Re: Why there is t- in German tausend "thousand"?

2013/11/14, gprosti <gprosti@...>:

> (...)
> If enough data is gathered in support of a sound correspondence,
> a single exception does not immediately invalidate that correspondence
> (though it may suggest that the correspondence is more complicated than
> previously thought).
>
>> >
>> > It's not my fault, it's phonology. If two words
>> >> differ by a phoneme, they are minimal couple. If two words have the
>> >> same meaning, but different phonemes (even if just one: one is more
>> >> than zero), they are synonyms. If You want to underline the
>> >> statistically possible - although rare -
>> >
>> > Rare = a low probability.
>>
>> *Bhr.: well, phonological irregularity is NO probability,
>
> Proof?

*Bhr.: phonological irregularity contradicts sound laws. Either You
discover a Verner-like laws for the exception or You have at least to
be cautious and take into consideration other, more regular
possibilities. Either regularity, however complex, or nothing. This is
science, the rest is aesthetics

>
> (...) A preverb
>> *dhu, the root *h1es-, a participle in *-nt- and the feminine ending
>> *-ih2 are trivial elements in Germanic Erbwortschatz
>
> But how trivial is the combination *-h1s-nt(-ih2)?

*Bhr.: it's necessary, because it's inflectional, not derivational

>
> Also, how widely attested is *dhu in the languages where it appears (besides
> this OHG form, only in Gothic, if I understood you correctly)?

*Bhr.: du is Gothic, therefore *dhu is PIE, OHG continues PIE,
therefore there's no obstacle to the survival of *dhu in OHG, at least
in this compound

>
>>
>> >
>> > then I would say the most probable explanation of these words'
>> > similarity is
>> > common origin (which, again, can involve loaning).
>>
>> *Bhr.: Were it so easy, I think Kluge, Mitzka, Seebold &c. wouldn't
>> have had to wait for You in order to discover such a perfect solution.
>> In such cases, the solution can be either in something they didn't
>> know (like e.g. Hittite hapax tu-up-ra 'bound' or a kind of evil as a
>> comparandum for Zauber, as I've proposed some years ago) or in
>> something they couldn't admit, i.e. surely not diatopic variation or
>> loans, but - as You too seem completely incapable to accept - the
>> emergence of a couple of paronymic synonyms,
>
> I'm not unable to accept them in principle, but I don't think they should be
> the default explanation for an irregularity in an otherwise regular
> correspondence (between forms of non-trivial size).

*Bhr.: a regular explanation, even at this price (which is very
limited), is always better than an accepting an irregularity and also
better than a loan-explanation until this is less proven than the
regular etymological hypothesis

>
> yet Old Norse þúshund
>> (and Runic Swedish þūshundrað) vs. þúsund, Old Slav. tysęšti,
>> tysǫšti
>> &c. show a similar opposition
>>
>> >
>> > This is not the same as dismissing a dissimilarity between phonemes (t-
>> > vs.
>> > d-, etc.) entirely.

*Bhr.: the two Old Norse forms differ by just one phoneme

>>
>> *Bhr.: I really can't understand. Who dismisses and who doesn't?
>
> You seemed to be contrasting your solution with the dismissal of the t-/d-
> difference.

*Bhr.: that sounds absurd. Where and when precisely?

>
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> *Bhr.: There's no haplology of *tenisista to tenista, rather there's
>> >> a readjustment rule quite like that of narcisista:
>> >> narcis-ismo > delete -ismo > add -ista > narcis-ista
>> >> tennis (< French ten-ez) > delete -is > add -ista > tenn-ista
>> >> (celt-a > delete -a > add -ista > celt-ista)
>> >>
>> >
>> > Proof?
>> >
>> >
>> *Bhr.: As proven by celt-ista, -ista does delete stem-final endings.
>
> Not proof that every speaker of Spanish has done so every time they've
> formed a word with -ista.

*Bhr.: neither that haplology has ever taken place

(...)