T W O PRASUN NOTES

by
ERIC P. H A M P

University of Chicago
A small token respectfully dedicated to Professor F.B.J. Kuiper

1. Prasun gondor 'big'

Morgenstierne (NTS, 15.211 w 51, and 259) derives this from *ghana-tara, with a question-mark of doubt. In Prasun we expect a nasal cluster to lose its nasal to the following obstruent; still, such a vowel syncope is not entirely self-explanatory, and we might expect internal -t- to vanish. Besides, a closer connexion seems to be available. We know that initial velar + r loses the r in Prasun: g(m 'village', gt'k Kati g(a)fak 'throat'. It seems more plausible, then, to regard gan-dar possibly as a compound (though a suffix would not be excluded), and to equate the first element gan- with Waigali gr6na, which also means 'big'. We would then have a Waigali-Prasun, and therefore Proto-Nuristani, correspondence *grdn-. This makes good sense within Waigali too, for grdna is shown to belong to at least a relatively old layer of the language, since it forms the fern. gP?nZwith palatal umlaut (NTS, 17. 167, w 28).

2. Prasun oncor'~ "day"

Several minor variants of this word, which may for convenience be normalized as above, are recorded by Morgenstierne (NTS, 15.248). The correct segmentation is not immediately clear: Morgenstierne vacillates (NTS, 15.211) between recovering an old suffix *-ar belonging to the IndoEuropean history of the noun, and a sort o f " t e m p o r a l " suffix - Vra, which could be paralleled in f~nera 'winter' and w'ac-era 'in the evening, afternoon' (: w'ac-ik 'evening, afternoon'). In view of the additional form

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w'dce~ 'in the evening' (NTS, 15.215, 275), this segmentation for w'ac-era seems particularly suitable. However, it seems likely that we may improve it somewhat by dividing the words so that we isolate the very common suffix -k (NTS, 15.215 w64). Then we have w'aci-k, wdce-d, w'ace-ra. When we consider igt~k 'star' < *dff(r)-k (Kati gt6) < *stdra-, we are then able to regard w'aci- as derived from *waci(r)- < *u~adara- < *uaksara (?) (NTS, 15.211 w 52), and hence preserve the attractive equation implied by Morgenstierne (NTS, 15.196 w 13) with Lat. uesper, Sl. vedel~ etc. I have recently dealt afresh with this troublesome word, Rev. des dr. arm., III (1966). Again, in light of this reasoning we may reanalyze w'acera as w'acer-a, with the old -r- preserved. Now we may note too that a word ancegd'recently' also occurs. Though its connexion with ancar'd is not entirely clear, the meanings suggest an older etymological link; something like English 'of a day' would form a suitable transition (cf. Skt. sadya.h 'today' > 'recently'). This looks very much like a frozen oblique case onceg-d (cf. NTS, 15.217 w 70); we thus recover a casus rectus *ancek, which we may analyze *ance-k parallel to w'aci-k, igtf-k, etc. ancar'~ then becomes an old oblique case of the unextended stem ancar-d, as is also wacer-a. This is made more plausible by the attestation of the frozen temporal phrase it'fncera 'today'. I therefore extract from *ance-k and ancar-'d a base *ancer-, which, in agreement with Morgenstierne's ingenious insight (NTS, 15.211 w 51), may be derived as *ancar-, in turn as *ajn-ar in relation to Skt. ahan-. I think now, in the above framework, we have greater reason to trace both the -n- and the -r components back to an early stage. And this then suggests strongly that we do in fact have a reflex of this old heteroclite. Is the metathesis of *jn to nc plausible? There seems to be no clear parallel. 6zne 'know' (: d-jgd-) is an old initial, not medial, cluster. There is no guarantee that r behaved the same way, with its inserted V in ~irrk 'shame'. Allowing that the metathesis did occur, the apparent devoicing is, on reflexion, not so anomalous as it may seem. The metathesis must have occurred after the assimilation of nasals to obstruents (3 50), which in turn must have occurred after the lenition of inter-V obstruents, or else the nasal would have been absorbed. The rare new nasals now appearing in this position before obstruent (NTS, 15.211 w 51) seem to have formed clusters neutralized with respect to voice. Thus *jn > *ttj > *nc is a perfectly consistent progression. We therefore seem justified in recovering the stem *ajn- < *ajhn-, conflated with the old alternant *aj(V)r. This leads us to an important confirmation for the Indo-European form of this noun.

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ERIC P. HAMP

I have tried to argue on new, and stronger, grounds in the Festschrift for George Lane for the equation of ON d~gn/d~gr (and ultimately Gmc. *dagaz) and Skt. dhar/dhn-. Beside this we have Avest. azan-. In the nature of things, it is impossible to recover with precision the vocalism of *aj(V)r from *ancer-. But the entire argument of metathesis applying to nc makes it clear that the Nuristani n-alternant must have been *ajn- < *a~,hn-as etc. This is exactly what we should expect for such an Indo-European noun formation, and the slender Nuristani evidence furnishes welcome support to the Indic testimony.