Greek question

[Patrick C. Ryan]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear Miguel and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <mcv at wxs.nl>
Date: Thursday, March 04, 1999 1:46 AM

>"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?

I have changed my opinion some time ago since this was written.

I am now proposing *nnegh-w-.

>What's the problem, if *gh and *k, *kw and *gwh are all interchangeable
>anyway?

Yes, that is the problem. I feel that Hittite nekuz rather decisively
indicates either *negh-w- or *neg[w]-. For me, but perhaps not for others,
Egyptian nHzi tips the balance in favor of *negh-; also, there are the
divergent Greek forms with -kh-.

>*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-?)

I doubt that it is an irregular reflex of (ne-)leuk- though I had not
thought of that as a possibility. As I previously wrote on this list, I
believe that *neuk- started out as *negh-w- also, and that the
root-extension -s devoiced the -gh in it, just as the -t, devoiced the -gh
in *nek[w]-(t)-. As for its reconstruction and flimsy attestation, if
*negh-w- were the basis for both, as I think likely, Pokorn's entry should
be emended to *negh-(w)-, 'dark', with root extensions -t, 'night', and -s,
'dark'.

Pat