Dolgopolsky's new book

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
manaster at umich.edu wrote:
 
>The PIE *kat 'wattlework' which Larry says Dolgopolsky has is clearly the
>same etymon as Illich-Svitych posited in the form *ket, and
>I do not understand how the vowel could be given as PIE *-a-.  This
>is in fact supposed to be one of the many cases where Nostratic
>*a gives PIE *e (alternating with *o).  However, this is a PIE
>etymon which is not traditional with IEnists, and was put
>together this way by Illich-Svitych himself, I believe.  This
>does not mean that it is wrong, of course, and IS makes it
>clear that this is a new proposal.
 
He does refer to Pokorny pp. 586-587 *ke(:)t- *kot- "Wohnraum
(urspruengl. ,Erdloch als Wohngrube'?)", which coincides with I-S's
etymology in the Iranian (kata-, kad), Gothic (he:thjo:) and Latin
(cati:nus, [catillus > kettle]) forms.  OCS kotIcI "cella, Nest"
provides the link with the Slavic forms listed by Illich-Svitych,
which Pokorny lists under 1. *kat- "flechtend zusammendrehen etc."
(the OCS form under both etymologies [!]).  This entry *kat- contains
some additional *a forms not included by Illich-Svitych (except the
already mentioned Lat. cati:nus, "s nejasnym a"): Lat. cate:na,
cassis, casa and ?caterva; Welsh cader, OIr. cathir "city".
Semantically there is no reason to exclude these (Latin cate:na and
casa resume the two main semantic developments that Illich-Svitych
posits for the Nostratic root), but the *a is indeed problematic.
 
The problem is of course internal to IE, but its resolution determines
which forms are comparable to the posited PN *k.ad-.  One might think
of a laryngeal (*keh1t-/*kh1t-) for the Gothic and Latin/Celtic forms,
and exclude them from the Nostratic comparison.  Or of a Pre-PIE *a
that somehow did not shift to either *e or *o [comparable to the *k's
that are neither palatal *k^ nor labiovelar *kw].  Or one might
consider if there's a relation with words such as "hut" (*(s)keu-d-)
and "cot" (*geu-d-), and think of a Pre-PIE alternation *a/*aw [Lat.
canis ~ PIE *kw[o]n-, Germ. *hauf-uth ~ PIE *kap-ut-] which would
exclude those forms that are to be derived from Pokorny's ,Erdloch als
Wohngrube' (*k[a]wt ~ *kat- ??) as opposed to the wattle-related words
(*ket- ~ *kot-).
 
 
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam