On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 10:30:02 +0100, Mate Kapovic <
mkapovic@...> wrote:
>From: "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...>
>> You're absolutely right. But the *k in *sweks isn't from *s^ at all.
>
>Enlighten me please.... :-)
The Semitic prototype is *s^idt_- (traditional reconstruction, a more
accurate Proto-Semitic rendering is perhaps /sidc^-/).
The /d/ is stil retained in Southern Semitic (Sabaic <sdt_>, Ge'ez <s&ds>),
but otherwise the cluster was simplified (Akk. s^is^s^-, Ugaritic t_t_,
Hebrew s^is^s^-, Aramaic s^is^, Arabic sitt-).
We obviously don't know the exact source of the PIE borrowing, but perhaps
the most likely one is a (pre-Akkadian) form *s^ids^, which should have
given PIE *sWets(W). This was apparently changed to *swek^s. Perhaps
(pre-)PIE phonotactics did not allow the cluster /ts/, and it was replaced
by /ks/.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...