Greek question & the pre-history of *nekwt

[Patrick C. Ryan]

Dear Miguel and IEists:

 -----Original Message-----
From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <mcv at wxs.nl>
Date: Tuesday, March 09, 1999 10:40 PM

>mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) wrote:
<snip>

>But I must agree with Rich's "moderator comment" elsewhere that
>in this case the spelling <ku> may reflect all of PIE *kw, *gw or
>*ghw [*gwh if you prefer].  After all, if the etymon were *kw,
>the geminate spelling should not be <kk> but <kwkw>, and there is
>no way of writing that in cuneiform (nor in ASCII, as the
>recurrent confusions about labiovelars show).

This is interesting speculation but not borne out by the data. See
Sturtevant p. 56:

durative of 'drink' = ak-k{.}u-uS-ki-iz-zi; however the basic form is
written with one -k- upon which S. remarks: "The consistent use of single k
between vowels in the primary verb is difficult, but note -kk- in the
durative".

Pat