Re: HORSA vs. EXWA

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <bm.brian@...> wrote:

>
> > > BTW, if <horse>, <hros>, <Ross> are loanies from the
> > > Alanian-Iranian *urSa & al. Asian vocabularies, has Lat.
> > > ursus the same (PIE) origin?
>
> Like Gk. ἄρκτος (árktos), it's from *h2rtk^o-

'bear',

> though Sihler suggests that it may have passed into Latin
> from another dialect.
>
> > Not impossible. This root is difficult to reconstruct as a
> > single IE protoform because of the various reflexes of the
> > sibilant affricate found in the NEC cognate *XHVr[ts´]V
> > 'marten; otter' and corresponding to the rare cluster
> > *tk´.
>
> Your putative NEC 'cognate' obviously has nothing to do with
> reconstruction of a PIE protoform.
>

What's the problem with this etymology?