Re: [tied] *st@dhlo

01-12-03 22:07, etherman23 wrote:

> I've been reading Szemerenyi's Introduction to Indoeuropean
> Linguistics and I've come upon what appears to be a odd
> reconstruction. It concerns the word *st@... (stall), and he only
> gives Lat. stabulum as a reflex. Two things struck me as odd, the
> reconstruction of schwa and the reconstruction of dh. If Latin were
> the only source language I would expect these sounds to be /a/
> and /b/ or /bh/.
>
> Now my sources are somewhat limited and my knowledge of the
> historical changes also limited, but I couldn't find any obvious
> reflexes of *st@... in any language. OTOH, I could find several
> words that appear to come from something like *stab(h)lo. To make
> matters worse I consuled two dictionaries and both agree that Lat.
> stabulum comes from stare (which of course comes from *sta:).
> Furthermore I couldn't find st@... in Pokorny's list.
>
> So I'm hoping that you experts out there could clear this up for me.
> Is there any basis for Szemerenyi's reconstruction? If he is in
> error, what is the correct reconstruction of the apparent cognates:
>
> English stable
> Irish stable
> Greek stablos
> Latin stabulum (?)
>
> Could *st@... be cognate with stadium?

It _is_ related to <sta:re>, as the root of both is *stah2- (reduction
grade *st&2-) 'stand'. <stabulum> contains the instrumental suffix
*-dHlom ~ *-tlom (Lat. -b(u)lum ~ -c(u)lum [sic!]). The Latin word is
not isolated: the Germanic cognate is *staþla- < *st&2-tlo- (with the
other variant of the suffix), giving OE staþol 'foundation, base,
trunk', OHG stadal 'barn, storehouse' (hence also Polish stodol/a
'barn'). PIE *dH regularly gave Lat. [b] in medial positions when
followed by [l] (also when followed by [r] or [w], or when preceded by
[u] or [r] -- see Szemerényi's phonological chapter), and medial *-tl-
was dissimilated to [-kl-].

Piotr