Patrick:
> Although the work at Starostin's website is uneven,
> at least he is making an effort to bring us data
> which would otherwise be difficult to obtain.
This is one of the very rare occasions where our
sentiments are the same. Even though I don't feel
that his reconstructions are adequate, it's important
to give him credit where credit is due. Certainly,
credit is due in his efforts in general to share the
data on which he bases his reconstructions to the
internet community... although an online Nakh
dictionary devoid of North Caucasian bias would be
even more useful :)
Patrick:
> With pre-PIE *maH, which is secondary: 'mother' or
> 'breast', or 'nurse/nursing'?
I don't see why this is necessary. It suffices to
label this a nursery term without reconstructing
a root **ma- behind *maxter-. The way I think of it
is that there was probably a baby-syllable *ma
associated with motherhood in this language,
surfacing in related words like say *?amma- or
*maxter-. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that
we have reason to reconstruct a root **ma- anymore
than we can claim a true English root *da- behind
"daddy".
= gLeN
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