the Wheel and Dating PIE

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

"Eduard Selleslagh" <edsel at glo.be> wrote:

>In Basque, there is a root *bil that has a meaning of 'round'. It appears in
>compounds like 'ibili' ('walk', originally: 'go around') and 'biribil' (a
>reduplicated form meaning 'round').  This could be a phonological adaptation
>of a derivation of *kwekwlo-, especially its Germanic forms (cf. Eng. wheel,
>Du. wiel)

But these forms with /i/-like vowel are very recent.  The PGmc.
form was something like *hwe(g)wlaz, not really similar to Basque
-bil-.  This apart from the geographical and chronological
difficulties of Germanic-Basque contacts.

>The Basque word 'ibili' needs some further explanation. It is obviously a
>compound, but of what?

Obviously???  The infinitive is clearly *e- (verbal noun formant)
+ *-bil- + *-i (adjectival suffix), the inflected forms (e.g.
na-bil "I walk (around)") show nothing but the verbal root *bil
(which also, and probably not by coincidence, happens to be a
nominal root *bil "round").

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