Re: proof that most etymologies are only fairy-tales

John Atkinson wrote:
Peter T. Daniels wrote:
On Aug 3, 9:26 pm, analys...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Aug 3, 6:32 pm, Harlan Messinger wrote:
Dusan Vukotic wrote:
On Aug 3, 6:42 pm, Harlan Messinger
<hmessinger.removet...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Dusan Vukotic wrote:
Is there anyone who is able to explain the homonymy of English
bear (carry, cause to be born) and bear (omnivorous
animal/mammal)? Why and how has it happened?

Because there isn't any reason why it *wouldn't* happen, and both
words evolved in unsurprising ways to become, as it happens,
homonyms.

And how that "unsurprising way" looked like? Could you be more
specific? What bear (carry, cause to be born, bring forth) and
bear (animal) have in common?

Why don't you LOOK THEM UP and find out for yourself if you want to
know what they are? If you haven't bothered to look up the details,
then you have no basis for disputing them.

Maybe you believe it happened by chance?

Yes.

But
what if there is no accidental word-developing within the IE
vocabulary?

Who said anything about "accidental word-developing"? What does
that even mean?

In French, the words "ou" ("or"), "où" ("where"), "houx" ("holly"),
"houe" ("hoe"), and "août" ("August") are all homonyms, derived,
respectively, from the non-homonymic words Latin "aut", Latin
"ubi", Old High German "hulis", Old High German "houwâ", and Latin
"Augustus".

thats very instructive. Thanks.

But of course I would use something like this to poke holes in the
standard PIE model.

I am sure there are no homonyms in any PIE reconstruction - since
the

Sheesh, you've never even opened a "dictionary of Indo-European
roots" and noticed all the homophonous ones????

neogrammarian principles would prevent two words that sound alike
in the parent language from evolving along dfferent paths in the
daughter languages.

Very true.

But nothing prevents them from having taken on different affixes,
surviving with different vowel grades, different accents, etc.

All of which seem to have occurred in the case of *bher-, which was
apparently four- or five-way homophonous in PIE:

*bher- [boil] > Latin fermentum, Greek porphu:ro:, Sanskrit bhurati

*bher- [brown] > English brown, Greek phru:nos, (with suffix, via
*bhruHnos); and Sanskrit babhru-, Gaulish beberu-, Latin fiber,
English beaver, Lithuanian bebrus, Russian bobr, Avestan bawra (with
reduplication, via *bhebhru-); and English bear, Lithuanian be:ras
(via bhe:ro-)

*bher- [carry] > Old Irish beirid, Latin fero:, English bear, Albanian
bie, Greek phero:, Armenian berem, Sanskrit bharati, Tocharian p&r,
Russian beru, Lithuanian beriu; and OCS breme, Greek ferma, Sanskrit
bharman (with suffix, via *bhermn-); and Latin fors, English birth,
Sankrit bhrti- (with suffix, via *bhrtis)

*bher- [cure] > Lithuanian burti, Albanian bar, Greek pharmakon

*bher- [strike, bore] > Latin ferio:, English bore, Greek pharao:,
Irish bern, Lithuanian bar(i)u, Russian borju, Armenian brem, Persian
burrad, Sanskrit brna:ti; and Old Irish bruid, latin frustum, English
bruise, Albanian bresh@r (with suffix, via *bhreus-)

*bher- [weave] > Lithuanian burvam, Greek pharos (with suffix via
*bhrw-, bolt of cloth)

How does one decide that *bher-, *bher-, *bher-, *bher- and *bher- are
separate roots, though, other than on the basis of perceived semantic
plausibility? How does the fact that they've undergone different changes
show that they were different to begin with? German "saugen, saugte,
gesaugt" and "saugen, sog, gesogen" both mean "suck", for instance, and go
back to the same root, as far as I know, but they're not always
interchangeable. There must be better examples, but I can't think of any.
Now supposing German were Proto-Indo-European and supposing the weak variant
of the verb had changed its meaning to, say, "drink" or further to "get
drunk", "be drunk", "talk indistinctly", "talk unintelligibly", "talk
nonsense", "clown around" or "be a fool", how would one avoid concluding
that they must be homonyms? I realise these are uninformed questions, but
they're not rhetorical.

Regards,
Ekkehard


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: proof that most etymologies are only fairy-tales
    ... bear (carry, cause to be born) and bear (omnivorous ... Albanian bie, Greek phero:, Armenian berem, Sanskrit bharati, ... ferma, Sanskrit bharman (with suffix, via *bhermn-); ...
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    ... bear and bear (omnivorous ... respectively, from the non-homonymic words Latin "aut", Latin ... *bhruHnos); and Sanskrit babhru-, Gaulish beberu-, Latin fiber, English beaver, Lithuanian bebrus, Russian bobr, Avestan bawra; and English bear, Lithuanian be:ras ...
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