Re: basic info on nostratic

--- In Nostratica@yahoogroups.com, erobert52@... wrote:

> Yes, -l "genitive" is indeed an innovation. However, I
> think you will also find that -s "genitive" is an
> innovation too and is an extension of an earlier
> ergative or agentive. The historical genitive in
> Etruscan is -n, found in early inscriptions, the
> standard Etruscan adjective suffix -na, and in names,
> particularly Raetic ones.

I look into it. Even a genitive in -n wouldn't be so bad since that
might indicate a link with Uralic languages. However it will be a
while before I look for possible connections there.

> I shall come back to you on the list of words after I
> have had a chance to consider them at greater length.
> In general I would advise anybody interested in
> Etruscan to avoid like the plague using the internet
> as a resource. The one exception I would make is
> Adolfo Zavaroni's site which provides valuable info on
> the inscriptions themselves. However, any suggestions
> he makes about interpretations and meanings should be
> completely ignored. The two word lists you have chosen
> are, as it happens, mostly not too bad. This is because
> they are mostly rehashings of the traditional thinking.

> At the very least you should find yourself a
> copy of Pallottino's "Testimonia Linguae Etruscae" which
> has a fairly representative collection of inscriptions,
> and check any conclusions against the inscriptions the
> word or feature appears in.

I don't suppose there's an English version, is there?

> There are more extensive
> collections such as Fowler & Wolfe's "Materials for the
> Study of Etruscan" (but beware of typos), or if you
> want to spend 100 euros, Helmut Rix's "Etruskische
> Texte" (Tübingen 1991). The best Etruscan grammar
> is still by far, IMO, Joseph Pfiffig's "Die etruskische
> Sprache" (Graz 1969).

I might be able to slog my way through these if there are no English
resources. My German, unfortunately, hasn't been used in 15 years and
wasn't good to begin with. It's been tough finding info in English.

> Note also that Damien Erwan
> Perrotin (author of the "Dictionnaire Etrusque" that
> you mention) has moved away from his previous
> position of assuming a relationship between Etruscan
> and IE, and of course the parallels he lists with IE
> languages need to be taken with a pinch of salt.

The nice thing about his list is that he suggests possible loanwords.
Besides some lexical similarities there are other reasons to suspect
a link between Etruscan and PIE.

First person pronouns in m-
Locatives in -i
Genitives in -s (if this holds up)
Enclitic "and" -c (<kwe)
Ergative structure (early PIE was ergative)
Demonstratives in -t-
Anaphoric pronoun in i-
Demonstrative in c- (from PIE relative pronoun in kw- ?)

Unfortunately, from a initial survey the verbal systems don't seem to
have much in common.