Yew Two

[Rich Alderson]

On 18 Jun 2001, Steve Long wrote _inter alia_:

> One important and early word for "arrow" in Greek was <ios> (accus., <ion>.)
> One important and early word for 'poison" in Greek was <ios.>  The connection
> may have been animals with fangs or that shot venom.  The word seems a bit
> transparent, <ion> being a participle for <eimi> (L&S- <"ibo"?), with the
> sense of "pass through".  (E.g., "[pelekus] eisin dia douros" (the axe goes
> through the beam) Iliad 3:61.)

Once again, the crucial importance of vowel length has been missed.

The words for _arrow_ and _poison_ both begin with a *long* vowel, /i:/, while
the present active participle of _ei~mi_ "go" (accent is also important, since
this is a different verb from _eimi'_ "be") begins with a *short* vowel /i/.

Further, in the accusative /i:on/ the final consonant is etymologically < *-m,
as is obvious from a perusal of the introductory handbooks, while in the parti-
ciple /ion/ (neuter nominative/accusative singular), /-n/ is final due to the
Greek rule dropping final -t (cf. the stem, found in the genitive _iontos_).
There is nothing at all to connect these forms historically; to claim otherwise
is to return to the days of _lucus a non lucendo_ and the fly-foot fox.

Steve, you have a terrible habit of grabbing handfuls of unrelated forms which
look to you as if their semantics ought to connect them, to draw conclusions
supporting your view of the linguistic world which are not actually borne out
by the evidence.  When the Basque+everything enthusiasts do it, we criticize
them; we shouldn't let you get away with the same thing in these discussions.

								Rich Alderson