Re: Scientist's etymology vs. scientific etymology

On 2008-06-09 11:07, tgpedersen wrote:

> I know, Jens reinstated schwa secundum in an intersting article,

See also Vine (1999, in UCLA IE Studies, Vol. 1) on "einzelsprachlich
responses to inherited zero grades".

> 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.

LIV explains <quatio:> etc. as a neo-weak grade of a root reconstructed
as *(s)kweh1t- (root aorist *kwe:t-, cf. Gk. pe: --> present *kwat-je/o-
like <facio> from *dHeh1-). Such structures, however, are notoriously
difficult to analyse. Cf. LIV *kwath2- 'bubble, ferment' -- shouldn't it
really be *kwah2t- ~ *kwatH- (via Olsen's preaspiration)? This would at
least account for the Slavic alternation *kvas-/*kys-, not to mention
the *a in the root.

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

I suppose it could, but which particular words do you mean?

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

Why not simply <quadrum> 'square'? Cf. the etymology of <quarry>.

Piotr