Re: Stacking up on standard works

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@...> wrote:

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> [...]
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> I was wrong about the 'whet' root. It is not quasi-Narten but an ordinary ablauting root *k^weh1d- (ON _hva:ta_, etc.), *k^woh1d- (Go. _hwo:ta_, etc.), *k^w&1d- (Lat. _quadrum_, OE _hwaet_, etc.).
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> I believe Lat. _triquetrus_ belongs to a different root *kWet- found also in _cossus_ 'worm', the latter from *kWot-to-. It cannot be from *kWod-to- because Lachmann's Law would have given Lat. *co:ssus, which would have undergone regular post-long degemination to *co:sus, like _caussa_ to _causa_.
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The early sense of _cossus_ was probably 'segmented worm, cutworm'. The collocation _vermis cossus_ likely led to the metaplastic form _cossis_ (Plin. etc.). At any rate the priority of the /o/-stem is shown by the antiquity of the cognomen Cossus in the annals. In more recent times, Dennis Rodman was nicknamed "the Worm".

Very likely Gaulish *pettia 'piece, portion' (well represented in Romance) is based on P-Celt. *petto- 'cut, portioned', Celt. *kWetto-, by Stokes' Law from *kWet-no'-. Moreover, Gaul. *petro- 'corner' (= Lat. _-quetrus_) was probably borrowed into Proto-Gmc. and shifted to *fethra-, reflected as OE _-feothor_ in _thrifeothor_ 'three-cornered'.

In sum, we have two phonologically and semantically distinct roots, *k^weh1d- 'to sharpen' and *kWet- 'to cut', no evidence for *d ~ *t, and no evidence for *-dr- > -tr- in Latin, despite the number of scholars great and small riding the bandwagon.

DGK