On 2008-03-08 18:32, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:
> What about þegn?
A good question. And it isn't the only problematic word. Examples like
*ðeupa-, *xweita- very strongly suggest a development like *dHeubHnó- >
ðeuBná- > *ðeubbá- > *ðeuppa- > *ðeupa-. On the other hand, this leaves
*taikna- aberrant and hard to explain -- oddly enough, for at the same
time it accounts for the denominative *taik-ja/i:-. Frankly, I'm still
not quite sure what to do make of this contradictory evidence.
Degemination has the advantage of explaining more individual facts but
my feeling is that this jigsaw puzzle has not been solved completely and
one or two pieces are still out of place. *þeGna- beats me completely:
it behaves neither like *ðeupa- nor like *taikna-, and it's too isolated
to be analogical the way *freG-ne/a- may well be:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/43658
Of course if one rejects Kluge's Law (or rather the complex of pre-nasal
changes interacting with VL and GL into which Kluge's Law has been
unfolded), *þeGna- is a perfectly regular reflex of *tek(^)-nó- while
everything elese becomes irregular -- but note Gk. téknon with root
accent, and Gmc. *swefna- < *swép-no-. I would expect +þexna-. It is
possible that there was a marginal development of *-GWn- > *-Gn- as in
*uxna- ~ *ufna- ~ *uGna- 'oven'...
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/46086
... so another possible solution is to give up the connection between
<þegn> and <téknon>. What if the former is related to <þe:ow> 'servant,
slave' instead? Beside *þewaz (< *tek(W)-w-ó- 'runner, messenger',
according to Pokorny, cf. Skt. takvá- 'quick'), there are related nasal
stems, and something like *tekW-on- might have given rise to a thematic
*tekW-n-ó-.
Piotr