Re: [tied] husk

> From: Piotr Gasiorowski [mailto:piotr.gasiorowski@...]

> I'd like to propose what I believe to be a plausible
> alternative: Slavic
> <ospa> (< *o(b)-sUpa, related to *suti, *sUpo~ 'strew,
> scatter, pour'),
> attested at least in Polish with the meaning 'husks, bran'
> (I'm not sure
> about South Slavic). The same word is better known from
> several Slavic
> languages with the secondary figurative meaning of 'smallpox, cowpox'
> (or any other disease characterised by skin eruptions). It
> would account
> for <-oaspã> in a completely straightforward manner, and
> would require
> no semantic change. Like the Latinate etymology, it fails to
> explain the
> initial <h->, which might be due to some kind of formal
> contamination,
> though I can't think of a plausible source at the moment.
>

Since *o in *o(b)-sUpa bears new acute, a prosthetic [w] (or may be even its
alternant [h]) wouldn't be a great surprise.

Sergei