Re: Scientist's etymology vs. scientific etymology

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

>
> On 2008-06-08 22:25, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > Actually I thought of casting the net wider and get all the "four,
> > square" words on board too. No one has explained the /a/ of Latin
> > quattuor...
>
> It's a "schwa secundum", i.e. a prop vowel inserted to break up a
> hard-to-pronounce cluster. Its characteristic reflexes include Lat.
> /a/, Gk. /i/, OCS /I/. The pattern was m. pl. *kWetwores, n. (coll.)
> *kWtwo:r --> *kW&two:r, compositional *kW(&)twr.- ~ *kW(&)tru-.

I know, Jens reinstated schwa secundum in an intersting article, but
once you get quatio: separated from the rest of Latin with a
respectable family elsewhere, which is new, it is very tempting to
join quattuor, tri-quetrus etc to that family.

But I was wondering if that schwa secundum could also somehow explain
that weird wa/u 'ablaut' in Latin?

BTW I can't find a decent Latin exact source word for Da., Sw.
kvadersten "square roughly cut stone, esp in medieval buildings".


Torsten