Re: [tied] Galli:na aut o:uum

----- Original Message -----

From: Sergejus Tarasovas

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Monday, November 05, 2001 9:25 PM

Subject: [tied] Galli:na aut o:uum

> Recently possible PIE *h2o:ujom 'egg' < (some adjectival vrddhi) *h2awi-/*h2w(e)i- was discussed. Two more moments.

> 1. Curiously enough, Burrow in The Sanskrit Language gives a nearly exactly inverse explanation: he postulates PIE i-stem neutral *o:'wi (he says root vrddhi is 'often' with i- and u-stems) 'egg' and then explains Greek <o:I~on> 'egg' < *o:'wjom as a mere o-extension of *o:'wi; Sanskrit <vi'-> is explained as an adjectival derivation from *o:'wi, elision of *o: being the result of the retraction of stress from the root to the suffix; he writes that gun.a in Vedic <ve's> is unusual for such derivatives (like <dyau's> 'sky(-god)' and <gau's> 'cow', so he seemes to expect **vai's here).

 

This smacks of obscurum per obscurius -- an ad hoc derivation from an unattested form, and no parallels offered. Where are those numerous vrddhied -i- and -u- stems? In cases like <da:ru> or <a:yu> the length is Brugmannian (i.e. branch-specific, not PIE). <veH>(~ <viH>) is strange indeed, but it can't be parallel to <dyauH> anyway, or the other case forms would be something like acc.sg. **va:m, gen.sg. **v(i)yaH (rather than <vim, veH>). The PIE mobile pattern was regularised in Indo-Iranian, producing *Hwis, acc. *Hwim, gen. Hwais, nom.pl. Hwajas. After the loss of the laryngeal, however, the word became confusingly short (<v-i->) -- too "light" to be easily analysed as a regular -i-stem -- so the gun.a variant began to creep into the nom.sg. by analogy: <veH> is secondary (to <viH> < *(H)wis) rather than original.

> 2. It's often stated that Lithuanian <vis^ta`> and Lettish <vista> 'hen' are cognates of Old Indic <vi'->/<ve'-> and Avestan vi:s^ 'bird', Latin <avis> etc. But where does that Baltic *-s't-a: < *-st-ah2 / -k^t-ah2 come from? The suffix looks rather unusually.

Indeed, perhaps it's time someone started looking for a bran-new etymology :)

 

Piotr