Thanks for a swift response, Chris. I think
*gwosd- needs to be adjusted to accommodate Latin hasta 'spear, pike-staff' and
Gothic gazds 'prick, thorn' in addition to Slavic *g(v)ozdI- 'nail, peg, plug'
-- probably *gH(w)as-t- ~ *gH(w)as-dH-, with allomorphic variation in the sufix
(*-t- did not go well with roots containing a breathy stop). A rather strange
form, possibly a wanderwort. Where does the meaning 'penis' occur? ('prick'
glossing the Gothic word does not have the anatomical sense). Anyway, it looks
like an attractive possibility. *bHa:t- is suspect as a PIE root, since it also
violates the well-known phonotactic constraint prohibiting "breathy" and
"voiceless" in the same base. How strongly is it attested?
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2001 4:04 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Scythian Cognates
I will
need to do some more research on this - off the top of my
head, I think that
it either derives from a PIE *bha:t- "to hit" (or
perhaps even from *gwosd-
"nail/penis", with the sense of something
that pierces? I am not sure about
these roots).