> Alright... in Avestan and Sogdian. That's it?
Piotr:
> Well, Iranian in general. You said you haven't heard of ANY >examples,
>and I gave you SOME, so don't be too fussy. A little is >better than
>nothing.
Okay, I'm finicky. But I would like to see a widely attested example rather
than something restricted to certain branches here and there. Fortunately, I
can go on ignoring Hamp's theory with relative comfort.
Piotr:
> Reduction was variable between obstruents; most likely a reduced >vowel
>in that position was either further reduced to zero or >strengthened to *e
>depending on various factors, not unlike Slavic >yers. What amount of
>evidence would you expect for an EXTREMELY rare >cluster like *pk? I'm
>happy there is ANY evidence at all, even for a >"piecemeal" case.
I suppose. Hmm, if the word for "dog" were based on *peku-, it would be
assuming that the word only reaches back to 6000 BCE or so since dogs
shouldn't be herding *peku before then, yes?
This would then raise the question of what word came before it and dogs have
been around us much longer than that. In fact, I have some trouble accepting
that a word for a common and anciently cohabitating animal would be replaced
so completely by a new formation. Are there examples of this process in
written languages?
I know that "hound" ended up being knocked to the side with "dog", although
the original term is still alive and kicking... Where did OEng /docga/ come
from? Was it a loan from somewhere?
- gLeN
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