From: tgpedersen
Message: 46219
Date: 2006-09-28
>str.nó:ti, says Pokorny ('eig. zur Basis streu-).
> On 2006-09-27 22:11, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > Nothing of the kind. I just wanted you to confirm I've identified
> > them correctly. Sorry about the telegraph style.
>
> I see, thanks. Yes, the identification is correct. The *ster- (etc.)
> root, as presented by Pokorny, is somewhat problematic. It looks
> like a conflation of two similar, and perhaps ultimately related,
> but nevertheless distinct roots, *ster- 'throw down, overthrow,
> scatter' (hence 'defeat') and *sterh3- 'strew, spread', partly
> or completely converging in some of the branches, including
> Indo-Iranian. Note the OInd. verbal adjectives str.tá- and
> sti:rn.á-, with what looks like the original complementary
> distribution of *-no- (after obstruents) vs. *-to- (after
> resonants) in (pre-)PIE, i.e. *str.-tó- but *str.h3-nó- (the
> latter replaced by innovated *str.h3-tó-, with the more productive
> suffix, in several branches). Cf. Gk. (Att.) stratós 'army, host'
> (*str.-tó-) but stro:tós 'covered, spread' (*str.h3-tó-). It's of
> course *sterh3- that forms a (Skt. class 9) present with a nasal
> _infix_, *str.nóh3-ti, but, to confound things further, *sterh3-
> seems to have had the synonymous variant *streu- (Goth. straujan
> etc.), hence perhaps the alternative present *str.néu-ti (OInd.
> str.nóti).
> The precise nature of the relationship has not beenI don't think Skt. str.ná:-ti is much of a help in deciding between
> worked out yet -- we have no consistent theory of PIE "root
> extensions".