Re: [tied] Albanian outside the centum-satem division?

> Albanian is sometimes said to be outside the centum-satem division
> because, before a front vowel, (as if) *k, *g(h) preserve while *kW,
> *gW(h) change into s, z.
>
> The most known example of the preserving is Alb. kohë <
> *ke:so- "time". But... Jacobson associated this word, known only
> from Balto-Slavic and Albanian, with Slavic kosa "scythe", which is
> from *k'os- (Sanskr. ças "cut")!
>
> So, this word can be just a borrowing from a centum language and it
> cannot be taken as a serious piece of evidence.

Well, the phonetics and meaning work just fine in *ke:so- > c^asU, kohë.
As for *k'os- > kosa (with possible *k'-s > *k-s), the semantics of
"scythe" and "time" is not very obvious (one could of course imagin the
time as being cut but it's not nearly as good as the semantics in the
first etymology). C^asU on the other hand means exactly "moment, time,
hour".

Mate