The EIEC reconstructs *(s)greh2b(H)-, based
on Umbrian Grabovius 'oak god', Old Prussian wosi-grabis 'spindle-tree
(_Euonymus_)', Lith. skroblas 'hornbeam', Slavic *grabU 'hornbeam', NGk.
grabouna 'hornbeam, oak' (borrowed?), plus a few really eccentric forms like
Latvian ska:barde, Albanian shkozë, Latin carpinus 'hornbeam'.
*g- ~ *sk- is an uncontroversial
alternation (cf. Slavic drozdU : Baltic strazdas 'thrush'), but I don't see why
a laryngeal is needed: if the root-final stop is (dialectal IE) *b, Winterian
lengthening accounts for the long vocalism in Balto-Slavic and the protoform may
be *(s)grob- or *(s)grab-. The Umbrian name may be a loan from Illyrian (*o >
a at least in Messapic). Of course we are left with the embarrassing combination
of *g and *b in the same root (*b being at the same time a rare phoneme), but if
it's a relatively late regional term, strictly PIE constraints may not apply to
it, and at any rate *grob-/*skrob- looks pronounceable, as opposed to
*sgrah2bH-.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2001 1:11 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] IE roots
On Tue, 2 Oct 2001 11:16:12 -0300, "João S. Lopes Filho"
<jodan99@...> wrote:
>1-
Is there a phonetic law S+g- > C- ?
There is Sieb's law, roughly
*k- / *-g ~ *sk-, vs. *gh- ~ *sk(h)-
(i.e. s-mobile prefixed to words
beginning with voiced aspirates gives
s + voiceless aspirate in Sanskrit, and
occasionally in Greek or
Slavic [assuming skh- > x-]). However,
Sieb's law is controversial.