--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
<miguelc@...> wrote:
>
> On Fri, 4 Apr 2008 11:38:02 +0100, "P&G"
> <G.and.P@...> wrote:
>
> >nux has its -u- vowel by Cowgill's Law. Can that apply to long
vowel -o-,
> >or produce a long -u- (which seems unlikely)? Or does its
operation in
> >this word mean the -u- must be short?
>
> That's what I was wondering when I saw <nu:któs> in Pokorny.
> I haven't seen Cowgill's original treatment, but Sihler
> gives only examples with short <u>, if we exclude the verbal
> suffix -nu:- ~ -nu-. Another interesting word is <onoma> ~
> <enuma>.
Pokorny's <nu:któs> must be an error, because the acc. sg. is
<núkta>, not *<nûkta>. Examples are easy to find in well-known
texts, e.g. Od. 5:466, Aesch. Sept. 395 (400 in some eds.), Thuc.
2:3.4.
In verbs like <deíknu:mi>, the verbal suffix is -nu:- only in the
active indicative singular and pres. act. impv. 2nd sing., otherwise -
nu-. Since this so clearly tracks the length of the stem-vowel in
<dído:mi>, <títhe:mi>, etc., it is hard to resist regarding it as an
analogical lengthening within Greek, the actual suffix being -nu-.
<énuma> could be dialectal. L&S cite <ónuma> as the Aeolic form
behind compounds like <anó:numos>. Pokorny's dictionary is blemished
by a number of phantom root-variations which can better be explained
through interdialectal borrowing.
Douglas G. Kilday