Re: w-glide

>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> I like this idea. How about something related to the adversative
> conjunction/particle *h2(a)u 'on the other hand, moreover, once more',
> as in Gk. aû, Lat. aut(em), Gmc. *auk- etc.? In Greek, at any rate, it's
> very often used with numerals. Slavic *ovU belongs here.

Differently from *-va"/vo~s, I don't have a "gut feeling" of what this *h2(a)u might mean, especially in a combination with '1'. Besides 'on the other hand', dictionaries give meanings like 'away (from), back, again'. Do I get it right that in Greek aû is used in contexts like "secondly, thirdly" etc?

> Talking of
> stress, wouldn't Nieminen's Law (retraction of stress from short *a in
> the final syllable to a preceding long nucleus) be older than the
> monophthongisation? Cf. die~vas < *deiwó-.

My impression is that there's no mainstream view even on the exact formulation of this law, much less on its relative chronology. In view of forms like greitàsis 'fast (definite)', is it safe to suppose they were univerbated already in Early East Baltic? In any case, even in the pre-Nieminen state o-stems must have had enough barytone cases (in singular -- all but nominative?) to provide the necessary pressure for analogical leveling.

Slavic '1' is not without problems, too. If we want to start from an oxytone (*-nó-), we need a zero grade *(H)iH- to let Hirt's Law convert it into an (a)-word which Slavic *i"nU is (-eiH- would not attract stress). East autem Baltic forms require a full-grade *(h1)eiH-nó- or even better (to go together with Old Prussian) *(H)oiH-nó-. What to make of it?