Re: [tied] PIE *ueid, *uid

From: P&G
Message: 17371
Date: 2003-01-03

> I mean that here we have two forms in PIE.
> Once *ueid and once *uid.
> In one of them there must be something which changed the "u" in "v".
>
> One can say that there is no "u" from *ueid or *uid but for Prygian you
> have an "u" and
> second, in Romanian you have "uita".
Romanian "uita" is the latin "*oblitare (
> oblitus)

PIE did indeed appear to have had *weid and *wid. Much much later
indidivual languages did ther own things to those forms. Greek lost the
/w/, and the Romance (post Latin) langauges hardened the /w/ to a /v/. It
has nothing to do with PIE, or with the particular form.

As for your problem deriving Romanian uita from Latin obitus, remember that
Late Latin / b / softened to a / B / (bilabial fricative) very similar to
/w/. This caused a collapse in the verb system, which could no longer
easily distinguish between, for example, amavit and amabit. So although I
don't know the details for Romanian, I can assert that Late Latin oblitus
would become oBlit-, which could conceivably pass on to Blit- > Bit >
uit-. I note that initial /bl / survives in Romanian, but I can find no
information on intervocalic examples.

Peter