Re: [tied] Got milk?

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 14504
Date: 2002-08-24

An afterthought: Greek has also the neuter noun <gleukos> (stem gleuk-es-) 'sweet new wine', which rules out *dl.ku- but permits *dluk-u-, *dleuk-es-. I've also found an etymological note by Eric Hamp (in _Folia Linguistica III/1, 1982), where he tries to account for Lat. dulcis (for expected *luquis < *dlukwi- = *dluku-i-). Hamp proposes a perceptually motivated metathesis *dlukWi- > *dulkWi-, and explains the <-c-> as due to the influence of the original comparative *dleuk-jos-.
 
To sum up, there seems to be no direct connection between *dleuk-/*dluk- and the milk word, but at least we have a nice example of *dl- > gl- in Greek to support *dlakt- (*dlag-t-?) 'milk'.
 
Piotr
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Piotr Gasiorowski
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, August 24, 2002 8:58 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Got milk?

Greek vowels may become u-coloured next to a labiovelar (which becomes delabialised upon losing its secondary articulation to the vowel). That's the case of <nuks>, <kuklos> (*kWekWlo-), <gune:> (*gWn.na:, cf. dialectal bana:). With *dl.ku-, we'd be in a Catch 22 situation: if *k is uvular, it can't u-colour the syllabic *l; if derives from a labiovelar, it can't a-colour things.

Greek does have various kinds of "umlaut", but I have yet to see *a..u.. > u..u.. in a u-stem. We have <brakHus>, <barus>, <elakHus> etc. without any colouring.

Otherwise, not a bad idea.

Piotr