On 2008-03-26 14:47, george knysh wrote:
> ****GK: What about the "ogn" word? A different kind of fire?****
Sort of. At some historical stage at least some of the "elemental" terms
seem to have occurred in pairs, inanimate vs. animate. Thus we have
*páh2wr. vs. *(h)n.gní-s and *wódr. vs. *h2ó:p-s. The first member of
each pair is more widespread in IE, perhaps because it was the
_ordinary_ term for, respectively, 'fire' and 'water', whereas the other
was stylistically marked (the "natural element" as an active force,
something that moves, or the associated deity). Thus, what you used for
drinking or washing was the inactive *wódr., but what ran in a river was
the active *h2o:p-s.
Piotr