Re: CHAT: R: Italian Particles

Padraic:
> On Wed, 26 Apr 2000, And Rosta wrote:
>
> >Ray:
> >> All the evidence points to (insular) Celtic as being _originally_ VSO.  Why
> >> this should be so is AFAIK unknown and one of those features that
> >> "Celto-Semitists" like to point as evidence of Semitic influence  :)
> >
> >Why the smiley? Is the notion of there being a Semitic substrate beneath
> >insular Celtic so daft? (What I find less plausible is that there'd be
> >a Semitic substrate in the British Isles but not in Iberia or Atlantic
> >France.)
>
> I think that's the idea. What I'd been taught is that there was some
> kind of substrate influence on the Celtic that went from Europe to the
> British Isles. But not Semitic; the influenceing language(s) would be
> those of the pre-IE Europeans.
A "substrate influence on insular Celtic" would of course be influence
from the pre-IE language(s) (unless, contrary to the prevailing evidence,
but perhaps in accordance with Renfrew's dubious model of IE expansion, one
supposes Celtic not to have been the earliest IE entrant into the British
Isles). The point of my message was: Is it so daft to suppose that pre-IE lg
to have been Semitic? My partial answer was that it certainly seems more daft
that the pre-IE lgs of the British Isles were Semitic but not those of Iberia
and Atlantic France.

I'll reply separately to some of the other replies.

--And.