--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Piotr Gasiorowski"
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Abdullah Konushevci"
> <a_konushevci@...> wrote:
>
> > Outcome of PIE /*s/ > Alb. /s/ we have attested in *snuso:s >
> > nuse 'bride', in *super > sipër 'over' (cf. hip 'to climb up, to
go
> > up' from *up-er-) some of basic words of the Albanian inherited
> > dictionary.
>
> I'm not sure where <sipër> comes from, but since it fails to match
> *super- on two counts I suspect that the similarity between the two
is
> accidental. <nuse> can't be derived via regular sound changes from
> *snusah2 or *snusos (PIE "*snuso:s" doesn't exist), and it most
likely
> reflects pre-Alb. *(s)nu(p)tja: < *snubH-t-jah2, related not only to
> Lat. nuptia 'wedding' but more importantly to Gk. numpHe: 'bride,
> marriageable girl', which also tended to replace <nuos> (< *snusos).
> The verb *sneubH- 'marry' may be ultimately related to *snusos via
> hypothetical unextended *sneu-, buth that's a different story.
>
> Piotr
************
Instead of reply:
A number of Indo-European languages show a similar word for the
kinship term "daughter-in-law": Sanskrit snu , Old English snoru,
Old Church Slavonic sn kha (Russian snokhá), Latin nurus, Greek nuós,
and Armenian nu. All of these forms, called cognates, provide
evidence for the phonetic shape of the prehistoric Indo-European word
for "daughter-in-law" that is their common ancestor. Sanskrit,
Germanic, and Slavic agree in showing an Indo-European word that
began with sn-. We know that an Indo-European s was lost before n in
other words in Latin, Greek, and Armenian, so we can confidently
assume that Latin nurus, Greek nuós, and Armenian nu also go back to
an Indo-European *sn-. (Compare Latin nix [stem niv-], "snow," with
English SNOW, which preserves the s.) This principle is spoken of as
the regularity of sound correspondences; it is basic to the sciences
of etymology and comparative linguistics. 16
Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, and Armenian agree in showing the first vowel
as -u-. We know from other examples that Slavic regularly
corresponds to Sanskrit u and that in this position Germanic o (of
Old English snoru) has been changed from an earlier u. It is thus
justifiable to reconstruct an Indo-European word beginning *snu-. 17
For the consonant originally following *snu-, closer analysis is
required. The key is furnished first by the Sanskrit form, for we
know there is a rule in Sanskrit that s always changes to (a sh-like
sound) after the vowel u. Therefore a Sanskrit snu - must go back to
an earlier *snus-. In the same position, after u, an old -s- changes
to kh (like the ch in Scottish loch or German ach) in Slavic; hence
the Slavic word, too, reflects *snus-. In Latin always, and in
Germanic under certain conditions, an old -s- between vowels changed
to -r-. For this reason Latin nurus and Old English snoru may go back
to older *snus- (followed by a vowel) as well. In Greek and Armenian,
on the other hand, an old -s- between vowels disappeared entirely, as
we know from numerous instances. Greek nuós and Armenian nu (stem nuo-
) thus regularly presuppose the same earlier form, *snus- (followed
by a vowel). All the comparative evidence agrees, then, on the Indo-
European root form *snus-. 18
For the ending, the final vowels of Sanskrit snu , Old English
snoru, and Slavic sn kha all presuppose earlier - (*snus- ), which
is the ordinary feminine ending of these languages. On the other
hand, Latin nurus, Greek nuós, and Armenian nu (stem nuo-) all
regularly presuppose the earlier ending *-os (*snus-os). We have an
apparent impasse; but the way out is given by the gender of the forms
in Greek and Latin. They are feminine, even though most nouns in
Latin -us and Greek -os are masculine. 19
Feminine nouns in Latin -us and Greek -os, since they are an abnormal
type, cannot have been created afresh; they must have been inherited.
This suggests that the original Indo-European form was *snusos, of
feminine gender. On the other hand, the commonplace freely formed
ending for feminine nouns was *- . It is reasonable to suggest that
the three languages Sanskrit, Germanic, and Slavic replaced the
peculiar feminine ending *-os (because that ending was normally
masculine) with the normal feminine ending *- , and thus that the
oldest form of the word was *snusos (feminine).20
One point remains to be ascertained: the accent. Of those four
language groups that reflect the Indo-European accentSanskrit,
Greek, (Balto-)Slavic, and Germanicthe first three agree in showing
a form accented on the last syllable: snu , nuós, snokhá. The
Germanic form is equally precise, however, since the rule is that
old -s- went to -r- (Old English snoru) only if the accented syllable
came after the -s-.21
On this basis we may add the finishing touch to our reconstruction:
the full form of the word for "daughter-in-law" in Indo-European is
*snusós.22
Also:*pos > pas 'after, behind'
Konushevci