Reconstruction talk:Proto-Indo-European/h₂ews-
Greek ᾱ̓ήρ[edit]
@Florian Blaschke How does the alternative etymology explain this form, in particular the a? I don't think h₂u- can become ā- in Greek. —CodeCat 13:38, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- I don't know. The *ā- is a problem for either etymology, though, since it is not the expected outcome of *h₂ews- before vowel in Greek, either, and both *h₂us- and *h₂ews- should have fallen together anyway (in *auh-/*awh-). Only the Aeolic form appears to behave as expected (unless its alpha is long too, just unmarked for length; it may also be secondarily shortened). Sihler's Proto-Greek reconstruction *āwḗr is the most straightforward way to account for the facts, but it does not seem to be amenable to an etymological explanation in this exact form. Other researchers just seem to ignore the problem. Maybe we should mark the reconstruction of the Greek etymon and its affiliation with the root as uncertain. However, note that ἠέριος and ἠώς < *āhwṓs or *āwhṓs (again, Aeolic shows αὔ, so maybe the shortening of long alpha is regular here) display the same mysterious ā-. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:12, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- Beekes gives *h₂ewsḗr and claims the length of the alpha is unexplained. —JohnC5 18:07, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- The Proto-Hellenic form descending from this would be *auhḗr, but the -h- would have been lost soon after. What would have happened to a form like *auḗr? Would the u turn into a consonantal w? Would it be lost and lengthen the preceding vowel? Are there any parallel cases? —CodeCat 18:14, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- The Aeolic form αὐήρ (auḗr) seems to be a reasonable descendant from *auḗr and Beekes explains Doric ἀβήρ (abḗr) as another spelling of αὐήρ while L&S prefer ἀβήρ to be ἀϝήρ. Perhaps dialects diverged on their treatment of PH *-au- + *-V-? —JohnC5 18:51, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- It appears that way. Doric retains /w/, but eventually it merged with /b/ and both ended up as /v/, as in modern Tsakonian. So perhaps β was written to represent this merger, or it was simply used to represent a sound that standard Greek no longer had a letter for. It's also possible that the written υ here actually represented /ww/ in the same way that ι could represent /jj/, and that Doric has a fortition /ww/ > /b/ that predates the general merger into /v/. —CodeCat 18:59, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- Is there any precedent for compensatory lengthening due to the loss of -*w(w)-? Also could *-ww- have even arisen from *-wh-? I'd love if we could come out of this with a PH article. —JohnC5 19:09, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- I had a cursory look for roots with -ws- in them:
- There's no compensatory lengthening in these, which is especially striking in *h₁ews- because it differs from *h₂ews- only by the laryngeal. I wonder what Doric attestations there are of these verbs. —CodeCat 19:14, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- Is there any precedent for compensatory lengthening due to the loss of -*w(w)-? Also could *-ww- have even arisen from *-wh-? I'd love if we could come out of this with a PH article. —JohnC5 19:09, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- It appears that way. Doric retains /w/, but eventually it merged with /b/ and both ended up as /v/, as in modern Tsakonian. So perhaps β was written to represent this merger, or it was simply used to represent a sound that standard Greek no longer had a letter for. It's also possible that the written υ here actually represented /ww/ in the same way that ι could represent /jj/, and that Doric has a fortition /ww/ > /b/ that predates the general merger into /v/. —CodeCat 18:59, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- The Aeolic form αὐήρ (auḗr) seems to be a reasonable descendant from *auḗr and Beekes explains Doric ἀβήρ (abḗr) as another spelling of αὐήρ while L&S prefer ἀβήρ to be ἀϝήρ. Perhaps dialects diverged on their treatment of PH *-au- + *-V-? —JohnC5 18:51, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- The Proto-Hellenic form descending from this would be *auhḗr, but the -h- would have been lost soon after. What would have happened to a form like *auḗr? Would the u turn into a consonantal w? Would it be lost and lengthen the preceding vowel? Are there any parallel cases? —CodeCat 18:14, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- Beekes gives *h₂ewsḗr and claims the length of the alpha is unexplained. —JohnC5 18:07, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
Semantics[edit]
Regardless of the place of the vowel, I'm still bothered by the gloss "dawn; east". The etymology given for Latin aurum by de Vaan implies a verbal meaning "to glow", which is more consistent with the (inchoative) meaning given in the LIV, "to become light (in the morning)", based on the Indo-Iranian (Vedic and Younger Avestan) verbs cited, and also fits the meaning of Sanskrit उस्र (usrá-, “reddish, ruddy, bright, matutinal”) much better. Therefore, one would expect a more general meaning "to become light, red, glowing, shining", whence "to dawn" – whence the nominal meaning "dawn, morning; east", although a root noun is not attested, only a verb (in Indo-Iranian and Lithuanian). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:41, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
FWIW, Martin West also suggests the original meaning "glow (red), flame" here. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:52, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
Also, Mayrhofer gives the meaning of the Sanskrit verb as specifically "to shine, glow; to light up; to become bright/light" and that of the Proto-Indo-European verb as "to light up". --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:44, 24 September 2017 (UTC)