Re: PIE suffix =t in food?

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, johnvertical@... wrote:

>
> > > On re-checking some of Koivulehto's writing he has actually suggested an initial phonetic develoment into an open labial vowel *o, *a > *å and that (some of) these loans would be later than this development & erlier than *å > *a. Which seems to require awfully close timing, but recalling another *o-loan yet: at least *okti "bear" from *h2rtk´os (exact loangiver not identified AFAIK) appears to require *o being derivable even from previous IE *a anyway; and must also be assigned to a layer distinct from the one with *H- > *k-.
> >
> > Anatolian and Tocharian are ruled out, but Venetic would work, with vocalization of PIE syllabic */r./ to *-or- as in Latin.
>
> I see. But do we run into problems since this item is found in Mordvinic as well? How far east can North Venetic be assumed to have been spoken?

On the distribution of the Veneti, Torsten's model was the British Empire, with far-flung groups of Veneti remaining in contact through maritime routes. I think a better comparison is with the Vikings and Normans. That is, the Veneti were able to travel around the ocean and up navigable rivers, establishing habitations wherever there was opportunity, but without any central control, or any necessary communication going on among the various groups. I see no problem with Veneti in Mordvinia, but of course I have no archaeological evidence.

> > The ending of *okti recalls the protoform of Lat. <ursus>, whose vocalism indicates an early borrowing from Sabine, and whose assibilation points to the adj. in *-jo-, not the noun,
>
> PU *-i is probably better reconstructed [@] than [i]. The by-now traditional notation *i (up to circa 70s *e was the norm) is rooted more in symmetry arguments than in any particular evidence. Even Finnic word-final /i/ is an innovation from former *e (e.g. "bear" being inflected _oksi_ : _ohden_).

I read too much into the *-i, then.

> > If samprasa:rana (as in Oscan) produced NVen *orktis from *orktjos, perhaps NVen syncope of the *-o- in ordinary */o/-stems led to MPF acquiring *-a- as an Ersatzstammvokal rather than the original *-o-. This would explain the retention of */o/ in roots but not finals.
>
> It's frequently thought Proto-Uralic did not allow labial vowels outside of stress'd syllables - indeed, nothing outside of open *a/*ä and non-open "*i"/"*e"/*@.

I also read too much into the *-a. Even if the most plausible source of the words should turn out to be North Venetic, I have no valid basis for ascribing Oscan-like treatment of stem-/o/ to the language.

> > > It may be worth mentioning that the Baltic etymology for "barley" has a similar weakness in that the cluster should probably rather be reconstructed as *-str- than *-s^tr-, given the reflexes -sr- in Karelian, -zr- in Votic, -z- in Veps. -hr- in West Finnish looks like an innovation parallel to a known change *-sl- > -hl-. Still, this does not help in assigning this layer to North Venetic: if we here had a substitution *-rzd- > *-str-, then surely "thistle" should have *-zd- > **-st-?
> >
> > If *os^ta- 'thistle' is from North Venetic, my earlier suggestion relating it to Greek <o'zos> 'branch' etc. is probably wrong. Another possibility is connecting it with Grk. <oxu's> 'sharp', <o'kris> 'crag', Lat. <ocris> 'mons confragosus', Umbrian <ukar> 'citadel', with the NVen protoform *okst(o)s, parallel to the presumed Baltic *a(k)s^ta-, leading to MPF *os^ta-. In this view the sandwiched sibilant became *s^ (allophonic in NVen, phonemic in MPF), admittedly an ad-hoc makeshift, but it avoids a double outcome of *-zd-.
>
> Another good loan-giver here would be Germanic since their *s was consistently render'd with MPF *s^.

Interesting. Predorsal *s?

> > > > Would early Proto-Baltic (with retained */o/) work here, including Osthoff's shortening but no Brugmann's lengthening?
> > >
> > > Possibly for some of them, but at least *ora and *orja look patently II in origin, similarly the substitution *k´ >> *c^ in *poc^a seems to point to Iranian in particular? A couple examples might run into a lack of an attested Baltic o-grade reflex too, and a number of cases here (*s´ola, *s´orwa, *ons´a, *orpa) have a distribution extending to Ugric where no Baltic loans are otherwise known nor should be expected. Also about as many of this list's words are found in Permic and I'm only aware of Finnic-mediated Baltic loans known from there.
> >
> > With *s'ola we also have the matter of PIE *-l- retained as *-l-. Is that expected from Iranian loans? Cf. *ora above.
>
> No, I don't think there's any reason to expect -l-. Here however we could well think of a pre-PII loan on account of *o-vocalism in PIE. (Is there any way to date *l > *r with respect to the other innovations seen in PII?)

I don't know, and as for the "dialectal" words with -l- in Sanskrit (including Vedic), I don't know what the current thinking is either.

> > > I have the impression a full reinvestigation of the big picture of the oldest IE loans into Uralic is necessary one of these days.
> >
> > Yes, and the difficulties cannot be resolved simply by positing one or two additional branches of IE as sources. Since much of the research in this area has been published in Finnish, obviously I need to acquire a reading knowledge. Merely examining the comparative charts in Finnish papers, like an illiterate child looking at the pictures in a storybook, is insufficient for serious work.
> >
> > DGK
>
> Many (most?) papers from Koivulehto, who has been doing the most work in this area, are in German. This compilation is probably the best starting place:
> http://www.sgr.fi/sust/sust237.html

Thanks very much for this list. The most intriguing title is the one about words with Fi. -aav- corresponding to Gmc. *-aww-. If these came indeed from Gmc., they must have been borrowed before the Verschaerfung, when Gmc. laryngeal residues still constituted distinct phonemes, with the vowel-lengthening occurring later within Proto-Finnic. But the Gmc. shift *-o- > *-a- had already occurred (otherwise Fi. *-oov- from Early PGmc *-oHw-, no?), so if there is a stratum with Fi. *ka- from PGmc *Ha-, one would expect the EARLIER borrowings from EPGmc *Ho- to show *ko-, not *o-, unless I'm overlooking something (which I could well be, considering my track record in this thread).

> His papers in Finnish also come with a German summary, so for some practice you can check out this selection available online:
> http://www.kotikielenseura.fi/virittaja/verkkolehti/verkossa1.html#K
> (these mostly deal with Germanic loans)

Thanks again. I should probably refrain from further posting about loanwords until I have done at least some of my homework.

DGK