"centum"/"satem" "exceptions" [was Re: Northwest IE attributes]

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

>roz-frank at uiowa.edu writes:

>Then with respect to the prototype meaning, is the choice of "fort,
>fortified place" based on the fact that such a location/structure would
>antedate an urban site such as  "town" or "city"; or is there some other
>basis for this choice?

-- the Greek meaning is "city", but this retains traces of an earlier
semantic association with "fortified place" or "enclosure"; eg., the
continued use of "acropolis" for "citadel", as in the central, usually
elevated, redoubt of a city.

The Baltic and Indo-Iranian examples both refer specifically to a fortified
enclosure (or sometimes to the wall of an enclosure); and since PIE speakers
presumably didn't have cities, but probably did have fortified enclosures or
settlements, the original meaning would have been "fort".

Therefore it seems more sensible to posit a transferance from "fort" to
"fortified city" to "city" in Greek and Armenian rather than vice versa.