of course, this doesn't necessarily imply a direct
> > relationship between Hittite and Turkic, but it's rather an ANALOGY.
>
> What do you mean by "analogy" in such a case? In linguistics we speak

of

> analogy if a word is reshaped so as to conform to an already existing
> precedent -- usually a rule-governed pattern. What do you think the
> Hittites did?
>

As the Altaic suffix also appears in other names of animals, I presume
it must be a diminutive. So it's possible the Hittite suffix has the
same function. I must insist, however, in that the PIE root has no velar
whatsoever.

> As for *-k^o- in Indo-European, suffice it to mention

*h2juh3n.-k^ó-

> 'young', derived from the impeccably IE compound *h2ju-h3on-. Rare as

it

> may have been, the suffix certainly existed and formed adjectives. It
> can be inferred from the accent shifted to the zero-grade root

syllable

> that *h2r.'tk^o- was a deadjectival noun. Even if we cannot identify

the

> root securely, there is also a possibly related abstract noun,
> *h2rétk^es- 'damage, destruction', preserved in Indo-Iranian.
>

I formerly considered this possibility, but I rejected it on account of
macro-comparative data.