Re: Present participle

On 2008-10-12 23:47, Andrew Jarrette wrote:

> Oh, I see. But another question I have is, if a root is encountered
> only in Italic, Germanic, and Slavic, does that mean we should
> probably reject it as being from PIE? I personally feel that that is
> being rather harsh, especially when it is so easy for languages to
> lose items of vocabulary (cf. Modern English vs. Old English
> especially, but also many modern European languages compared with
> their ancestors). Is there another reason why you do not favour (a
> deliberate choice of word here) the idea of a PIE root *ghow- (etc.)
> besides the fact that if it occurred, it is only corroborated in
> Italic, Germanic, and Slavic?

It remains to be demonstrated that it occurs in Italic, and what we have
between Slavic and Germanic is a vague root equation, not an exact
correspondence involving parallel derivatives. It adds up to very weak
evidence.

Piotr