From: caraculiambro
Message: 70466
Date: 2012-11-16
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "r_brunner" <rbrunner@...> wrote:
What does that mean? Is the Pokorny entry outdated? Or is this simply a question of transliteration? Or does Pokorny just give more exact information than other works?
Pokorny's dictionary is quite a bit outdated, uses an antiquarian transcription system, and is often too inclusive in its entries, lumping together lookalike roots. According to modern consensus, alternations like *awed-/*aud-/*wed- are impossible in PIE. The 'water' word is reconstructed as *wód-r. (nom./acc.sg.), *wéd-n- (in the oblique cases), *wéd-o:r (collective "plural", from pre-PIE *wéd-or-h2).
The word is an example of a so-called acrostatic (= consistently root-stressed) neuter noun with a "heteroclitic" stem (the consonant of the stem termination alternates between *r and *n). There were also variant byforms like *ud-én (loc.) and oblique *ud-n- deviating from the acrostatic pattern.
Piotr