Re: [tied] Re: *gwistis

I didn't even check it in Pokorny, assuming that *gw- was self-evident (*gWi- would have had to yield Alb. zi-). To illustrate the (relatively late) loss of *w in this combination, cf. gjeth(e) 'leaf' (originally a collective of *gath < *gwosdos, meaning something like 'foliage, thicket', cf. Slavic *gvozdU 'young forest'). Albanian gisht- could reflect *gwist- or *gweist-. A strange omission on Pokorny's part.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: Richard Wordingham

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2002 2:26 PM

Subject: [tied] Re: *gwistis

--- In cybalist@......, Piotr Gasiorowski <piotr.gasiorowski@......> wrote: <Snip> > As for the absence of palatalisation, the reconstruction *gwist- assumes an initial cluster (*g + *w), NOT a labiovelar, and the expected reflex of *gwi- in Albanian is <gi->. Actually I was being sloppy. I hadn't realised that PIE had a three-way _word-initial_ contrast gW v. gw v. g^w, spelt gw v. gv v. g'v in http://flaez.ch/cgi-bin/pok.pl . Pokorny reconstructs gW, but based only on Celtic and Germanic forms, which don't distinguish the three initials. If PIE *gwistis > Albanian gisht is correct, you have refined the reconstruction to *gwistis (Cybalistic) / *gvistis (Flaezian).