Re: [tied] What song did the IEs sing?

The root, PIE *g(W)eh1(i)- (or *g(W)eih1-?)/*g(W)ih1- 'sing, call'
(= Pokorny's "long-diphthong" *ge:i, cf. Skt. ga:yati, gi:tá-, etc
standard reference sources (e.g. EIEC, *geh1(i)- Pokorny's *ge:(i)-)

>This of course doesn't account
> for the retention the velar in _all_ Indo-Iranian forms (except in
> reduplication syllables, as in 3sg. perf. jagau < *g(W)e-g(W)oH-e).

Pardon what must be a stupid question. Why should the velar not survive?

> something like *g(W)ah2(i)- could be posited instead, but how does one
> derive *gi:tá- from it?

There are other long vowels Sanskrit stems with the form -i:ta, e.g. "drink"
1 pa: / pi:ta and "suck" 2dha: / dhi:ta. I guess we need a solution for
them all, not just an ad hoc one for each verb.
(Most of the other Sanskrit long -a: roots have forms in either -a:ta
or -ita (short vowel) or both), e.g. cha: ja: jna: ta: sa: stha: sna:
ma:)

Peter