Re: S mobile (Was : PS Emphatics)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2008 2:50 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: S mobile (Was : PS Emphatics)



<snip>

> I don't think it's a valid analysis. If I were to segment *dreu-
> morphologically, I'd prefer *dr-eu- because of the synonymous *dr-ah2-
> and *dr-em-. I actually plead guilty of conjecturing, in an article just
> published (Indogermanische Forschungen 112), that *sreu-, *dreu- and a
> few similar roots may contain a pre-PIE extension indicating forward
> movement. From the purely IE point of view, however, *sreu- is
> indivisible, and in particular has no s mobile. River names like Rava
> can be explained otherwise and hydronymic evidence is too weak on its
> own to prove the existence of *reu- as a byform of *sreu-.
>
> Piotr

***

I am not so sure of your argument.

So far as I can see it, *(e)rew-, 'fast', is related to *(e)rey-, 'flow'.

It would be the most natural thing in the world to characterize a river as
'fast' when so many are lazily slow.

Is it not going a bit too far to call *srew- indivisible when one of its
common forms is *strew-?

I believe in the idea that canonical PIE roots have the form *CVC-.

To me, the root is either *ser- or *rew-; and, of course, you know Pokorny's
1. *ser-, 'stream'.

That would tip the balance towards *ser- + -*w extension in my opinion since
the meanings are identical rather than just semanticaly relatable.

But I consider *s- + *rew- a valid possibility with a hard-to-measure
probability.

*drew- is obviously from *der-.

Are you suggesting that you believe -*w means 'forward movement'?

Your argument in a nutshell for this would be of interest.


Patrick