Re: [tied] names for HORSE

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 4523
Date: 2000-10-27

Of the Satem groups, Slavic shows a particularly large admixture of centum forms (larger than Baltic an far larger than Indo-Iranian), e.g. *go~sI 'goose', *svekry 'mother-in-law', *korva 'cow'. At least those with *k cannot come from post-Grimm Germanic and must be due to the influence of some extinct non-Satemic substrate of E/Central Europe (Venetic again?). *kop- is certainly one of them. It is difficult to tell at present whether we deal here with lexical or phonological diffusion (the latter would be like "dispalatalisation" in Northern English dialects under Old Norse influence, which is the reason why Modern English has "get, give, carve" rather than "yet, yive, charve").
 
As for hippos, the geminated "p" is explained as reflecting an IE consonant cluster (*k + *w), not a unitary labiovelar *kW (there is also a Doric variant ikkos, cf. lakkos 'pond' < *lakwos, pelekkao: 'cut with an axe' < *peleku-a-). Initially before a consonant cluster Greek i in place of *e (already in Mycenaean) is at least parallelled by i-prothesis in the same environment (as in ikhthys or iktis ~ ktis). The aspirate is a real mystery, although if I'm not mistaken it's confined to Attic Greek.
 
Piotr
 
----- Original Message -----
From: João Simões Lopes Filho
To: cybalist@egroups.com
Sent: Friday, October 27, 2000 4:05 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] names for HORSE

Joao wrote:
Ok, but remember the roots is *k'opH- (with metathesis k'oHpo-,  so Satem languages like Slavic must have *sop-. So, kopyto must be a loan from some kentum language.
If caballus is Celtic and related to *k'opH-, I think it's more plausible a compound *k'opHo-bolo- or alike.
It's not impossible to use the same root for a castrated animal and a female. Remember English cow and Portuguese boi (<Latin bo:s) "castrated ox". 
kobyla < *kobhu:- ? or kobhaxw- ?
Talking abour horse names there's also the mystery of name HIPPOS. The "normal" word must have been *EPOS