Re: Wrong Vowels (was: Religious terms , here saint)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:

> On Wed, 02 Jul 2003 18:29:02 +0200, alex <alxmoeller@...> wrote:
>
> >In Avestan there are just two words where initialy the k^w > sp:
> >k^won > spa
> >k^wen > spenta
>
> Pokorny gives:
>
> 1. spa:(y)- aufschwellen (p. 593)
> 2. spa:- Hund (632)
> 3. spae:ta- weiss (629)
> spiti-doiTra- helläugig (629)
> 4. sp&nta- heilig (630)
> spa(:)nah- heiligkeit (630)
>
> >if my data are not wrong then we have:
> >
> >k^wes > susi
>
> Av. sus^i is from *k^us-
>
> >k^wei-1 > kay
>
> From *kWei(t)-(1), of course.
>
> >k^wei-3 > savah
>
> No such word in Pokorny.
>
> >further based on the data I have, one can see that in Baltic we

have as

> >follow:
> >
> >k^wei-1 > svins
>
> svi:ns is Latvian!
>
> >k^wei-2 > s^vyks^teti
>
> s^výks^ti
>
> >k^wei-3 > sviesti
>
> s^vie~sti
>
> >k^wes > s^us^inti
>
> From *k^us-
>
> >k^wet > kutinetis
>
> From *kut-
>
>
> In other words, you can barely transcribe a single entry

correctly, you

> invent entries that are not there [not in the printed version at

least],

> you don't know that not all words starting with *k^w- are listed

in Pokorny

> under lemmata starting with *k^w- (you must also check *k^eu-),

and that

> not all words listed in Pokorny under lemmata starting with *k^w-

begin

> with *k^w- (some of them start with *k^u-), you don't know that s^
> s in
> Latvian, you can't distinguish *k^ from *k from *kW, and on top of

all that

> you have the nerve to contradict me... Tsk, tsk.

The basic explanations of what is going on is ablaut (apophony) and
the vocalisation of semivowels! It is not for nothing that Latin
did not distinguish <i> and <j> or <u> and <v>. By ablaut -eu- in a
root can potentially appear as -eu-, -w-, -u-, -ou- or possibly even
e:u or o:u, and similarly -we- can potentially appear as -we-, -w-, -
u-, -wo- or possibly even -we:- or -wo:-. Jens and Miguel have had
long conversations on Cybalist about the rules that determine which
ablaut variant appears.

Richard.