Re: Pre-Greek loanwords

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

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@> wrote:
> >
> > Loanwords can go either way. Semitic has borrowed such IE terms as
> > *burg- 'tower', *tawr- 'bull', and *qarn- 'horn'.
> >
> > > The first one is a Wanderwort of Vasco-Caucasian origin. And unlike
> > > *(s)teur-,*taur- doesn't have the IE Ablaut vowel, so it must be
> another
> > > Wanderwort.
> >
> > The first one can be etymologized within PIE: *bHer-g^H- 'to carry
> within' > 'to protect from the elements' > 'to defend'. It started
> wandering from PIE, not to PIE.
> >
> Possible but highly unlikely IMHO.
>
> > The second is *th2eur-,
> >
> No, this is an ad-hoc reconstruction.

How is ad-hoc /s/-mobile preferable to an ad-hoc laryngeal? And with what acrobatics do you get the Greek form?

> > distinct from *steur-.
> >
> Actually it's *(s)teur-.
>
> > Etr. <thevru> 'bull' also comes from it.
> >
> This is a loanword from *(s)teur-.

I argued that a decade ago, but I am now a decade ahead of that.

DGK