Re: Greek psephas/knephas/dnophos/zophos: linked?

From: Tavi
Message: 69374
Date: 2012-04-19

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Torsten" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> The fact that a word appears in Altaic or Kartvelian does not mean
> that they appear in some 'paleo-IE' dialect.
 >
> > This is because you stick to the traditional PIE model, which is
> > both incomplete (it doesn't explain all the IE facts) and
> > isolacionst.
>
> No, it is because I'm sticking to logic. The fact that a set of nasal-initial words appears in Altaic or Kartvelian on the one hand and in a denasalized form in IE does not necessarily mean that they appear in some 'paleo-IE' dialect, since they could all have been borrowed from a now lost language, being denasalized when borrowed by PIE and not when when borrowed by Altaic and Kartvelian.
>
This is precisely my point: your "PIE" is precisely the paleo-IE dialect where this word became denasalized. As I said many times, IMHO the so-called "PIE roots" don't belong to a single language but come from several paleo-dialects.

> How do you explaim then that the "fog" word is denasalized only in Lithuanian, but your examples (presumably) are denasalized in many more IE languages?
>
The fact the nasal survived to denasalization makes me think the word had originally a laryngeal at word-initial: *Hn- (clusters *Hn-/*Hr- are rather common in Proto-NEC, as for example in the 'night' word), then lost in "PIE". Remember that besides *nebh- we've also got *ºnbh- (e.g. Greek aphrós 'foam' < *ºnbh-r-o-).

> The supposed singular n- -> d- of Lithuanian debesìs is explained
> much better by the assumption of an original cluster *dhn- vel sim
> in the "fog" word.
>
> > I disagree.
>
> No, you don't, since you have now incorporated into your proposals my idea of adding the "fog" word to the group of words for "darkness" with initial *gn-, *dn-.
>
No, I haven't. These are totally independent etymologies.