On 2006-09-14 14:19, Joao S. Lopes wrote:
> Could this reconstructed word for "comb" be a nice PIE
> one? It comes from the *pek^- "to comb", *pekû-
> "sheep, small cattle", but I don´t understand the
> suffix.
If I may share a personal view, one could imagine something like a
heteroclitic neuter *pék^-tr./*pk^-tén-s contaminated with the animate
agent noun *pk^-é:n (a variant of the present participle *pk^-ént-) to
yield *p(e)k^tén- (hence perhaps the reanalysis of the *-t- in some
languages as part of the root). Reflexes of *pk^-én- have been
identified in some Modern Iranian languages.
Piotr