IE *pt in Slavic

FoUa Linguistica Historica IIIJI pp. 25-28 © Societas Linguislica Europaea, 1982

IE *pf IN SLAVIC FBBDERIK KORTLANDT

Recent decades have yielded a considerable increase in tlie scholarly Output on historical linguistics. Unfortimately, the quantitative growth has not been accompanied by a preservation o£ qualitative Standards. Mucli recent work betrays a lack of methodological training and scientific rigour. As an example of the kind of work which I have in mind I will discuss H. D. Polil's article on the fate of *pt in Slavic (1980).

Pohl adduces the following material: (1) ob- yields o- before a consonant.

(2) kyta, *kystb, SCr. Μία, Ukr. Icflta, Po. leise, Ru. Tcist'.

TJnlike Arumaa, who reconstructs *kwp-tä and *lcüp-sti- and

compares OHG. scoub (1976 : 139), Pohl posits *küb-t- for both forms, not accounting for the absence of s in the former and its presence in the latter word. He writes: "Aruinaa behandelt beide an verschiedenen Stellen, daher ist ihm der Zusammenhang entgangen" in spite of the fact that Arumaa mentions both words in a single sentence, referring to Vasmer (1953:562), who discusses both words on the same page with cross-references.

(3) Ru-CS. dlato < *dolbth-to-, OPr., dalptan, Sin. dolbsti. Pohl mentions neither SCr. dlijeto, Sin. dUto, Gz. dlato, Po. dluto, nor Ru. dolbit', Gz. dlab, Lith. dalba, delba, dllba, delbti. Referring to Po-korny (1959: 245f.), he states that IE *dhelbh- occurs next to *dhel- 'Wölbung3 and that *bh may represent an enlargement. But *dhelbh- means 'graben, aushöhlen, herausschlagen' in both Germanic and Balto-Slavic. Pohl does not mention R>u. djatel, Po. dzi^ciol 'woodpeckeT*<*d$tbfo<*dblbti>fa in this connection. (4) ORu. tjativa, cf. Lith. tlmpa, tempti, S-CS. topö. Pohl compares the word with the IE root *ten- rather than *temp-, but this is

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satisfactory from the semantic point of view: Lith. tempti means 'durch Ziehen spannen, dehnen', tlmpa 'Sehne' (=OCS. t$tiva), whereas *ten- is attested in Lith. tlnti 'schwellen', tinklas 'Netz', Latv. tit 'wickeln, flechten', Ru-CS. teneto 'Netz'.

(5) Cz. net', gen. sg. netefe next to ORu. nestera, SCr. nestera. Cf. also ORu. netii, SCr. necäk, OPo. nieo next to niesciora. Pohl derives both forms from IE *nept-l- without bothering about the presence or absence of s. Indeed, the reconstruction of the former word äs fern. *nepti- and masc. *neptijo- seems beyond doubt, while nestera must be explained differently. Meillet derived the latter word from *nept-terä, which he compared with Lat. mätertera (1902: 167). More probably, it is a recent formation with s from sestra (cf. Fraenkel 1950: 63f.). The original word for 'niece' was not preserved outside Czech.

(6) stryjb, pastonkz, Stribogz, which Pohl derives from *ptr-/ptor— < <IE *pHter~, following Vey (1931). This connection cannot be maintained. It does not seem possible to separate stryjb 'uncle' (ORu. also strzjb) from Lith. strujus 'uncle'. OLith. strüjus (Dauksa) 'grandfather, old man', Olr. sruith Old, honourable'. The compa-rison with Skt. pitrvyä- and OHG. fatureo<.*fadurwia- is fallacious because the corresponding Slavic form would be **i&TOZ'b. The words pastonkö, -a are best compared with Lith. pästaras, Lat. posterus (cf. Zubaty 1891). A derivation from *-ptor- must be rejected for both formal (o-grade) and semantic reasons. The name Stribogz is reminiscent of Daid^bogv. I would suggest that it originated from a shortening of *Stbrzibog& 'God beware' (rather than *Stbribogb, Preobrazenski 1918: 398). The assumption of a compound with *ptr- is ad hoc and leaves the i unexplained. (7) *jastre_bt><*öKu-ptro-. Vey has shown that the word can be reconstructed äs either *asztreb?> or *asi>strebi> (1953). Pohl mentions only the latter possibility, creating the impression that the word constitutes independent evidence for the phonetic development under discussion.

(8) Ru. grestl, OCz. hfesti, OPo grzeoc versus OCS. greti (grebg) and Ukr. hrebsttf, Sin. grebsti, SCr. grepsti. Pohl mentions neither OCS. teti (tepg), irlti (δηρο), suti (sbpg), nor Ru. etl (ebu), ükr. hrebtij, tepttf, jettf, SCr. säsüti (säspem), Sin. suti (spem), OCz. cfieti, suti (spu), Upper Sorbian pocrec, posyty 'strewn'. The ending

27 -sti was obviously taken from the dental stems, while the type without s cannot have arisen by analogy.

It is clear from the material that *p was lost before *t in Slavic (o-, Icyta, dlato, tjativa, net', greti, teti, creti, suti, eti). This develop-ment is supported by the loss of *b before *d in sedmz, which Pohl does not mention. The alleged instances of st- from *pt-meet with formal and semantic difficulties, while better etymo-logies are available. The instances where medial -ei- is derived from *-pt- are easily explained äs analogical formations while no such explanation is possible in those cases where *p was ap-parently lost before *t. This conclusion differs from Pohl's: "Arumaa's Bedenken (1. c., v.a. 140) gegen den Lautwandel von idg./früh-urslav. *pt-+st sind unberechtigt. Es handelt sich hier wohl um keinen ausnahmslosen Lautwandel, aber es besteht offensichtlich die Tendenz zu diesem Übergang, denn (1) wenn aus *pt nicht st wird, existieren zumindest solche Formen daneben (Icyta neben *kystb; net° neben nest°; Infinitiv greti neben Typus gresti neben gekreutztem grebsti); (2) die Fälle mit *pt-*t ohne Nebenformen mit st sind solche, wo das labiale Element eine Wurzelerweiterung repräsentieren könnte (dlato, tjativa), und daher nicht genügend beweiskräftig. Als Regelfall wird man daher pt-*st annehmen müssen."

It is to be regretted that more than a Century after the Neo-grammarian breakthrough the article under discussion, which does not offer anything new and obscures both the facts and the earlier scholarly discussion of the subject, has been printed in

one of the major Indo-Europeanist Journals.

FEEDERIK KORTLANDT

HOLLAND

Arumaa, P.

1976 Urslavische Grammatik II. (Heidelberg: Winter). Fraenkel, E.

I960 "Slavisch gospodb, lit. viespats, preuss. waispattin und Zubehör",

28 Meillet, A.

1902 IStudes sur l'etymologie ei le vocabulaire du vieux slave I, (Paris: Bouillon).

Pohl, H. D.

1980 "Slavisch st aus älterem *ptV, Die Sprache 20/1: 62 - 63. Pokorny, J.

1959 Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (Born: Francke). Preobrazenskij, A.

1918 iStimologiöeskij slovar' russkago jazyka II. (Moskva: Lisgner). Vasmer, M.

1953 Russisches etymologisches Wörterbuch I. (Heidelberg: Winter).

Vey, M.

1931 "Slave st- provonant d'i.-o. *pt-", Bulletin de /« Soci&e de Lin-guistique de Paris 32: 65 -67.

1953 "Le nom de Γ "autour" en slavo'', Bulletin de la Societe de Linguistique de Paris 49: 24-40.

Zubaty, J.