Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂ówis
Proto-Indo-European
Alternative forms
Reconstruction
Lycian and Tocharian reflexes necessarily point to *h₂ówis. However, this noun is usually reconstructed as *h₃éwis in order to "account for the Anatolian and Armenian h- and for pervasive o-vocalism, in spite of the Tocharian form, which then remains unexplained" (Lubotsky). Alternatively, acrostatic ablauting *h₂ówi- ~ *h₂éwi- paradigm can be reconstructed (such as the one presented here in the declension table), and then one can "assume that the attested forms have the o-vocalism of the former variant, and the h- of the latter" (Lubotsky).
R. A. Pooth argues that the word has the original meaning "one who produces clothing (from wool)". See *h₂éwis.
Inflection
Athematic, acrostatic | |||
---|---|---|---|
singular | |||
nominative | *h₂ówis | ||
genitive | *h₂éwis | ||
singular | dual | plural | |
nominative | *h₂ówis | *h₂ówih₁(e) | *h₂óweyes |
vocative | *h₂ówi | *h₂ówih₁(e) | *h₂óweyes |
accusative | *h₂ówim | *h₂ówih₁(e) | *h₂ówims |
genitive | *h₂éwis | *? | *h₂éwyoHom |
ablative | *h₂éwis | *? | *h₂éwimos |
dative | *h₂éwyey | *? | *h₂éwimos |
locative | *h₂éwi | *? | *h₂éwisu |
instrumental | *h₂éwih₁ | *? | *h₂éwibʰi |
Comment
Many languages (Germanic, Tocharian) show a semantic shift from "sheep" (male or female) to "ewe".
In Balto-Slavic, the PIE root was generalized to form both the nouns for sheep and ram via the usual derivative suffixes, but only the sheep sense is listed here for all of them except for Old Prussian in which the sheep word wasn't recorded. See further on the *ovьnъ.
Derived terms
Descendants
References
- Kloekhorst, Alwin (2008) Etymological Dictionary of the Hittite Inherited Lexicon (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 5), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 393
- Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010) Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 10), with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 1060
- De Vaan, Michiel (2008) Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, page 437
- Kroonen, Guus (2013) Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 11), Leiden, Boston: Brill, page 45
- Sihler, Andrew L. (1995) New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 313
- Aug. Schleicher, 1868, Eine fabel in indogermanischer ursprache; in: A. Kuhn & A. Schleicher (eds.), Beiträge zur vergleichenden Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete der arischen, celtischen und slawischen Sprachen. Fünfter Band, Berlin, 1868, p. 206-208; also cited in: Bela Brogyanyi (ed.), Studies in Diachronic, Synchronic, and Typological Linguistics: Festschrift for Oswald Szemerényi on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, 1979, p. 455-457
- Hermann Hirt, 1939; cited in: Bela Brogyanyi (ed.), Studies in Diachronic, Synchronic, and Typological Linguistics: Festschrift for Oswald Szemerényi on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, 1979, p. 457-459
- W. P. Lehmann & L. Zgusta, 1979, Schleicher's Tale after a Century; in: Bela Brogyanyi (ed.), Studies in Diachronic, Synchronic, and Typological Linguistics: Festschrift for Oswald Szemerényi on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, 1979, p. 462
- Ringe, Don (2006) From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic, Oxford University Press
- Clackson, James (2007) Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, page 206
- Witczak, Krzysztof T. (2003), “New Evidence for the Indo-European Terminology for sheep”, in Lingua Posnaniensis, volume XLV, pages 144-145
- Adams, Douglas Q. (2013), “āᵤw”, in A Dictionary of Tocharian B: Revised and Greatly Enlarged (Leiden Studies in Indo-European; 10), Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, →ISBN, page 38
See also
Schleicher's fable on Wikipedia.Wikipedia