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

[Patrick C. Ryan]

Dear Miguel and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" <mcv at wxs.nl>
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2000 12:48 AM

> JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

>> -- *bergh.

> *bherg^h

>> There are derivatives in the Germanic language (eg., OHG burg,
>> 'fort', or Gothic baurgs, 'city, town'.  Homeric Greek (I think --
>> possible spelling error) burghos

> That's probably <purgos> "tower", a Greek substrate word
> (so-called "Pelasgian", with Germanic-like *r. > ur, and
> Germanic-like b > p, but only after Greek-like Grassmann's Law
> *bhrgh > *brgh).  Pokorny says that Latin burgus "watchtower" is
> borrowed from Greek (but what about p-?).

>> , and definitely Armenian burgn.

> Wish it were so simple.  The root *bherg^h- is regularly
> reflected in Armenian as barjr "high" etc., so <burgn> "tower", a
> centum word if IE, does not appear to be native.  Birgit (also
> from *bherg^h-) Olsen points out that the same irregularity in
> the exact same environment is also found in <durgn> "potter's
> wheel" besides darj- "to turn" (*dhrg^h-).  There is also Slavic
> bre^g- "shore", of course, but there without any satem variants.
> To add the finishing touch to the confusion, it's necessary to
> mention Urartian <burgana> "palace, fort".  Urartean (non-IE,
> related to Hurrian) used to be spoken where Armenian is spoken
> now.

Into this mix, we might also consider Pokorny's 2. *bhreg^-, 'stand up
stiffly', which I believe can be related to Egyptian b3H, 'phallus'. In the
correspondences which I believe I have identified, Egyptian H (dotted h)
corresponds to IE final -g(h) or g^h.

Pat

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