Re: Etymological Help Needed

"Neeraj Mathur" <neemathur@xxxxxxxxxxx> a écrit dans le message de
news: d89osu$jgi$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> "Robert Rosen" <rosen647@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:sjlga15si9jgicq868patb75a9n9j0qp13@xxxxxxxxxx
> > In looking through words that were derived from the PIE root
bhel-3 in
> > the American Heritage Dictionary, I noticed that "pall-mall"
was
> > derived (via obsolete French "pallemaille" and Italian
"pallamaglio")
> > from Langobard "palla" 'ball.' However, every other Germanic
word that
> > was derived from PIE *bh- begins with *b.
>
> I'm not entirely certain, but I think this is because of what's
called the
> Second Germanic Sound Shift, or the High German Sound Shift. As
the (latter)
> name suggests, it affected those dialects of West Germanic that
were spoken
> in the south of the Germanic area - so southern Germany, Austria
and
> Switzerland. Standard German exhibits this shift somewhat, but
not
> completely. The shift as it applies to Standard German has
affected Germanic
> p, t, and k (this last incompletely) by affricating or fricating
them
> depending on position; I'm a bit unsure, but I suppose it is
possible that
> in Langobardic (quite south, to be impacting on Italian) has
also done
> something to its voiced consonants, thus changing Proto-Germanic
*b- to p-.

yes, the langobards (long beards) have given their name to
lombardy, as the francs to france.
this name contains curiously the 3 voiced stops (probably from gh,
bh and dh) before the 2d shift, but the name goes back to the
romans: lango- or longobardi.
>
> (I'm unsure because, while I've heard it given as standard that
'palla'
> comes from a High German shift from b- to p-, I can't seem to
find any
> documented examples of that shift; I don't have many Germanic
reference
> books handy at the moment, however).

passau is from MHG. passawa < la. castra batava (neuter pl.).
>
> So the derivation of IE *bh- > Proto-Germanic *b- is still
correct; the p-
> is the result of a secondary change within Langobardic.

while theoretically germanic b, d, g should become p, t, k in high
german, the change was carried through only in the case of d:
en/de day/tag, do/tun, drive/treiben, god/gott, lead/leiten,
hold/halten etc.; but bed/bett, bear/bär, beard/bart, bite/beißen,
good/gut, goose/gans, glide/gleiten,etc.; apart from that in many
de. dialects b, g, d are devoiced (but "soft", unlike p, t, k),
and at the same time p, t, k are softened, to the point of being
confused with b, d, g; since the scribes had no special means of
writing down these soft tenues, they somtimes wrote b, d, g,
sometimes p, t, k; then the spelling was frozen one way or the
other, resulting in the present orthography, leaving very little
room for variety, whatever the individual pronunciations; most
languages undergo similar processes.
>
> > In addition, I noticed that "psyche" was derived from
"psukhein" (<
> > *bhs-u-kh-),' to breathe,' whereas every other Greek word that
was
> > derived from PIE *bh seems to begin with *ph.
>
> It's a standard change in Greek to deaspirate in front of /s/.
For example,
> you can see it in the inflection of the perfect middle; the
paradigm in
> Smyth's grammar is here:
>
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A19
99.04.0007&query=page%3D%23124&layout=&loc=400.
> Notice in particular the inflection of the second verb, grapho;
the stem is
> graph-, but when it comes into contact with the s- of the -sai
ending
> (second person singular), the expected cluster -phs- changes
to -ps-
> (written with the letter psi).
>
ps is a transliteration of ψ not a transcription.

this is not necessarily true; it is not certain that ψ (ps)=πσ
(ps) rather than φσ (phs), similarly ξ (x)=χσ (chs) rather than κσ
(cs); ψ is a late addition to the greek alphabet, and before that
it was written φσ; it looks more like φ than π; hy. (armen.) and
ka. (georg.) have both p and ph (and k and kh) (ph and kh are 1
letter each and stand for aspirated stops), but in el. borrowings
they write phs and khs, not ps and ks; e.g. hy. phsiath < ψίαθος
(psíathos) mat, khsenophon xenophon, ka. phsikhika en. psychics,
akhsioma axiom.
> Incidentally, what other descendants of that IE root are given?
It doesn't
> seem to have anything vaguely similar to the syllabic structure
of IE
> (putting sibilants after stops, for instance), not to mention
the oddness of
> having an aspirated voiced stop before a voiceless sibilant -
I'd be very
> surprised if there was no assimilation during the IE phase
itself in such a
> case!
>
> Neeraj Mathur
>
>

.

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