Greek question & the pre-history of *nekwt

[Patrick C. Ryan]

Dear Glen and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Glen Gordon <glengordon01 at hotmail.com>
Date: Saturday, March 06, 1999 9:16 PM

>PATRICK:
>>In any case, I have subsequently revised my reconstruction to
>>*negh-w-.

>First, we will assume that you mean *negh<w>-, where <w> is superscript,
>as the moderator validly keeps pointing out but that you blatantly
>ignore.

I am sorry that you do not understand what a root extension is. In previous
postings, I have identified the -w- as a root extension. This has nothing to
do with g[w], which is the method I use to indicate the so-called
labiovelar.

[ Moderator's note:
  I had also noted your use of the term "root extension", which I understood
  perfectly (Petersson's _Wurzeldeterminativ_, for example), but assumed that
  it was part of your misanalysis of the ASCII string "neghw-" as a palatal +
  a labial rather than a badly written labiovelar.  So lay off Mr. Gordon.
  --rma ]

>This means that the labial element is _fused_ to the velar.
>There is no suffixing whatsoever. The phoneme *ghw is ONE element in
>this case, otherwise we should expect -v- in Sanskrit <nakti>. We don't,
>so that's it.

I have also written that I believe that possibly two roots were in use:
*negh- and *negh-w-. Do you not comprehend what you read?

[ Moderator's comment:
  Since I did not comprehend it, either, I see no need to pursue this line of
  insult any further.
  --rma ]

 <snip>

>Third, re Hittite's doubled consonants, are you sure that when a medial
>consonant is doubled that it means "un-voiced"?

That is what Sturtevant thought.

[ Moderator's comment:
  It is indeed the standard theory, though there are some who see rather lenis-
  fortis than voiced/voiceless.
  --rma ]

>I could have sworn it
>was meant to be the other way around which would mean that Hitt. <nekuz>
>comes from *nekwt as expected and all you have to work with is Greek to
>keep the (and I'll say it again) "flimsy" Nostratic theory afloat.

If you ever read Sturtevant, and a few other appropriate manuals, you might
be in a much better position to usefully discuss Nostratic.

[ Moderator's comment:
  Sturtevant did not address the Nostratic theory of his day; he was instead
  denying that the Anatolian languages were part of Indo-European proper.  That
  is, he fully accepted a Neogrammarian reconstruction of PIE, and was trying
  to explain how Anatolian differed, rather than taking the Anatolian data as
  calling for a different interpretation of the IE data already at hand.  So a
  reading of Sturtevant, while instructive for a budding laryngealist as to the
  extremes to which it can be taken, has nothing to offer to Nostratic.
  --rma ]

>The theory is flimsy because you use localized phenomena in a single IE
>language (in this case, Greek) as a means to create an unsupported IE
>reconstruction so that you can then casually link IE directly to
>Egyptian of all things.

I have also used Hittite.

[ Moderator's comment:
  But you still haven't explained the rest of the Indo-European data, which at
  the very least call for a labiovelar (cf. Sanskrit) and not a determinative
  *-w-.
  --rma ]

>You seem to forget that not only does Egyptian come from Afro-Asiatic first
>off from which many, many millenia seperate these two stages but that on top
>of it, IE and Afro-Asiatic would be seperated by a good 10,000 years or more
>by even the most right-wing Nostraticist.

That does not change a thing.

 Pat