Greek question

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

"Patrick C. Ryan" <proto-language at email.msn.com> wrote:

>I agree that *nokt- is not satisfactory.  But, on the basis of *neuk-,
>'dark', I believe it likeliest that there were two basically equivalent
>roots: *negh- and *neugh-.

I fail to understand.  If you can get *neugh- "on the basis of"
*neuk-, just like that, then what has this whole discussion,
starting with the problem of Greek nukh-, been about?  What's the
problem, if *gh and *k, *kw and *gwh are all interchangeable
anyway?

*neuk- "dark", apart from having the wrong vowel and the wrong
second consonant in the context of whether "night" comes from
*nekw-t- or *negwh-t-, is hardly credible as a PIE root, at least
based on the flimsy evidence given for it in Pokorny (Baltic and
one doubtful Latin word).  Probably just irregular reflexes of
*leuk- (or maybe *ne-leuk-?)

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