Re: Lat. gladius and Sorothaptic

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Bhrihskwobhloukstroy <bhrihstlobhrouzghdhroy@...> wrote:

>
> *Bhr.: Gamkrelidze - Ivanov 1984: 599-601 = 1995: I 513-515 analyze
> Pokorny's *kat-o- 'young animal' (1959: 534)
>

I suppose he meant this for Latin catulus 'whelp, cub'.

> as *k'hh3-t-Ho-s (=
> traditional *k'h3-t-Hos) and Trumper 2001: 233-234 (John Bassett
> Trumper, "Frammenti di un "Vocabolario Calabro": nuove ricerche
> lessico-semantiche per un'inchiesta regionale", in "La dialettologia
> oggi fra tradizione e nuove metodologie" - Atti del Convegno
> Internazionale Pisa 10-12 Fabbraio 2000, a cura di Alberto Zamboni,
> Patrizia Del Puente, Maria Teresa Vigolo, Pisa: Edizioni ETS, XIII,
> 531 p., pp. 207-241) proposes 'acute, clever" from √k'eh3(y)-
> 'sharpen' (Pokorny 1959: 541-542, LIV2 319-320).
>

The latter agrees well with the personal name Cato, but not with cattus.

> Under these assumptions, cattus and Celtic *kattos are from
> *k'h3-t-wo-s resp. *k'h3-t-nó-s; Germanic *kattus, *kattō can be from
> PIE *k'h3-ot-nú-s, *k'h3-ot-wáh2/4; Late Latin gattus would then be
> Celtic *ga:ttos < PIE *k'h3-o:t-nó-s
>

As you might already know, I dislike this kind of ad-hoc reconstructions, especially when they involve the so-called "laryngeals". This is a Wanderwort whose ultimate origin is most likely non-IE. There's also no evidence of a Celtic form *ga:ttos.