Re: g^H: an older suffix in PIE adjectives?

From: Rick McCallister
Message: 59531
Date: 2008-07-11



----- Original Message ----
From: david_russell_watson <liberty@...>
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2008 9:46:45 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] g^H: an older suffix in PIE adjectives?

--- In cybalist@... s.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@ ...>
wrote:

> --- In cybalist@... s.com, Joao S. Lopes <josimo70@.. .>
wrote:
> >
> > There's a lot of PIE adjectives ending in -g^Hu. Is this a
> > relict of a "fossil" suffix?
> >
> > mrg^Hu- "short", bHng^Hu- "thick, fat", dHngHu- "fast?",
> > dHrgHu- "strong? hard?", h2ng^Hu- "narrow", lng(W)Hu-
> > "light" (cf. levis, elakhys, elaphros, light, if they are
> > related).

- edit -

> What are the "non-suffixed" counterparts for the others?

There is *dHen- "to run" that could conceivably work for
*dHengHu-, but looking through the dictionary I couldn't
find anything convincing for the others.

However the main problem is that there appears to be no
pattern from the start. Three of the cited roots end in
*g^H, a palato-velar, two in *gH, a plain velar, and one
in *gWH, a labio-velar.

So unless we want to talk about three different suffixes
here, we've seen no more than three examples of *-g^Hu-.

David


Off the top of my head, H2ng- comes to mind, if it's the same root as Latin angu- ; and if it can be reduced to **H2ng-g^Hu

Out of my ignorance: Is there anything in the roots that could cause an alternation between *g^H, *gH and *gWH ? Would the presence of /r/, /l/, /n/, /m/ or a vowel produce any such changes?