About the Yew1

[proto-language]

Dear Douglas and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas G Kilday" <acnasvers at hotmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2001 1:27 AM

<snip>

>> [Ed]

>> I don't think there is an -r/rn alternation. In my view, the -n after the -r
>> is an (abbreviated) adjective-forming suffix indicating origin, source etc.
>> Cf. Slavic -no (hladno, krasno...) or even Lat./Etrusc. -na.

> [DGK]

> You're right; this isn't really an "alternation", but the attachment of an
> adjectival suffix directly to a neuter stem, as seen also in Lat. <ae:neus>
> 'brazen' < *ayes-neos. My views were poorly worded, and Patrick Ryan seems
> to think I was referring to -r/n- alternation, which is an entirely
> different matter. Nevertheless I think Lat. <e:bur> 'ivory' shows enough IE
> behavior to be considered a native IE word, whether or not it has cognates
> in I-Ir or other branches.

> Regarding PCR's objection that the long vowel in Lat. <pe:s> 'foot' arose by
> compensative lengthening from *peds instead of gradation: Palmer gives this
> as an example of gradation. Apart from this crude appeal to authority, we
> may note <capis> 'one-handled sacrificial vessel', gen. <capidis>, which
> shows that Latin d-stems did _not_ regularly undergo compensation of *-ds in
> the nom. sg.

[PCR]

I perhaps worded my reply poorly. I did *not* think you were acknowledging a
*r/*n alternation. I was merely describing what I thought might have been the
impression you were quite well correcting.

The example you give, capis, seems to me to be different. if R = root vowel,
it is CRCid-.

pe:s, of course, would be CRd-.

This could, of course, be a Dehnstufe but does not the absence of /d/ make one
question that a bit. Furthermore, gradation is normally associated with
syntactic or grammatical usages. What function would the Dehnstufe serve here?

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/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío, geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim
meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138)