Re: Italo-Celtic dialect base words?

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" wrote:

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> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" wrote:
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> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" wrote:
> > >
> > > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister wrote:
> > >
> > > > Germanic fimf would either be a result of **pempe or a borrowing from either P-Celtic or P-Italic or P-whatever, wouldn't it? Because we ain't got no P-Germanic or at least one I ever heard of.
> > >
> > > What we do have is a number of cases where pre-Grimm *p corresponds to *kW in other languages. Miguel championed PIE *pW, which resolved itself to *kW or *p in the daughter languages. The outcome *pW > *p is commonest in the development of Germanic, as seen in English words such as _four_, _five_, _liver_, _oven_, and _wolf_.
> >
> > I never understood Miguel's view that labiolabials are inherently unstable, when one of his own native languages contains such words as _puedo_, _bueno_, _muelo_, etc. More importantly, I was never able to fathom the criteria for developing *p out of *pW in his theory.
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> > Having wrestled with this problem for a decade, I think we are dealing with a soundlaw which produced Paleo-Gmc. labials from labiovelars under certain conditions, but analogical processes have almost completely effaced the original transparency of the law. In my view Eichner has only part of the conditions. Provisionally, my guess is that a labiovelar had to be occluded by a following consonant (including a NON-SYLLABIC resonant) in order to be assimilated to a labial elsewhere in the word (not necessarily in an adjacent syllable).
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> Bad wording. What I intended is that the following consonant may be a non-syllabic resonant, but there is no necessity for one in the word.
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> > With 'four', I believe labialization occurred in the ORIGINAL ordinal, which involved zero-grade *kWtWr- (cf. Oscan _trutum_ 'the fourth time' and the GN _Ptrunius_ in the Ager Paelignus). The *f- was extended to the cardinal (cf. Lat. _qui:nque_ with vocalism from the ordinal _qui:ntus_, which has -i:- from loss of *-k-). Likewise with 'five', from *p(e)NkWto-. Swabian has a form without labialization (if memory serves, _fenk_ 'fifteen'), showing that the Gmc. protoform was not *fimfi as sometimes cited.

More corrections. I must stop quoting words from memory, which is wrong 4 out of 5 times. The Germanic derivatives of '5' containing a velar are collected in a footnote on p. 512 of Kauffmann's paper "Zur Geschichte des germanischen Consonantismus" (PBB 12:504-47, 1887). Kauffmann himself vouches for _fauchzk_ '50' in the grand duchy of Saxony, and cites Swabian _fuchze:_ '15', _fuchzk_ '50' from Birlinger (Alem. Spr. rechts des Rheins p. 178; Augsb. Wb. p. 149) and Weinhold (Bair. Gr. sec. 184); also Middle Dutch _vichtiene_ '15', _vichte_ '5th' (inflected weak) against _vijftich_ '50' and _vijfte_ '5th' from Franck (Mnl. Gr. sec. 109).

Kauffmann also gives (presumably from his native Swabian dialect) _fuft_ 'fifth', _fufze:_ '15', _fufzk_ '50'. The short vowel shows that the nasal cannot have been lost in historical Swabian. The stem _fuf-_ must continue an ancient nasalless form.

The soundlaw which I am assuming assimilated an occluded labiovelar in articulation to a preceding labial. This must have operated before the soundlaw which converted Proto-Gmc. *-Vnx- to *-V:x-, or there would be no nasal preserved in any form of Gmc. '5', no matter what analogical processes occurred later. I have not determined whether the labializing soundlaw occurred before or after Grimm's Law. If it occurred after, something like this would be expected:

PIE *penkWe '5', *pn.kWto- '5th'
Early PGmc *finxWe, *funxWta-
Later ... *finx(W), *funfta-
Later ... *fi:x, *funfta-

Analogical processes probably began operating before this last stage was reached. Contamination of *finx with *funfta- very likely produced *finf, *finfta-, the most widespread protoforms. Some High German dialects (including the literary standard) retain -nf, while others have assimilated the cluster to -mf, as has Gothic, and Old Norse further to -mm. But an alternative contamination *funx would later produce *fu:x, preserved in Swab. _fuchze:_, _fuchzk_, and a further contamination of *fu:x with *funfta- could yield *fu:fta-, whence Swab. _fuft_ and the new analogical creations _fufze:_, _fufzk_. Finally, *fi:x does seem to be represented in MD _vichtiene_ and, by analogy "against the grain", in _vichte_.

I am out of time for this week, and will attempt to address Sean's comments, and other matters, next week.

DGK