Re: [tied] Brittonic duck [was: Risoe fo the Feminine]

29-04-2004 15:55, Miguel Carrasquer wrote:

> So perhaps Greek had *s- in aietos too: *sh2wyet-os,
> syllabified as *sawyetos > aietos (no h- because of
> dissimilation with inner -/h/- from *y and/or *w?). Come to
> think of it, Brythonic "duck" has h- (We. hwyad, OCorn. hoet,
> Bret. houad), left unexplained in IEW, but likely from *s-.

But how does one get <hwyad> from anything like *s(h2)w(i)jeto-? While I
agree that an *s- should be recontructed, initial *sw- would have
yielded Welsh chw-; whereas *sawjeto- won't work vowel-wise. The
Brittonic vocalism points to *sei- rather than atnything else, and the
full Celtic pre-form might be something like *seiPato-, for example.

Piotr