On Sat, 24 Sep 2005 10:36:43 +0200, Piotr Gasiorowski
<
gpiotr@...> wrote:
>Less realistic than *laiwos, given the circumflex intonation, which
>indicates a laryngeal-less root.
As I have stated before, I believe that PIE */a/, where it
does not come from colouring by *h2 (*h2e > *a) or by
*k/*g/*gh (**qa > *ka), must come from a (pre-)PIE nasalized
long vowel */a:N/ before C (e.g. **(H)na:Ns > *(H)nas-,
**g^ha:Ns- > *g^ha(n)s, **dha:Nbh- > *dhabh-, etc.)
The existence of a PIE /ai/-diphthong would seem to be an
embarassment, but the word *laiwos gave me an idea. What if
the original shape of the word was **la:ñ-wos (out of
earlier ***la:niwos or ***la:miwos), where the palatalized
/ñ/ nasalizes the preceding vowel, and itself gets reduced
to /j/? That would allow tying in the word *laiwos with the
root *lem-/*lom- "weak, lame", which makes an excellent
semantic fit.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...