"centum"/"satem" "exceptions" [was Re: Northwest IE attributes]

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

>>frank at uiowa.edu writes:

><< 1) what then is the standard reconstruction proposed for Skt. pu:r-, Greek
>> <polis> and Baltic <pilis>? And the prototype meaning assigned to it?

>-- *pelh(x), "fort, fortified place".

>There's a possible cognate in Armenian -- 'k'alak', meaning "city".

Olsen "The Noun in Biblical Armenian", p. 952 [in teh section
"words of unknown origin"], quotes a suggestion by Winter to
derive k`aLak` from *pwlhs, which is the exact opposite of what I
suggested (palatalized *p^). Indeed in Armenian, labialized
consonants *tw, *sw and *kw merge as *kw (> <k`>), so why not
*pw?

On the other hand, the word might simply be another Iranian loan
(MP kala:G "fortress"), although Klingenschmitt proposes to
derive both from PIE *klh- (Lith. kalnas "mountain").

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