Re: [tied] *pYerkW+

On 2007-05-20 08:19, Sean Whalen wrote:

> Analogy can add a "laryngeal" from *suX+ 'beget' to
> son if it didn't have it originally.

Also in branches that preserve no trace of the verb?

> Why would the X
> be lost in some branches?

It's similarly lost (or at least fails to lengthen the vowel) e.g. in
*wih1ros- in Germanic, Celtic and Latin (but not Sabellic!). One reason
may be that such words often occur in compounds and fixed phrases
(bahuvrihis of the type '[having] so many sons', patronymic
descriptions), where the predictable head constituent may develop a
"weak form". Cf. the similar shortening of Ved. vi:rá- in <viraps'á->.

> If so, where does keraunos come from? Why not
> *kYerxwr, / kYr,xwen+ > *ker(a)war / *kra:wen+ >
> *ker(a)waros or similar?

Animate *kérh2-wo:n > *kérawo:n, thematised as <keraunó-> in pre-Greek,
I should imagine. Had the thematisation been derived directly from the
neuter, the result would be something like *kera-(w)at-ó-, I suppose.

> Do you believe in a Slavic reconstruction like
> *Peraunos? Doesn't keraunos seem a little too close
> to be from another root with a less specific meaning?

Chance may produces even more striking but still spurious correspondences.

> If borrowed it would be from a language like Slavic
> but with It-C ~ p-kW > kW-kW.

I don't think so. Slavic *perunU can't be trusted as evidence, since
*-unU is a suffix found in Slavic agent nouns (*be^gunU 'runner',
*pe^stunU 'one who nurses' etc.) and folk-etymological contamination
with *pere/o- 'strike' is very likely in this case.

Piotr