Re: Latin Honor < ?

At 8:54:55 PM on Wednesday, March 17, 2010, dgkilday57
wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "G&P" <G.and.P@...>
> wrote:

>> [DGK]

>>> The form *wenh1-us- avoids the difficulty that Old Latin
>>> *venos should have undergone /o/-umlaut of the /e/ in
>>> this >position, with a simple nasal between the vowels
>>> and /w/, /h/, or zero before the /e/. We should expect
>>> Lat. *vonus, not <venus>, from an /es/-stem.

>> [PG]

>> Sihler discusses PIE *e > Latin *o before *w or l
>> pinguis, and after consonant +w, then says, "Evidence for
>> *we > Latin wo in other environments is scanty and
>> suspect. ... A better case can be made for PIE *wemh1 >
>> vomo ... Elsewhere *we- > vo only before l pinguis ..."

>> So I'm not convinced we should expect *vonos from PIE
>> *venos. As for *venh1-os, the slight evidence there is
>> (PIE *vemh1o) suggests the h1 would not prevent this
>> change (if there were such a change).

> The /o/-umlaut which I have described is independent of
> the shifts before /w/ or /l/ pinguis, and after /sw/.
> That it is indeed umlaut is shown by <bene> from *dvene:
> (with iambic shortening) and <bellus> from *dvenelos,
> beside <bonus> from <dvenos>.

Sihler prefers to take *dwe- > dwo- > bo- as the regular
development and treat <bene>, <bellum> and <bellus> as
exceptions, noting that the last two 'may be explained by
the following <l> exilis'.

Brian