>>Are there Greek forms with -su?
Pete Gray:
>As far as I know, none of the dialects, not even Mycenaean, shows forms
>in -su.
No, only *-si exists in Hellenic. The suffix *-su is found in Iranian,
Slavonic and dialectally in Lithuanian, so it would seem. I've consulted
"The Sanskrit Language" by Mr Burrow. It is because of this apparent
alternation between *-si on the hand and *-su on the other that leads the
author of the book to the analysis of IE *-s-[i/u]. As I said, his
hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that both *-i and *-u are locative
suffixes. Unfortunately, I cannot find direct examples of *-u but since I've
seen an IE form for "where?" reconstructed in another source with this very
locative ending (something like *kW(o)u), I'm sure it must be there
somewhere.
Luckily, Mr Author-Person-Guy does mention attested forms relating to this
"where" word indirectly, via his discussion about /ku-/ interrogatives in
Sanskrit. It would seem BaltoSlavic lgs seem to reaffirm the existence of
the locative interrogative in IE:
Sanskrit /k�:cit/ "everywhere"
/kuv-�t/ [interr.particle]
/kva/ "where"
/k�ha/ "where"
/k�tra/ "where"
/k�tas/ "whence"
Avestan /ku:/ "where"
/kuthra:/ "where"
/kuda:/ "where"
OSl /kude/
I am no expert on IE-to-BaltoSlavic sound correspondances but the
IndoIranian evidence would seem to point to *kWu or *kWu:.
- gLeN
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