Re: *o:w(a:), egg(s)

Rick, I am not against regarding the earliest PIE form as *wawaye though I prefer *wawaH(a)

So, let us look at a development from *waway(e)

First, substitution of the Ablaut vowel: *wewey(e)

Stress-accent: *wéwey(e)

Shift of stress-accent rightward with elimination of final vowel: *wowéy

Elimnation of two *w's and compensatory lengthening: *o:wéy

Retraction of stress-accent to long vowel and elimination of vowel in stress-unaccented syllable: *ó:wi

Suffixed vowel: *ó:uy-o-

Could that work?

Obviously, I do not believe that 'egg' is derived from 'bird'. Our early ancestors would have known many kinds of eggs other than just those of birds.

Patrick

----- Original Message -----

From: Brian M. Scott

To: Patrick Ryan

Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 5:38 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] *o:w(a:), egg(s)

At 5:25:35 PM on Tuesday, January 8, 2008, Patrick Ryan
wrote:

[...]

> I am led, by various considerations, to hypothesize that
> the earliest form behind *o:u(a:), egg, was

> *wawaH(a)

Except that it's not *o:u(a:), but rather *o:wyo-.

[...]

> I am therefore proposing that in this word, the exception
> to the rule, the initial phone was a vowel rather than a
> consonant, here a laryngeal (like the, IMHO, mythical *H3).

*h2, actually, if this is indeed a derivative of *h2ewi-
'bird'.

Brian