On 2007-06-21 00:23, stlatos wrote:
> That makes many more assumptions than I do. It is not necessary for
> the Greek ev. to go back to PIE. The cognates such as Lith pìrmas
> with prómos show RX could sometimes > oR/Ro. Since Greek shows the
> most complicated changes in RX, diff. outcomes before (and between,
> etc.) P and KW for R and RX seem reasonable.
But Jens explains lots of other things at the same time. There needn't
be a liquid or nasal in the root, or an initial labial in the suffix,
for an *o to be infixed. The explanation of the Saussurean loss of the
laryngeal is only part of the spinoff from Jens's theory.
If <prómos> isn't simply a truncated form of <prómakHos> (which ought to
be considered, given the Homeric meaning), it patterns with
<próteros> as the corresponding superlative form. If so, <pìrmas> not an
exact cognate, and the etymology of <prómos> does not involve a
laryngeal in the root. As for <próteros>, we have discussed it
throroughly before and I have nothing more to add.
>> *wlh2wo- is ad hoc,
>
> No, the full grade *wel-x-wo+ > vellum 'fleece' in Latin with the
> same semantics as deriving it from
Any particular reason why Lat. vellus (sic) can't reflect *wolno-? It's
an s-stem (gen. velleris), and *-no- nouns are characteristically often
extended in this way (the type specimen is Skt. réknas- <
*lóikW-ne/o-s-, and in Latin alone we have <pignus, mu:nus, fe:nus>
etc.). Your proposed etymology is still ad hoc and doesn't account for
the stem-final -s.
> Where does it come from? It's obviously related other words from
> *tlax+, and was seen as such over 100 years ago.
I'm not saying that <te:lía> can't be related to *telh2-. I just remain
unconvinced that it must be placed in that etymon and that any of the
etymologies proposed so far can be considered satisfactory. There are
also other problems, such as variant forms with initial /s/. The word is
obscure and so of little use as evidence of anything.
Piotr