Reconstruction talk:Proto-Indo-European/suHnús

Is it possible that Ossetic (deprecated template usage) сиахс (siahs) is a descendant? We have s, h and a second s well preserved, but the meaning is slightly altered... In any case, (deprecated template usage) фырт (fyrt), which is the word for son, is too different.Bogorm 15:22, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Initial Indo-Iranian/PIE #s- became #x- in Iranian (see Avestan cognate). The "laryngeal" */H/ was lost with compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel (we know that there was a laryngeal and not some lengthened-grade */ū/ because of the root *sewH and the rectraction of accent onto the root closed with a laryngeal in Balto-Slavic, yielding acute tone, preserved in Old and some dialectal modern Lithuanian, but not the standard word as listed here). At any case, the original Proto-Iranian form would be something like *xūnus or *xunus, which I have no idea what it would give in modern Ossetian by regular sound changes, as I know nothing on the historical phonology of Ossetian... Perpehs there is some info in Этимологический словарь иранских языков? --Ivan Štambuk 15:31, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that the first three volumes of Этимологический словарь иранских языков, which you shewed me, encompass the letters from a to h, i. e. we must wait some 6 or 9 years for the volume with the letter s (a volume issued per 3 years). Bogorm 19:17, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

seh₁- ?

Does it come from Appendix:Proto-Indo-European/seh₁- ("to sow, to plant") ? The room *sewH- mentioned here and this one seem quite related. But I am not sure, so I do not modify. --Fsojic (talk) 22:43, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Probably not. Roots do not relate to each other by inserting consonants into them, so *sewH- can't be related to *seh1-. —CodeCat 23:07, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

That's what I was thinking of. Thank you for this cwic answer. --Fsojic (talk) 23:37, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Declension Table

Sihler in New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, gives a declension table for *suHnus. Would any modifications need to be made to the paradigm for this entry? This needs review.Nayrb Rellimer (talk) 21:45, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

• Andrew Sihler, New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, OUP, 1995, page 321
  • I can't view the page. —CodeCat 21:51, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
    • See if this link works. Andrew Sihler, New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, OUP, 1995, page 321Nayrb Rellimer (talk) 00:24, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
      • That works. The book indicates it as simply the "u-stem declension" but there really was no such thing. Different words in -u could have different ablaut and accent patterns. This word has no e-grade in the nominative singular, and has final syllable stress in that form as well. This indicates, to me, that there is more going on here. It's certainly not like the many *-tus nouns. So I don't think that paradigm is really reliable enough. —CodeCat 01:59, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

I have done a bit more reading. Beekes has an entry for the related formation *suHyús. If I understand him correctly, he seems to say that at least the immediate Proto-Greek ancestor of υἱύς would either have been proterokinetic (súHyus, suHyóws)(with odd accented zero-grade) or hysterokinetic (suHyéws, suHiwós). Unfortunately, I can't find any link to a book preview to further clarify. Even then, I am still not sure if this would reflect the original accent pattern of *suHnús as well.Nayrb Rellimer (talk) 04:56, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

• Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010) Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 10), volume II, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 1528
  • Stressed zero grades are suspicious, though. Not that they can't occur, but they are still rare. In the vast majority of cases, a stressed syllable coincides with e-grade. Furthermore, it's also very rare for an athematic word to have ending stress in the nominative singular. Practically all athematic words have non-ending stress in the nominative singular, and if there is a stress shift in the genitive, it's always a rightward shift. The only words that have no stress shift are the acrostatic nouns, and those never have ending stress. —CodeCat 13:59, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
    • I am suspicious as well of any paradigms with stressed zero-grade syllables. In the entire Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, I found only three convincing reconstructions of zero-grade stressed syllables in noun paradigms with no derived descendants having e-grade in the same place: *mūs (mouse) pg.387, *wīs (poison) pg.439 (if Latin vīrus is not from *weisos), and ḱlíts (post, stake) pg. 441. Nayrb Rellimer (talk) 03:00, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
      • There's also *wĺ̥kʷos, but that's a thematic noun. —CodeCat 14:42, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Etymology revisited

Any relation to Proto-Indo-European *swé, in the meaning of "one's own"? What do you opine, oh CodeCat? Zezen (talk) 11:50, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm not CodeCat but I'd be skeptical; hard to explain where the -Hn- comes from, and AFAIK in most modern languages where the words for "son" and "daughter" are unrelated, they're opaque and unanalyzable forms. BTW I've heard of attempts to derive *swesor from *swe-, and *ph₂tēr from *peH- "protect", etc. Benwing2 (talk) 18:10, 24 January 2016 (UTC)