Latin and Slavonic for `moon'

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

>mcv at wxs.nl wrote:

><<Slavic hasn't preserved *gen(H)- except in the derivation ze~tI
>(*gen(@)tis) "son-in-law, sister's husband".>>

>Please be patient with me here.  I'm trying.  I'm not sure why the -(H)- is
>there, but let me get back to that.

>Do you mean:

>1. that intial *gn- never passed directly into historic Slavic as an initial
>/kn/ or an initial /-n/?  (By directly I mean not through a sister language
>but from *PIE to *p-Slavic to Slavic or a particular Slavic tongue.)  I'm
>distinguishing here from the "first palatalization" which would have the *g-
>change before an original front vowel but I'm thinking not necessarily a
>*gn-.  Here the analogy is to *glava (pSl)> glowa (pol), golova (rus w/tort).

The Slavic palatalizations are not applicable here, only the
satem palatalization *g^ > z.  Cf. znaju "I know" from *g^en(H3)-
"to know".

>2. I see *gen> gno- or something like that happen in Greek (and maybe
>German).  If you accept that, does it mean that this transformation did not
>happen in PIE or that it could not have occurred or passed into proto-Slavic?

Not sure what you mean.  The zero grade variant is PIE.

>3. It seems the gen- and gno- coexisted in Homer.  Both "genea" and "gnotos"
>refer to relatives.  Obviously which form would have affected how the word
>passed from *PIE into the daughter languages or from, say, Greek into another
>IE language.  (Oddly I have OCS "daughter-in-law" sn~xa (Pol c~rka /synowa)
>and I believe the Sanskrit also has as intial snu- for daughter-in-law.

Wholly different root: *snusos (Lat. nurus, Arm. nu, Grk. nuos,
Skt. snus.a:).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam