Re: [tied] Slavic voda

From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
Message: 12165
Date: 2002-01-27

On Sun, 27 Jan 2002 23:22:40 +0100, "Piotr Gasiorowski"
<gpiotr@...> wrote:

>> Well, Lith. N. óbuolos, Latv. âbuols point to a paradigm *h2ábo:l(s), *h2bél-os ~ *h2b-l-ós, which would have given Slavic *a:ba:l- / *obl-.
>
>Well, neither is attested in Slavic, so one must again resort to a "compromise" theory, which is always an embarrassment. Without liquid blocking, *h2bl- > *abl- > *a:bl- follows straightforwardly. Note that using the same kind of reasoning you explain a long vowel in a putative length-blocking environment and a short vowel in a non-blocking context. This is excessive explanatory power -- it immunises the liquid blocking theory against falsification, since any counterexample can be explained away.

No. Not vydra, for example.

[...]
>> I'm obviously not excused when it comes to lengthenings in the position V(:)DR, which should have been blocked. I see, at a quick glance, three counter-examples: Sl. agne~ "lamb", Sl. naglU "sudden", and the "otter" word.
>
>These are problematic, aren't they?.

Yes.

>Note that at least the 'lamb' and 'otter' words are well-established IE items with unambiguous etymologies (as opposed to some of the material above)

Although 'lamb' is not well-established enough to exclude *ghW. In
which case the lengthening would have nothing to do with Winter's.

>>> Isn't Slavic *vedro- related to Gmc. wedra- < *wedHro- 'weather' rather than to 'water'?
>
>> Chernyx (Istoriko-e.timologicheskij slovar') connects it with "water". Are there other examples of *wedhro- outside Germanic?
>
>There have been attempts to connect it with *h2weh1-. I remain unconvinced. Let's say that the reconstruction *wedHro- is the least speculative first draft. Even if the word is restricted to Germanic and Slavic (you can add Old Polish wiodro 'hot weather'), the formal match is perfect (even the gender is neuter in both branches) and the semantic agreement is beyond reproach. It is also possible (but unprovable) that Slavic *vedro- is a loan from Germanic. Pace Chernyx, I see no reason at all to relate the Slavic word to "water" instead. If it meant rainy weather ... but it doesn't.

Well, I s'pose it would show a schizophrenic attitude towards rain on
the part of the proto-Slavs to derive "good weather" from the "water"
root, whilst at the same time calling rain itself "a bad day"
(*dus-diw).