Re: [tied] Greek *uh2 (was: -tlo- vs -tro-)

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 49359
Date: 2007-07-09

On 2007-07-09 05:18, stlatos wrote:

>> The laryngeal breaking of *i and *u before *h2/3 (in Greek, Tocharian
>> and Armenian) applies both inside morphemes and at morpheme boundaries.
>> Cf. gWih3wó- > Gk. zo:ós (but Lat. vi:vus, OCS z^ivU, Skt. ji:vá-),
>> *duh2-ró- > Gk. de:rós, Arm. erkar (but Lat. du:rus, Skt. du:rá-).
>
> I only said Greek *uh2 (ux) for a reason, and with:
>
> *bhux+ 'be(come)'
> *bhux+Lo+ 'tribe' > G phu:lé:
> *bhux+mn+ > G phu:^ma 'growth'

The root 'grow' remains something of a mystery in many respects. I wish
I were sure what it looked like in PIE. Was it *//bHewh-//, *//bHweh-//,
or *//bHehw-//? (all these solutions have their adherents). Why do we
find an aberrant nil-grade aorist (*bHuh-t) everywhere? And crucially
for the question at hand: was the laryngeal unquestionably *h2?

> *krux+ 'rough, hard'
> *krux+so+ 'crust' > G krúos 'frost', OE hru:se 'ground'

Gk. krúos is a neuter stem in -e/os-. The laryngeal here is
intervocalic, whatever its index.

> *kYwax+ 'swell' > G pa:-
> *kYux+mn+ 'swelling' > ku:^ma 'wave'

Many different things are dumped together under *k^euh2-, not always
with sufficient reason. The way I see it, *k^euh2- means 'have power
over sth.' rather than 'swell' (a meaning attributed to it on the basis
of false cognates). The treatment of the nil grade can be seen in Gk.
derivatives with <pa:->. I doubt if <ku:^ma> has anything to do with
that root (as opposed to <pa:^ma> 'possession'). I'd prefer to
reconstruct *k^euh1- 'swell, vault' as a separate root.

> *dhux+ 'shake'
> *dhux+mo+ > G thu:mós '~spirit'
>
>
> it seems fairly certain to me that ux>wax only at a _recognized_
> morpheme boundary; the words have changed their meaning from the
> original enough to be seen as whole words. The first stage in my
> theory involves ux $ > uxW $ so at recognized boundaries x could be
> restored easily (or never occur to begin with).

Well, *duh2-ró- has no recognised boundary before *h2.

Piotr