--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Joao S. Lopes" <josimo70@...> wrote:
>
> So, would this alternation point to *h1Wesu-/h1Wsu- ?
>
I wouldn't say so. It's quite imaginable that *h1wesu- was reduced to
*h1su- (and even further to *su- in some positions). It would hardly
be economic to posit a special labialised phoneme in PIE or pre-PIE
just to account for a single alternation (even if the attested
reflexes could plausibly be derived from such a segment, which may be
doubted). The term for 'good/well' must have been one of the most
common compositional elements in PIE, and frequency of use is a factor
favouring irregular phonetic reduction.
Piotr