Re: ka and k^a [was: [tied] *kW- "?"]

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, glen gordon <glengordon01@...>
wrote:

>
> On *wastu-:
> > Descriptively, it is a word with only zero-grade
> > syllables, a near-impossibility in IE.
>
> Hardly. You can't conclude every completely zeroed
> stem in IE is a loanword! What about *suh2nu- "son"?
> How can you get more basic that this kinship term?
> Loanwords? No way.

I haven't concluded that every completely zeroed stem in IE is a
loanword, so don't worry. :) *Suxnu- 'son' is indeed puzzling.
Quite possibly the nominative was subject to levelling (in light of
oblique cases like dat. sg. *suxnéwei), but I'm not sure how likely
that is.

> > How many other l-stems are there?
>
> Not many unless you connect them with thematic
> stems in *-lo-. But people for some reason want
> to fight me on that even though we know clearly
> that there is a ubiquitous relationship between
> athematic and thematic stems throughout IE grammar.

Surely words like "sun" and "salt" were used rather commonly by the
IE-speakers. For them to have been preserved athematically is no
more strange than for the plural of English "foot" to be "feet", IMO.

- Rob