Re: Why do Pokorny's roots for water have an "a" in front?

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "r_brunner" <rbrunner@...> wrote:

>
> I try to learn the basics of PIE and work now with the PIE root

word(s) for "water" as an example.

>
> Dictionaries like the American Heritage dictionary of Indo-European

roots and websites like Wiktionary all seem to give consistently a root
of wed- for water. E.g. here:

>

http://web.archive.org/web/20071217082955/http://www.bartleby.com/61/roo\
ts/IE551.html

>
> But if I lookup the corresponding entry in Pokorny's, the entry au-9

on pages 78-81, most forms for this root all have an "a" in front, as
can be seen in this online copy of the entry:

>

http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=/data/ie\
/pokorny&text_number=+136&root=config

>
> E.g. under b), the forms aued-, aud- and ud- are given.
>
> Outside of Pokorny's I could not find another reference that starts

PIE roots for water with an "a" in front like this.

>
> 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 Is the Pokorny entry outdated?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?

>

Dear Brunner,

The thing is not all the IE roots found in Pokorny's or elsewhere come
from the language. In particular, those with non-ablauting /a/ are most
likely from substrate languages which I collectively call "paleo-IE", as
opposite to the language(s) of the Steppe People, which I call Kurganic
and is roughly similar to traditional "PIE".