Rob:
> It may be present in *méxte:r 'mother' if it
> originally meant 'provider, nurturer'.
The way I've been thinking about that word is that
it's really the nursery syllable *ma followed
by a pseudosuffix *-xter- which spread analogically
from *pxter- to denote 'affiliation'. Now, *pxter- is
divided into *pex- 'to protect' + *-ter- [agentive]
without much fuss, and here, the *x is part of the
verb root on which it is based. I don't think this is
necessarily so for *maxter- which I think is more
appropriately written with phonemic *a to reflect its
likely source from *ma as I suggest.
> If the root is in Pokorny at all, it would be under
> *ma:-.
Yes, which I think is the wisest analysis available
to us so far, although I'm not even sure whether it's
worth listing *ma(:)- as a "root". If I was in charge
of a perfect IE comparanda database, I'd prefer simply
recognizing *maxter- as the 'true' root. That root
would then just have an etymological entry
recognizing a nursery syllable *ma, but
any "babyword" paraphrenalia would be excised from
the list of IE roots itself (or seperated somehow).
= gLeN
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