Q: oblique cognates

[Larry Trask]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I am looking for a term for a certain non-canonical type of
cognation.
 
One non-canonical variety is as follows.  Latin <dent-> `tooth'
requires a PIE *<dent->.  English `tooth' and Greek <odont-> require
a PIE *<dont->.  Gothic <tunth> requires a PIE *<dnt->.  The several
forms are therefore not strictly descended from a single ancestral
form, but rather from variant forms of a single root.  Such forms as
the Latin, English and Gothic ones have been called `oblique
cognates' in the literature.  Fine.
 
But there's another case.  English `head' is directly cognate with
Latin <caput> `head'.  However, Spanish <cabeza> does not descend
directly from <caput>, but rather from a suffixed derivative of this.
Therefore the English and Spanish words are not directly cognate,
even though they are indirectly cognate in an important way.  Is
there a label for this kind of cognation?  What would you prefer to
call the relationship between the English and Spanish words?
 
Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
England
 
larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk