From: Rick McCallister
Message: 55976
Date: 2008-03-26
> 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
>
>