Dating the final IE unity, in particular the word for "horse"

[proto-language]

Dear Gabor and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Gabor Sandi" <g_sandi at hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2000 1:01 PM

[ moderator snip ]

> In my view, if Gimbutas is right, *ekwos meaning 'horse' was part of PIE.
> If Renfrew is right, the word either did not exist in PIE, or it was a
> nominalized form of an adjective *H3okus or the like, meaning 'fast'. When
> this nominalized form was applied to the horse later on, it became a
> technical word that was widely borrowed from one IE language to another.

[PR]
I wonder how productive it is to adopt arguments from non-linguists that
seem to have little likelihood of being accepted by linguists.

I am reasonably sure (though, subject to correction) that a process of
deriving *H(1)ek^uo-s from *H(3)o:k^u's is simply not possible.

On the other hand, it, at least, appears possible that **H(1)o:k^u'-s
*might* be derived from *H(1)ek^uo-s although the lengthened vowel is a
problem.

Secondly, it is generally more likely that an adjective ('fast') was derived
from a noun ('horse') than the reverse --- particularly in view of the early
relative paucity of adjectives, and the existence of terms like
**k^(h)e:i-to- [my emendation]  (*ke:i-to-), 'fast'.

 <snip>

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ek,
at ek hekk, vindga meipi, nftr allar nmu, geiri undapr . . . a ~eim meipi er
mangi veit hvers hann af rstum renn." (Havamal 138)