Reconstruction talk:Proto-Indo-European/pléth₂us


 * I have been thinking of this for over a year: Any idea how come is not the regular descendant? Feminine singular nominatives of u- adjectives in Sanskrit delete the final sound and add a vī: hence we have ; ; ;,  etc etc. So one would expect  from . -- माधवपंडित (talk) 12:20, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I think that is certainly the analogy that created the outcome . The crucial difference is that the this root is seṭ, so there is a voiced laryngeal. Thus *pl̥th₂-w-íh₂ > PIIr *pl̥tHwíH > S pṛthivī́. It's not a matter of the final sound being deleted, but the distinction between *R(∅)-ú-s vs. *R(∅)-w-íh₂. The natural outcome of a root of the shape *CERCH- would be *CR̥CH-ú-s vs. *CR̥CH̥-w-íh₂. An interesting case is that of from . One expects *tn̥h₂-ú-s to come out as tanúḥ with regular deletion of a laryngeal between syllabics, but given the expected feminine form *tn̥h₂-w-íh₂ should come out as something like S *tāvī́. This form is obviously too far away from tanú- and was replaced. Strangely, the Vedic feminine was tanū́ with tanvī́ coming later. How to reconstruct or motivate the form tanū́ is beyond me, but to say that the feminine was just a matter of swapping -úḥ with -vī́ is not quite right. I'd also mention that pṛthivī́ appears to be lexicalized very early, giving way to pṛthvī́ in the regular declension. Does this all make sense? —*i̯óh₁nC[5] 21:06, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Totally. I didn't know of seṭ roots either. Sanskrit speakers were very conscious of their language to begin with and the standardization by Panini further motivated the creation of what were thought to be correct terms through analogy. Thanks for the explanation!! -- माधवपंडित (talk) 02:31, 29 December 2017 (UTC)