--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "piervantrink" <piervantrink@...> wrote:
> 9/Many supoosed proto ie roots are supported by examples of very few Indo-European branches and sometimes by only 1 ie branche,or from only 1-2 branch with very unbelievable sound changes forgetting the innovation,loans and chance propabilities.
> As an exemple,the supposed pie *h2ég^H-r root has only 2 given examples both in the same Indo-Iranian branch(Avestan and Sanskrit)
> *h2ég^H-r/n.;- day Skr. ahar, Av. azan
[I've taken the liberty of transliterating Unicode to Latin-1.]
Actually, I suspect that the Wiktionary roots were originally selected on the basis of being evidenced in three or more branches. I suspect the less well-witnessed ones may have been added later - but this is Wiktionary issue.
There are two entries that cite reflexes from only one branch:
*gHreh1 Eng green, grow, grass
This one needs some investigation. There may be connections with some similar roots, though it is discouraging that neither Pokorny nor the 'Concise Dictionary of English Etymology' (Onions) offer a PIE root for these words.
*h2ég^H-r./n.- Skr ahar 'day'.
This is one of those curious cases where it looks as though an initial consonant has gone missing in one (or several) of the branches. Pokorny connects this with the Germanic word (English day and its cognates, while others derive day from the root *dHegHW. I'm afraid I don't know on what basis the initial was reconstructed as h2 rather than h1 or h3.
Being very strict, not counting Baltic and Slavonic as two branches towards the threshold of three, I reckon the following as being based on only two branches:
*pneu- Gk pneuma, Eng fnēosan, OHG fnehan etc.
*bHerg^H- OCS bre^ga~ OE byrgan (surely *gH !)
*bHred- Alb. bredh, Lith bristi, Russ. bresti, Thrac. Bredai
*túh1s-ont- OE þusend, OCS tyso~s^ti (Tocharian uses a different root extension.)
*kal- Skt. kalya-, Gk kállos 'handsome'
*kel- Gk kólla, Lith. kiljai, Russ klej.
*grad- OCS gradU, Arm karkut 'hail'- looks a bit thin, formerly had Latin grando: 'hail' for support according to Pokorny. However, Sanskrit hra:duni- might indicate that Armenian karkut does not belong, and that the root is something like *g^Hro:d- or *g^Hrohd-. What does Lith. grúodas tell us?
*gHelo:u- Gk kheló:ne:, OCS z^elUvI 'tortoise'
*gHWih1bH- Eng wife, Toch kip/kwi:pe 'pudenda'
*gWHeleg^H- Arm gel/j Russ z^eleza 'gland'
*wail- Arm gayl, OIr fáel
*leh3p- Alb. lopë, Ltv lùops
*marko- OIr marc, Eng. mare 'horse'
*mendyos- Alb. mëz/mâz, Illyr. mandos, Thracian Meze:nai, Messapic Menzanas 'horse'
What problems do you see with the sound correspondences of these?
Richard.