Reconstruction talk:Proto-Indo-European/séh₂ls

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Latest comment: 10 years ago by Florian Blaschke in topic Move
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Move

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I disagree with this move. The root doesn't just form this noun, it also forms verbs. Germanic *saltaz is also transparently a t-adjective derived from a verbal root. —CodeCat 20:29, 24 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

A t-adjective would have had to be ×salþaz or ×saldaz; *saltaz has to be from something ending in -ldos, which doesn't look verbal at all. It just looks like one of the thousands of noun stems with a consonantal extension that show up all over IE. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:13, 24 March 2014 (UTC)Reply
You're right, I missed that. But even then, Germanic has *saltaną, which is a strong verb. If it's strong, that must mean it's primary rather than derived. —CodeCat 21:21, 24 March 2014 (UTC)Reply
Not necessarily; it could have been derived an early date before the usual way of forming denominative verbs was settled on, and the -Hd- extension seems to be present only in Germanic and Balto-Slavic, while all the other branches just have a noun based on *seh₂l-/sh₂el-/sh₂l-. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:54, 25 March 2014 (UTC)Reply
You mean in Pre-PIE times? That's a hard claim to test... —CodeCat 18:19, 25 March 2014 (UTC)Reply
Or even just pre-PGmc, but since the verb has no cognates there's no knowing how old it is. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:47, 25 March 2014 (UTC)Reply
But primary verbs were, by definition, always formed from roots and not from other parts of speech. And in Germanic, primary verbs became strong while secondary verbs became weak. So a strong verb derived from anything other than a root is exceptional and needs explaining. —CodeCat 19:01, 25 March 2014 (UTC)Reply
Fair 'nuff, but it can't be from a bare root anyway because of the -Hd- suffix. The semantics just scream denominative, and class VII is full of unsolved mysteries. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:12, 25 March 2014 (UTC)Reply
Not to me (see this and this paper). The most plausible explanation for *saltaz in my opinion is a bahuvrīhi compound *sh₂(e)l-dh₃-ó- "giving taste/salt(iness)", also continued in Proto-Balto-Slavic *saldus "sweet".
That said, Beekes reconstructs the nominative of this noun differently, I think *soh₂l, which makes sense to me. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:42, 10 August 2014 (UTC)Reply