Re: Mapping the Origins and Expansion of the Indo-European Language

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Francesco Brighenti" <frabrig@...> wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@> wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Francesco Brighenti" <frabrig@>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > d in Vedic Sanskrit adbhis, adbhyas has long been thought to
> > arise through assimilation to the following voiced consonant (*ap-
> > bhis > *ab-bhis > adbhis). An analogous dissimilation pattern is
> > also seen at work in the dat.pl. of Vedic Sanskrit napa:t-
> > 'grandson', i.e. nadbhyas (< *napt-bhyas).
> >
> > But that is not quite parallel. Since the zero-grade of 'foot' in
> > compounds, *-pd-, becomes -bd-, we should expect *napt-bhyas to
> > become *nabdbhyas first. The attested form <nadbhyas> would then
> > result from loss of -b- through cluster simplification, not
> > dissimilation.
>
> This problem was already discussed by, among others, linguist Johannes Schmidt (in a 1895 work) -- see pp. 59ff. at
>
> http://home.us.archive.org/details/kritikdersonante00schmuoft

Schmidt's argument depends heavily on taking a single /t/-less Gothic word as continuing an ancient form, which I find dubious.

> > I have seen several other attempts to explain the adbhis-adbhyas
> > problem going back to K.F. Johannsen, and have found none of them
> > convincing, so I think root-suppletion is a valid option here.
> > After all, we do have this root in Avestan <aDu->.
>
> O.k., now I see (after a search on the Web) that this *ad- root for 'water' has been proposed long ago -- see, e.g. here:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/cnrqt6u
>
> << Die ai. I. pl. und D. pl. <adbhis>, <adbhyas> haben einen Stamm *ad- 'Wasser' zur Voraussetzung, der zu aw. <adu> 'Wasser, Bach', lit. <od-menis> 'Flußmündung', gr. <adis-> < *ad-s- 'Schlamm', alat. <assyr>, jünger <asser>, <aser> 'Blut' gehört, welch letzteres wegen /ss/, /s/ < /ss/ nicht zu ai. <asan-> gestellt werdern kann. >>

I agree with Piotr that the archaic Latin 'blood' word is probably an unrelated /r/n/-stem, and the Greek assignment is dubious; I have seen other suggestions for <asis> (including non-IE). But the river-names along with the Av. and Lith. words make this root highly plausible.

> Is it an ablaut variant of *ud- (= *uod-/*wed-) as is maintained by A.G.E. Speirs here:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/buzk8ao

I cannot believe that. The root was either *h2ad- or *h4ad-, unrelated to *wed-. The latter choice *h4ad- is suggested by Bomhard's long-range equations cited by Richard on Nostratic-L (to which I replied earlier today). Of course, we prefer to use internal IE comparison, so the Hittite vocabulary should be scrutinized for watery words involving *at- or *hat-.

> Otherwise, how many similar but discrete IE roots for water do we get? (*ap-, *ab-, *ud-, *ad-,...)

We can delete *(h2)ab- as reflecting *(h2)ap-h3-, as Matasovic' does, in Celtic and elsewhere. Otherwise we also have *h4akW- and very likely *h4am-. This is not surprising, synchronically or diachronically, given phonesthemic cohesion on the one hand, and the tendency to generalize specific usages on the other. In modern Greek an adjective meaning 'fresh, new' has become the generic term, and in Celtic 'dark' took on that function.

What particularly interests me here is suppletion of root-noun forms. If Iranian *adu- replaced an earlier *ad-, perhaps the replacement began with the nom. sg. *a:d (Skt. *a:t) from *h2/4a:ds with lengthened grade, an odd-seeming form. A possible parallel is the Ligurian name of the modern Torrente Verde, appearing in the Sententia Minuciorum as nom. Edus, acc. Edem, abl. Ede. Petracco Sicardi suggested that the river-name was a root-noun, and that local Latin Edus had been formed as a suppletive to Edem and Ede. But this is not what one expects Latin-speakers to do; they would more likely have formed a nom. *Edis or *Ede:s from the given oblique cases. I think the river-name was a root-noun 'Eater' (i.e. 'Eroder', good for a torrent which floods intermittently) from *h1ed-, and the unmodified cases would have corresponded to Lat. 'foot', i.e. nom. *E:s, acc. *Edem, abl. *Ede when Latinized. But I suspect that the nom. had already been replaced in Ligurian by an /u/-stem, thus *Edus, which had not begun to spread to the other cases at the time of Roman conquest. Otherwise it is very difficult to explain the morphology of this river-name in the Sent. Minuc.

DGK