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  • tgpedersen@hotmail.com
    ... That p/w thing intrigues me. For some time I have been trying to update the *bh/p-l/r- (yes, *bh-l- , *bh-r, *p-l-, *p-r-; where -bh:p- (glottalic even
    Message 1 of 2 , Aug 24, 2001
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      --- In cybalist@y..., "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@h...> wrote:
      > Piotr:
      > >"Related?" In what way? "Alternates?" In what sense? p > w
      > >and r > l are both possible, but what evidence is there to
      > >justify the assumption of either change in Hattic? Almost
      > >anything could be related to anything else, but unless you
      > >can support it with a plausible pattern of correspondences
      > >illustrated with real examples, an isolated equation like
      > >"par = wel" is too long a shot.
      > Okay, okay, hold your horses. First, it's /n/ and /r/ that
      > alternate in Hattic (kunu~kuru). The reason I ask about /wel/
      > is that the book I finally discovered hidden in my university
      > library (Hethitisch, Palaisch, Luwisch, Hieroglyphenluwisch und
      > Hattisch - Altkleinasiatische Indices zum Handbuch des Orientalistik
      > A. Kammenhuber, 1969.) shows these alternations in its glossary.
      > pakku, wakku troups, army
      > pau, wau to eat
      > pinu, inu child
      > punan, wunan person
      > And yes, there apparently is even p/w alternation for the word for
      > "house" (pil, pel, wil, wel). Some p-words don't exhibit the
      > alternation in written Hattic, some do. The "house" word does.
      > Comments?
      > gLeNny gEe

      That p/w thing intrigues me.

      , *bh-r, *p-l-, *p-r-; where -bh:p- (glottalic even better: -b:p-)
      means Noreen'sch Wechselform, alternative forms; the -r:l-
      alternation is pre-IE) entry of my Austric-IE-AfroAsiatic page.

      What a godawful heap of IE *bh/p-l/r-'s there are (and similar in
      AfroAsiatic)! The problem is that if you quote IE and AA and
      Nostratic and Austric dictionaries and word lists, the descendants of
      the individual entries will overlap. It reminds me of a story of two
      cowboys we told in the underskole. It went like this:

      Cowboy I : I'll bet you $100 you can't take a sip from that spittoon!
      Cowboy II: OK! (glk-glk)
      Cowboy I : Here's your money! But you didn't have to drink it all!
      Cowboy II: I couldn't bite thru it!

      Which is what you experience if you try to combine the postulated
      roots and presumed descendants from your sources. They tangle. This
      is known in linguistics as the spittoon problem.

      WRT *bh:p-l:r-, I'm fortunate in that Møller, who is trying to bridge
      IndoEuropean and AfroAsiatic, has tried to posit connections between
      the various meanings, which are:

      1) divide, s-pl-it, f(u)rr-ow, half, two, br-ink of river or strait
      2) b(o)r-e, br-eak through > s-pr-ead
      3) (s)pr-out, bl-oom (mysteriously swell because the other side pokes
      4) be white, bl-inding, s-pl-endid, lightning (and bl-ind, having a
      white spot in the eye)
      5) drive, go, f(a)r-e, fl-y, fl-ow, fl-oat, fl-ee, s-pr-ing, carry,
      6) f(o)r-e-most, be-f(o)r-e, f(i)r-st

      but it is possible, as Møller partially does, to circumscribe it as:
      "a thing (b(a)rr-ier) with its two sides; >
      a movement from one side (thru) to the other; >
      a movement from the side of divine forces to this secular side,
      which is also a journey across the Sacred river or strait
      to or from the brink or coast of spirits;
      but also the appearance of something spiritual from the other side
      on this side (lightning etc)"

      But what is the original meaning here? Someone recently asked why
      Latvian has up- for Proto-IndoEuropean *ap- "water". Møller has
      something interesting here. He reconstructs *H3-p- "water" (at least
      that's how I interpret the laryngeal he posits here). Then *H3-b:p- >
      *op- with a extended grade *o:p- > Sanskrit a:pas "waters". With an -
      r- extension he gets *o:p-r > German Ufer, Dutch oever etc "bank of a
      river, coast". Stressing the last syllable he gets *p-r-, etc,
      starting with

      *!abár- Pre-IndoEuropean
      *p-r- Proto-IndoEuropean
      pére:n "on the other side of" Greek
      pérathen "from the other side" Greek
      peráo: "take across the sea
      to be sold" Greek
      perai~os "being on
      the other side" Greek
      peraióo: "go, take across to
      the other bank, coast" Greek
      pa:rá- "the opposite
      bank, coast" Greek
      pa:ra n. "bank, coast" Avestan
      pa:ráyati "go, take across" Sanskrit
      fra-pa:rayeiti "takes across" Avestan

      and its AfroAsiatic cognates.
      So that must be our starting point.

      I think we need Møller's comment here:

      Originally without doubt signifying only the bank of
      a river or coast of a strait where the other side
      is visible, therefore most frequently connected with
      "the one, the other, the opposite bank".

      and (why not) mine:

      Which is what one would expect in Sundaland, with straits
      ever widening, forcing people to learn to sail.

      In other words: the journey to the other side, which is now perhaps
      vanished, the coast of the dead. Austronesian, IndoEuropean and
      AfroAsiatic, abound with those myths.

      But there appeared also, as I tried to unravel the various tangled
      connections, another glob:
      *w-l/r-, with two meanings

      1) wr-ap, surround, enclose, w(a)r-d off (like a city w(a)ll)
      2) w(ea)r

      which was OK by me, since in the good old days, what you wore, you
      wrapped around you.

      But unfortunately, Paul Manansala had mixed the *w-l/r- stuff with *p-
      l- "polis", city etc, which latter I thought had to do with pr-
      otuding, etc. Bad situation. I couldn't get the "wrap, wear" stuff to
      fit in with *bh:p-l:r- stuff, semantically, and I wondered if /p/
      > /w/ would be permissible at all. Then I saw that Bomhard had some
      *w-l/r- cognates between NorthWest Caucasian (here Proto-Circassian)
      and Proto-IndoEuropean

      *warda "high-born" Proto-Circassian
      *word[h]o-s "grown, full-born, tall, upright" Proto-IndoEuropean

      *wala "cloud" Proto-Circassian
      *w[e|o]l- "to moisten, to wet, to flow" Proto-IndoEuropean

      and I wondered if the Semitic, originally Austronesian *bh:p-l:r- (in
      my opinion, see later) had been loaned into North West Caucasian,
      gone -bh:p- > -w- and then later been loaned into Proto-indoEuropean.
      But nah, I thought, this is a bit skimpy.
      Imagine my surprise when I saw that the "city" paradigm itself
      alternated *p-l-/*w-l- in North West Caucasian. Hm! Maybe there's
      something in it after all.

      But where does it all the original *bh:p-l:r- come from? So I took my
      Malay dictionary and said to myself: "Try to find an early cognate of
      it here; but a good one. It should contain most of the meanings of
      *bh:p-l:r-. If you don't find it, just give up the whole Austronesian
      > AfroAsiatic > Proto-IndoEuropean scheme." And then I found: belâh

      bêlah "split, gap (n.);
      split, cleft"
      bêlah doewa "split in two"
      badjoe bêlah dada "jacket split, open
      in the front"
      bêlah boeloeh "striped, as colored cotton"
      bêlah loseng
      tjêkak. êmpat "a special way to split bamboo"
      kadoewa bêlah "both sides"
      kadoewa bêlah mata "both eyes" and so on
      of all paired body parts
      barang barang
      pêtjah bêlah "fragile wares,
      glass and pottery"
      sabêlah "one of the sides"
      mata sabêlah "one of the eyes" and so on
      of all paired body parts
      orang sabêlah "neighbor (opposite)"
      sa'orang sabêlah "everybody on one side"
      sabêlah sana "on yon side"
      disabêlah "on one side, on the other side"
      kasabêlah "to (that side)"
      sabêlah mak. "from mother's side"
      mêmbêlah "split, cleave"
      doewit sakêping
      dibêlah toedjoeh "a coin split in seven
      (for the smallest amount)"
      badjoenja "tear one's clothes deliberately"
      mêmbêlah bêhagi "distribute unevenly,
      give one a bit more,
      and the other a bit less"
      mêmbêlah "the splitting, cleaving
      lightning, before a
      powerful thunderclap"
      sabêlah-mênjabêlah "from both sides"
      but if there is a water between then
      bêrsabêlahan "on the same side,
      each on his own side"
      têrbêlah "split, to split, able to split"
      sa'orang pon
      tidak. têrbêlah "no one was able to split it"
      bêlahan "split, cleft, crack"
      pêmbêlah kajoe "wood-cleaver"
      pêmbêlah intan "diamond cleaver"
      pêmbêlahan "splitting, cleaving"
      mênjabêlahkan "put someone or something
      to one side"

      Pretty close, huh? Torsten is happy. Now perhaps, if the weather gets
      nice again, I will go downtown and walk in the city and look at the
      women who are *bh:p-l:r-ing these days enough to make you *bh:p-l:r-
      yourself. Sometimes you can get quite superstitious! Mmmh!
