dive (was Re: Sos-)

> > > How exactly does that work in geographical terms? Wouldn't
> > > pre-IE have been spoken thousands of kilometers away from the
> > > "Nordwestblock" area?
>
> I'll have to modify the reference to pre-IE. Actually I think that the whole
> -í:-/´-i-/-i-´ (-> -éi-/´-i-/-i-´) -> -éi-/´-oi-/-i-´,
> -ú:-/´-u-/-u-´ (-> -óu-/´-u-/-u-´) -> -éu-/´-ou-/-u-´
> thing took place not between PPIE and PIE, but in the individual IE branches, in spite of the traditional notation (eg. Pokorny) of these roots as having -eu- and -ei-. Latin has no -eu-, for instance.

Interesting.

> the reason why this development could take place in several branches independently, is that it is a generalization from something already existing in PIE, namely the ablaut PIE -é-/´-o-/--´ from PPIE -á:-/´-a-/--´.

Optimally we'd like to explain some reflexes without resorting to analogy, in such a case.

If the table here isn't complete wack
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_sound_laws
(BTW I'm sure there are some members here who could work on that, or at leack check for bugs?)
it seems the standard ablaut grades remain apart (and have difthongal values) quite widely. Hittite /u/ for all *(V)u is interesting however.

(Could *Vi ablaut have come into form before *Vu ablaut did?)

> > … and wasn't this about words particular to Germanic, not
> > inherited from PIE?
>
> They are found in Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic and Baltic
> Finnic, occasionally in Latin (the 'mots populaires') and Greek.
>
> Torsten

OK. (Better check before jumping feet-first into the discussion.)

John Vertical