Genesis of the Proto-Indo-European Roots

56 Pages·1.418 MB·English

by  Quidam A.

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Genesis of the Proto-Indo-European Roots

(A glottogonic overview)

πολλαὶ μορφαὶ τῶν δαιμονίων,
πολλὰ δ᾽ ἀέλπτως κραίνουσι θεοί:
καὶ τὰ δοκηθέντ᾽ οὐκ ἐτελέσθη,
τῶν δ᾽ ἀδοκήτων πόρον ηὗρε θεός.
τοιόνδ᾽ ἀπέβη τόδε πρᾶγμα.

Εὐριπίδης, Ἄλκηστις 1159-1163

Contents:

§ 1. Preformants = postformants.
§ 2. S-stems and s mobile.
§ 3. Stems with various interformants (including zero interformants).
§ 4. Reduplications with accentuated interformants.
§ 5. Reduplications containing labials.
§ 6. Origin of the labiovelars.
§ 7. Weakening of the velars and emergence of the laryngeals.
§ 8. Some summing up.
§ 9. About the method.

§ 1. Preformants = postformants.

The postformants, i. e. suffixes and other extensions that cannot be defined formally as
suffixes, are a well known particularity of the IE stems. Practically each and every phoneme,
be it a consonant or a vowel, can appear at the end of a root to perform there a function
which in most cases is vague and unclear.
Even more nebulous is the role of the preformants. Here again, that is in initial position,
almost every thinkable consonant or vowel can be encountered to the bewilderment of
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linguists. If the postformant s may be in many cases grasped as a neuter noun suffix, the
preformant s, alias s mobile, makes no sense at all. Nor does any other preformant. The s is
not the only one of them. Not by a long chalk.
The bottom line is that preformants and postformants seem to be one and the same thingi 1),
and, since derivation by suffixation was, most probably, the main, if not the exclusive,
grammatical means the IE proto-language recurred to, one should take the risk to ponder
upon the eventuality that preformants might be in reality postformants. Their word-initial
position might be an illusion, what seems to be the beginning might be the end of a word-
stem.
Simple metathesis is utterly out of the question. What is well worth thinking about is the
reduplication.

§ 2. S-stems and s mobile.

Is it not logical to presume that IE stems, monosyllabic in their majority, were in very
remote times polysyllabic and that monosyllables are but the leftovers of the old
polysyllables? Or, to put it plainly, that non-accentuated syllables were reduced and dropped
altogether under the effect of the word stress which at a certain time became dynamic? In
this scenario all reduplicated stems would have been unavoidably shortened and disfigured
beyond recognition.
Let us examine under these premises some s-stems.
For instance, -es- ‘view, appearance, awareness’, deduced from OI védas
‘knowledge, circumspection’ or else OE wīs ‘wise’, cognate to L vi ēr ‘to see’, OG εἴδομαι
‘to be visible, appear, seem’. Let us suppose the root - was added to -es- and that
the stress was put on the second part of the resulting reduplication: - s- -. The
suffix -es- is here, properly speaking, no suffix any longer, nor is it a preformant, for it is
neither in final nor in initial position, but between two equal parts of a compound.
Therefore, let us call it interformant until a better term crosses our mind. The trisyllabic
monstrosity - s- - may have lived a long and happy life, but in the end it lost the
unstressed syllables. The main responsible for this loss was, to my mind, the word stress.
Apparently, it had been or had become dynamic at a certain period of PIE language history.
Moreover, in those prehistoric times, the unstressed part of the word could, as it seems, be
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perceived by the speakers as superfluous. However that be, the stem became monosyllabic,
but preserved the interformant s as the unique evidence of the original polysyllable: -
s- - s -: cf. L sī s, sī ris ‘star’, Lit. svidùs ‘shining’.
Further examples:

-es- (OI ájati ‘drives’, L agere ‘act, do, drive, impact’, OG ἀγωγή ‘carrying away, freight,
charge, bringing to or in’; the s-stem - s- s- is preserved by L gerere ‘carry, wear,
bear’, with the stress on the root - s- s- > OI - , OG ἄξων ‘axis’): - s- -
s -, s -: OG ἡγέομαι ‘go before, lead the way, drive, lead, conduct’, L s x ‘acute,
intellectually quick, keen, sagacious’, OIr. saigim ‘go into the matter, seek, search’.
*en-, s-stem not available (OG ἔνος ‘year’, πρητήν ‘yearling lamb’, ἔνη ‘the day after
tomorrow’, ἐνῐαυτός ‘anniversary, year, cycle, period’, Hes. ἔνελος· νεβρός, Lit. pèr-n-ai ‘last
year’; from *en- derives - ‘new, young’): *en-es-én- > *sén- ‘old’ (i. e. ‘many years old’):
OI sána-, L senex ‘old’.
*debh-es- (Lit. debesìs, cun. Hitt. t pp , Hitt.-Luw. tip - ‘sky’) > *debh-es-débh- >
*sdébh- > ζέφυρος ‘westerly wind’, ζόφος ‘darkness’.
* -es-, zero grade *ug-es- (OG ἀέξομαι ‘grow’, OI ójas ‘strength, force’, about v. § 7.
g g
Weakening of the velars and emergence of the laryngeals, zero grade *ug-es- is attested by
OIr. og, obh, ubh ‘egg’, pl. uighi ‘testicles’): - s- - > s -, zero grade *sug-: Arm.
ustr ‘son’, OE suhterga ‘grand-son, nephew’.
-es- (OI yáuti ‘tethers, ties, harnesses’; s-stem: L iūs ‘law, legal right, oath’, Lit. júosti
‘to girdle’): - s- - s -, s ū -, sī -: OI sy l - ( s -er-), S.-CS rь ( s ū -r-)
‘brother of the wife’, sīv y ‘sews’, L suere, Lit. siúti ‘to sew’.
*ken- (OG καινός ‘new’, OI ī - ‘young’, OIr. cinim ‘originate from’, ciniud ‘race, strain,
family’.): *ken-es-kén- > *skén-: OSorb. ‘the youngest child’.
-, s-stem not found (OG καίνω ‘kill’): - s- - > s -: OG Gortyn. conj.
κατασκένη ‘kill’.
*kend- (OI candati ‘shines’, OG Hes. κάνδαρος· ἄνθραξ): *kend-es-kénd- > *skénd-: OI
part. i- t ‘shining mightily’, proper noun ri- r - (cándra- ‘shining, glowing’,
‘moon’), Alb. geg. , tosk. ‘moon’ (*s ).
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- (OG κοέω ‘mark, perceive, hear’; lengthened grade -: OE wi ‘to see’; s-stem
-es-, -es-: Got. hausjan ‘to hear’, OG ἀκούω ‘I hear’, Hes. ἀκεύει· τηρεῖ): - s-
- s -: OE s ē wi ‘to see’.
ʷ r-es- (cf. s-stem OG τέρας ‘sign, wonder, marvel, monster’): *kʷer-es- ʷ r- s ʷ r-:
OI s -skar ‘once’, - ry - ‘curious, marvellous’, ON skyrse ‘(evil) sign, phantom’.
l ʷ- (OE læccan ‘to grab, to grasp’, NE latch, OG aor. ἔλαβον ‘took hold of, seized’):
l ʷ-es-l ʷ- > *slágʷ-: OG Hom. aor. ἔλλαβε ‘took hold of, seized’, Aegin. λhαβών, perf.
Att. εἴληφα ( σεσλ φα).
*mer-es- (Lit. r ‘to take care’, OG μερμαίρω ‘am anxious, thoughtful, in doubt’; s-stem
*mér-es- attested by OI marṣa- ‘patience’, Got. marzyan ‘to irk’, Lit. r s ‘oblivion’): *mer-
es-mér- > *smér-: OI smárati ‘recalls, remembers’, Av. i r iti ‘notices’.
*mered-, s-stem not found (OI márdati ‘grinds, triturates, brays, squashes’, East-Fries.
murt ‘crumbly stuff, dust’, L r ēr ‘to bite, to hurt’.): *mered-es-méred- > *smérd-: OG
σμερδνός ‘terrible, fearful’, OE smeortan ‘to ache, to hurt’; maybe also L r ēr ‘to bite, to
hurt’ (?).
*me -es- (OG μύσος < μυδσος ‘uncleanness, defilement’): *me -es-mé - > *smé -,
*smud-: MHG smotzen ‘make dirty’.
-es- (OG μῦθος ‘word, speech, thing thought, unspoken word, design, matter,
tale’, μ θέομαι ‘speak, con over, consider’, Lit. p s ‘annoyance, worry, concern’, OCS
yslь ‘thought’< ū -s-li-, the latter perhaps from an s-stem ē -es-, ū -s-):
ē - s- - > s -: NIr. smúanidh ‘thinks’.
*p - (OCS paziti ‘take heed of, pay attention to’, v. § 7. Weakening of the velars and
ʷ
emergence of the laryngeals):
*p -es-p - > *sp -: ON speki ‘mind, cleverness’, NE speak;
ʷ ʷ ʷ
*p - es-p - (*p - with < by assim. due to repetition *p -p -p -..., cf. OI
ʷ ʷ ʷ ʷ ʷ ʷ
p y ‘sees’) > *sp -: OI sp y ‘sees’, L specere ‘to see’.
ʷ
sū- (OG ὗς, ὑός ‘pig’): sū- s-sū - ssū -: OG σῦς, συός ‘pig’.
*ten-es- (OI tanóti ‘extends, stretches, spans, lasts’, OG τανα[ϝ]ός ‘outstretched, tall,
taper, outspread, long’; cf. also the s-stem *tén-es-: OHG sō ‘to pull, to stretch, to
extend’, OI t s ‘drags, tugs, wrenches, forces to move’, L tenus, tenoris ‘net, stretched
cord’): *ten-es-tén- > *stén-: OG στεῖνος ‘narrow, close’, στενυγρός ‘narrow’, στενυγρή ‘a
narrow path or strait’, Hes. στάνει· (σ)τείνεται, συμβέβυσται.
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*ter-es- (OI t r , OG gen. pl. τερέων ‘star’.): *ter-es-tér- > *stér-: Av. acc. sing. st r
‘star’, OG στέρ-οψ ‘flashing’, Latv. stars ‘sun beam’.
* l-, s-stem not found (Arm. gol ‘heat’, ON ylja ‘to warm up’, OHG walo ‘tepidly’): * l-
es- l- > *s l-: OI svárati ‘shines’, OG εἵλη ‘sun’s heat, warmth’, OE swelan ‘to burn, to burn
out, to catch fire’, Av. v r ‘sun, light, sky’.
l -, s-stem not available (cf. l - l -: OHG welc ‘wet, mild, limp’, wolchan
‘cloud’, Lit. v l y ‘to moisten’; and l - l -: OE wlæc, wlacu ‘lukewarm, tepid, lew’):
l - s- l - s l -: MHG swelken ‘to wilt, to wither’.
l -, s-stem not available (cf. OHG welh ‘wet, mild, limp’, OIr. folc ‘water flood’, Latv.
valka ‘flowing water, humid place’): l - s- l - s l -: OHG swelhan, swelgan ‘to
swallow, to drink’, Swed. svalg ‘gullet’, ON sylgr ‘swallow, draught’.
-, s-stem not available (Czech vadnouti, OCS v ‘to wither’.): - s-
- > s -: OHG swintan ‘to wane, to fade, to emaciate, to wither, to lose
consciousness’, OCzech svadnúti ‘to wither’.
r-es- (OG ἀείρω ‘raise, lift’, pass. ‘to be suspended’, συναείρω ‘bind, yoke together’,
Lit. vérti ‘to thread in’, Alb. vjer ‘to hang up’ < r-; r-es- > Lit. vir s ‘top, the highest
point’): r- s- r- > s r-: Lit. sv r ‘to weigh’, sv r s ‘weighing scales’, sv r s ‘heavy’.
r-, s-stem not available (OG εἴρω ‘say’, OP vertemnai ‘we swear’, Hitt. rii - ‘call, to
assign, to commission’, Rus. врать [ vьr ti] ‘to lie, to babble’): r- s- r- > s r-, *sér-: L
s r ō ‘talk, conversation’, Got. swaran ‘to swear’. Comment to *sér-: the loss of in the
second part is not unusual.

All these examples reveal the real nature of the s mobile: it is the well known suffix -s-,
which, however, lost its meaning merging with the second part of redup. roots after the
redup. word form had been reduced to a mere monosyllable. In the following section of this
treatise we shall analyze similar doubled forms containing other interformants.

§ 3. Stems with various interformants (including zero interformants).

As outlined above, the interformant s was not the only morpheme used to join together
two parts of compounds, wherein each part was one and the same root or stem. Other
postformants—suffixes, extensions or even roots with concrete lexical meaning—could
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serve the same purpose. This can be illustrated on a number of conspicuous forms where the
original postformants can easily be mistaken for preformants. The IE stem s-, s-
‘sleep, rest, calm’ (OG ἰαύω ‘sleep’ < *i- sō, aor. ἄεσα, OI vásati ‘dwells, spends the night’ <
s-), apparently itself an old s-stem, was doubled several times, each time with another
connective element:

1. s- t- s- t s-, *tus-: OI t ṣy ‘calms down, is pleased’, t ṣ y ‘appeases,
pacifies, gladdens’, MW taw ‘be silent!’
2. s- - s- s-: OG Aeol. δαύω ‘sleep’, Hes. ἔδαυσεν· ἐκοιμήθη, ἀδαύως·
ἐγρηγόρως.
3. s- p- s- p s-: OG παύω ‘bring to an end, to stop, to silence’, pass. and med.
‘to take one’s rest’, παῦλα ‘rest, pause’, Sloven. delo-pust ‘home time, quitting time’.

For the latter example we can find non-redup. forms—one with the stress on the root:
s- p- sp-er- (L vesper, OG ἕσπερος ‘evening’); and another one with the stress on
the suffix and metathesis of : s-ép- > s p-, *sup- ‘sleep’ (OI svápiti, etc.). In the
following pages we shall have more than one opportunity to see that metatheses of
sonorants and semi-vowels were quite common whenever a stem was followed by a
postformant or a second part of reduplication carrying the word stress.
In the meantime please enjoy with moderation further examples.

- ‘daylight, open space’ (OI áhar, áha ‘day’, OG ἀχᾰνής ‘bouche bée, of one mute
with astonishment; narrow opening, yawning, without a lid, wide-mouthed, open,
unoccupied, vast, immense’ii 2), cf. also -ódh- - + r-suffix: OG καθαρός, Dor.
κοθαρός ‘pure, clean, white’; e-grade -s > OG ἐξ etc. ‘out’, i. e. *‘outside, in broad
daylight’, probably a frozen neuter noun; ἐχθές ‘yesterday’ has perhaps retained the initial e:
- - - > gen. sg. -és > OG χθές, ἐχθές):
- - - > -: Got. dags ‘day’;
- - - > - - - - - -: Hitt. tegan ‘earth’ (←*‘world,
daylight, open space’, cf. W elfydd ‘earth, world’ < l - ‘white’ and OCS světъ ‘light,
world’). Comment: all the other earth-words, albeit eventually cognate to tegan and to each
other, belong to different stems: -óm- - > OG χθών ‘earth’, m-
e
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lo- > OG χθαμαλός ‘near the ground, on the ground, low’; s-óm- (cf. OI neuter áhas-
e
‘day’ and -s > OG ἐξ ‘outside’) > OI ṣ -; - - -, - > Av. gen. sg.
z ō, OG χαμηλός ‘low’.
ʷ - ( ʷ - ʷ - > OG ἄφνος ‘revenue, riches, abundance, wealth’, Germ.
*auna- ‘lamb’ in Du. oonen, OE ē i ‘to yean’: semantic correlation like in L pecus ‘cattle’
— pecunia ‘money, wealth’): ʷ -em- ʷ- (the root proper was ʷ-, at least it was
thought of as such, sort of back-formation from ʷ -) ʷ-: Got. mawi ‘girl’,
magus ‘boy’, W mab ‘son’.
* ʷ-, * ʷ- (Hitt. ekuzi ‘drinks’, L aqua ‘water’, also cf. the non-reduplicated stem
* ʷ-ém- > * ʷ -: NP īδ ‘to drink’; * ʷ -: NIc. vō ‘to swallow’): * ʷ-em-
á ʷ- > *má ʷ- (also *mák- with dissimilation of the velar?): Arm. ōr ‘excrements, mud,
sludge, swamp’ ( -ri-); Alb. ‘glue, film on liquids’, Lit. makénti ‘to slosh through
excrements’, OCS rъ ‘wet’;
* ʷ- - é ʷ- > * é ʷ-: Lit. ì ti ‘to shit’, OG κόπρος ‘shit, ordure, filth, dung’, MIr. cechair
‘sludge, mire, shit’.
*albh- (OG Hes. ἀλφούς· λευκούς, L albus ‘white’): *albh-eg-álbh- > *gálbh-, l -: L
galbus ‘yellow bird’, galbinus ‘greenish-yellow, yellowy’, Lit. l is ‘swan, white cow’.
*ap-, * p - (Hitt. e-ip-mi ‘I take’, OI p ti ‘reaches, gets’, L pīs r ‘attain to, get, obtain’):
*ap-ek-áp- > *káp-: L pīr ‘to take, to seize, to grab’, Got. hafjan ‘to raise’;
*ap-egh-áp- > *ap-egh-ábh- (progressive assimilation) > *ghábh-: L ēr ‘to have’;
*ap-egh-áp- >*ap-ekh-áp- (regressive assimilation) > *kháp-: Rus. ть ‘to grab, to
seize’.
*ar- (OG ἀραρίσκω ‘join, fit together’, Av. r - ‘arm’, L armus ‘upper arm, shoulder-
blade, side’): *ar-em-ár- > *már-: OG μάρη ‘hand’, Alb. marr ‘take, hold, get’. Comment: the
heteroclisy must be secondary or due to dissimilation r > n, cf. L manus ‘hand’.
*at- (OI átati ‘goes’): *at-eb-át- > *bát-: OE paþ, pæþ ‘path, track’, OHG pfad ‘path’.
*at- (OHG adal ‘race, lineage’, OI ‘mother, elder sister’, Alb. at ‘father’, Got. pl. dat.
aþnam ‘year’; cf. also the stem *at-ék- > *ték-: OG τέκος ‘child, young of an animal’, τίκτω ‘to
give birth’): *at-ek-át- > *kát-: L catulus ‘puppy, cub, whelp, young animal’, ON haðna ‘young
female goat’, SC kot ‘brood’.
- (cf. L avis ‘bird’): - p- - p -: OG παῦς, gen. παός ‘child’, Got. fawai ‘few’;
zero grade p -ero-: L puer ‘boy’, *pu-t-: OCS pъt ‘bird’.
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- (OCS vě vě ‘obvious, clear’, Hitt. a- -zi ‘sees’, Av. vi ‘obvious, apparent, before
one’s eyes’; - - - > OG αὐγή ‘light of the sun, rays, beams, dawn, eyes’, Alb.
agume ‘daybreak, morning’, Rus. юг ‘south’):
-eg-á - > -: OG γάνυμαι ‘brighten up, be glad, be happy’, ἀγαυός ‘illustrious,
noble, brilliant, glorious’, L gaudium ‘joy’;
- - - -, -, -: OG Hes. θῆβος· θαῦμα (* θῆϝος), Att. θέ ‘seeing,
looking at, view, spectacle’ ( θ ), Syrac. θάα, Ion. θηέομαι, Dor. θ έομαι ‘behold’, OG
θαῦμα, θῶμα ‘wonder, marvel, astonishment’;
- - - -: L vēr ‘take care, beware, be aware of’;
- - - -, -: OG κοέω ‘mark, perceive, hear’; lengthened grade -: OE
wi ‘to see’; s-stem -es-, -es-: Got. hausjan ‘to hear’, OG ἀκούω ‘I hear’, Hes.
ἀκεύει· τηρεῖ.
- (OG αὐδή ‘voice, speech, sound, song’, OI vádati ‘lets his voice resound, speaks’):
- l- - > l -: L laus, laudis ‘praise’.
-em- (cf. OCS ъ ‘mind’ < -mo-, Toch. В -p l ‘meditation’):
- - - -: OCzech koumati ‘to understand, to follow, to perceive, to
discern, to know’, Pol. ć ‘to know, to can, be able to, to talk’.
*del- (NHG zullen ‘suck a baby-soother’, Du. tullen ‘to guzzle’): *del-ab-dél- > *bdél-: OG
βδάλλω ‘suck’, βδέλλα ‘leech, lamprey’. Comment: probably *del-abh-dél- > *del-ab-dél-
with assim., the non-redup. *del-ábh- gave *lábh- > OG λαφύσσω ‘swallow’.
r - (OI r ‘wood’, OG Hom. δένδρεον ‘tree’, Hitt. taru ‘wood, tree’): r - ʷ -
r - ( ʷ ‘and’ as interformant?) ʷ r -, ʷ r -: OG Hes. βδαρ[ϝ]οί· δρύες. δένδρα.
e
*e- (demonstrative particle):
- - - -: OG γε enclitic particle, ‘at least, at any rate, namely, anyhow’;
*e-em-é- > *(e)mé-: OG acc. ἐμέ, με ‘me’.
*ebhel- (NIr. bale ‘strong’, OSwed. bolin ‘swollen’, OE ē f ll ‘brain-box’): l-
-ébhel- (cf. non-redup. stem l- - l -: ON bylgja ‘wave’, OI r - ‘grass,
sacrificial grass’, Av. r zi - ‘cushion, pillow, bolster’) > l-: OG κεφαλή ‘head,
e
extremity, top’, Got. gibla ‘gable, crenel’, MHG gebel ‘skull’.
*ed-, *od- (L odor ‘smell’): - -éd- ‘shit; arse’ -: OI hadate ‘shits’.
*ed-, *od-, *ad- (Arm. ateam, L ō ī ‘I hate’, OG ὀδύνη, Aeol. ἔδυνα ‘pain, ache’): - -
ád- -: Got. hatis ‘hatred, wrath’, MIr. caiss ‘hatred’, Av. s r - ‘sorrow, grief, mischief’.
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- (cf. lit. ‘earth’, OG χᾰμᾶζε ‘on the ground, to the ground’): - -
- > -, -: OG δοχμός ‘slantwise, lying obliquely’, Hes. δοχμαλόν·
χαμαίζηλον, ταπεινόν; with reduced vowel - > OI jihmá- ‘slant, oblique’. Comment:
in this particular case the suffix -ed- seems to be cognate to the postfix -de- as in OG χᾰμᾶζε.
ʷ -es- (OI gandh- ‘to hit, to stab, to injure, to destroy’, MHG quetsen ‘to hit, to
bruise, to squash’): *e ʷedhes-el-é ʷedh- sl ʷ-, sl ʷ-: OG λώβη ‘outrage, dishonour,
disgrace, mutilation, maiming, insult’, Lit. slogà ‘plague, scourge’, Latv. sluodzît ‘to weight
down, to press down, to beat with a cudgel’.
-, - (OHG eiz ‘festering tumour’, OLit. aidinti ‘to tease, to irritate’.):
- - - -: Got. beitan ‘to bite’;
- - - -: OG ὄνειδος ‘reproach, rebuke, censure, blame’, Latv. naîds ‘hatred,
hostility’, OI níndati ‘blames, reviles, taunts, despises, scorns’.
*e ʷ- (OG εἴβω ‘drop, let fall in drops’, Hes. ἰβάνη· κάδος, ἀντλητήριον, Hitt. ekuna-
‘cold’ < *i ʷ -): *e ʷ-en-é ʷ- > *né ʷ-: OG νίψω ‘I shall wash’, OI nénekti ‘washes,
cleanses’, OHG nihhus ‘river monster, water ghost’.
*el-ə- (OI -il y - ‘restless, unquiet’, Lit. ls ‘weariness, tiredness’, ilst , ils ‘to
become tired’, ilsi s ils s ‘to rest’, t-ilsis ‘rest’):
*el-et-él- > *tél-: OIr. tuilid ‘sleeps’, CS toliti ‘placare’, Serb. zàtljati ‘to want to doze off’,
Lit. tyl t i ‘to be silent’;
*eles-et-él- (i. e. s-stem *el-es-, cf. Lit. ils s ‘to rest’, + -et-) > *stél-: OHG stilli (*stel-ni-)
‘still, quiet’;
*elə-ed-élə- (cf. OG Hes. ληδεῖν· κοπιᾶν, κεκμηκέναι, ληδήσας· κεκμηκώς, κοπιάσας, Alb.
lodhem ‘I make tired’ < l - < *elə-éd-, Got. latjan ‘to render slow, sluggish, to hold back‘ <
*ləd-) > *dél-: OCS pr ьliti ‘to prolong’, Rus. дл ть ‘to proceed slowly, to cause to take
more time’, дл н ‘length’, Norw. dial. tøla ‘to linger, to wait’;
*el- ʷ-él- ʷ l-, ʷ l- (- ʷ- is probably ʷ - ‘and’): OI caramá- ‘the last one,
e
outermost’, cirás ‘long in time’, OG τῆλε ‘at a distance, far off’, πάλαι ‘long ago’.
l -,*eləgh- (*elə- + -egh-, cf. Lit. ìlgas ‘long’):
lē -ed- lē - > *déləgh-, *dlg h-: OI īr -, OCS lъ ъ, Serb. ‘long’, Got. tulgus
‘firm, steadfast’, W dal, Bret. derc'hel ‘to hold’;
*eləgh-ed-eləégh- > *delégh-: OG ἐν-δελεχής ‘continuous, perpetual’;
lē - - l - l - > OI r ‘length, duration’.
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l - (ON l r ‘low’, MHG l , Latv. l z s ‘flat’, OP līs ‘creeps’, OCS lěz lěs ‘creep,
crawl, stride, tread, climb’): lē - p- lē - p l -: Rus.-CS plěz tъ ‘creeps’.
*emb- (Arm. amp ‘cloud’, mpem ‘I drink’, OI ambu ‘water’, OG ὄμβρος ‘rain’): *emb-edh-
émb- > *dhémb-: MHG dimpfen ‘to steam, to smoke’, NE damp.
*embh-es- (OI ámbhas- ‘rain water’, OG ὀμφά ‘odour, waft’):
*embh-edh-émbh- > *dhémbh-: Swed. dial. dimba ‘to steam, to smoke’, ON dumba ‘dust,
dust-cloud’;
*embhes-et-émbh- (i. e. s-stem *embh-es-, cf. OI ámbhas- ‘rain water’, + -et-) > *stembh-:
Swed. dial. stimba ‘to steam’, Norw. dial. stamba ‘to stink’.
- (Arm. mec, OG μέγας ‘big’): - - - -, -: Du. bonk
‘lump’ Norw. bunka ‘small heap, bump’.
- (OI máhi ‘big’): -, -: OI bahú- ‘dense, abundant, much’, OG
παχύς ‘thick, stout, massive’, Hitt. panku- ‘all, whole’. Comment: aspiration of the velar
could also be ascribed to assimilation in a repetition - - -..., v. § 9. About
the method.
*en- (L onus, oneris ‘burden’, OG ἀνία, Aeol. ὀνία ‘grief, sorrow, distress, trouble’, also
*en-é - > *né - : L nex, necis ‘death, murder’): *en-e -én- > * -: OG καίνω ‘kill’.
*en- (OG ἔνος ‘year’, πρητήν ‘yearling lamb’, ἔνη ‘the day after tomorrow’, ἐνῐαυτός
‘anniversary, year, cycle, period’, Hes. ἔνελος· νεβρός, Lit. pèr-n-ai ‘last year’; - -
- ‘new, young’): *en-ek-én- (cf. Hitt. neka- ‘sister’ < *nék- < *en-ék-) > *kén-: OG καινός
‘new’, OI ī - ‘young’, OIr. cinim ‘originate from’, ciniud ‘race, strain, family’.
*enebh- (cf. *enébh- > *nébh- > OI nábhate ‘bursts, cracks up’): - - -
-: OCS z s ‘to tear apart’, OG γόμφος ‘tooth; nail, peg’, Lit. is ‘wooden
plough’.
*enebh-, *onobh- (OG ὀμφαλός ‘navel, boss, knob’): *enebh-énebh- > *bhénbh-,
*bhónbh-: OG πέμφιξ ‘breath, blast, drop, cloud, pustule’, πομφός ‘blister’, Lit. bámba
‘navel’.
*eneph-, *onoph- (Av. fō ‘navel’): *eneph-éneph- > *phénph-, *phónph- > Pol. p p
‘navel’.
*en- - (i. e. u-stem - -: root *en- ‘year’ -suffix , whence - ‘new, young’,
* ū - ‘now’):