Re: Bear (Was: HORSA vs. EXWA)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" wrote:

>
> > But "Kurganic" isn't synonym to "IE". In fact, Anatolian (Hittite)

is

> > the *least* Kurganic of all the attested IE languages, having a more
> > archaic morphology and phonology than the rest (although apparently

some

> > IE-ists seem oblivious to that). In my own interpretation of R.

Adrados'

> > model (somewhat modulated by Villar), Kurganic would be the direct
> > ancestor of Greek-Armenian, Indo-Iranian and Dacian (Albanian), and
> > possibly Celtic as well, but only a *superstrate* to the rest of IE
> > languages except Anatolian.
>
> And the first six groups all show reflexes of *h2r.tkos! That's why I

said it looked pretty 'Kurganic'.

>

I think you put the cart (the IE protoform) before the horse (the IE
words), so to speak.

> > Celtic and Hittite have /t/.
>
> Hittite has /tk/.
>

But the velar stop could be part of a suffix, which are rather frequent
in Hittite. And the IE protoform can't be used as evidence because it
would be a circular argument.

> > Greek has /kt/.
>
> Does -rkt- survive well in Celtic[?] If not, -rtk- > -rkt- > -rt-

looks a pretty reasonable progression.

>

I don't see any reason why it should not. AFAIK, -kt- > Celtic -xt-.

> > Not only that, but /s/ is also *unexpected* here (assuming it's the
> > reflex of *k'), because Latin is a "centum" language. Hence the
> > hypothesis of borrowing from another IE language is plausible.
>
> For Latin, there's strong evidence for t > ts before stops - nor is

this restricted to Latin. The extreme example is -tt- > -ss-, though
-st- is also an outcome.

>

I don't quite follow you.