Comparative Notes on Hurro-Urartian, Northern Caucasian

delabialization) make it possible to reconstruct *hik w k w o- “horse”, which has three
phonetic features different from the rest of Indo-European and defies the normal laws
of Greek development 276 : 1) initial *h- (absent in the dialectal variant and in some
composite proper names with this second element 277 which sets some scholars thinking
about the relatively late—probably post-Mycenean?—age of this initial); 2) vowel i in
the root; 3) gemination of intervocalic labiovelars (or simple velars in the dialectal
variant). These abnormal features make it clear that the word does not belong to the
ordinary vocabulary. There are several possible explanations:
a) One can suppose that the Greek word continues an unusual Indo-European
prototype only distantly related to the general Indo-European name. To account for the
Greek form within the parameters of the phonemic rules, it is necessary to suggest an
*s- mobile followed by a schwa indogermanicum secundum (Güntert's * e ); one can then
suggest the expressive gemination of *k w like that found in the Homeric Dual ˆsse
“two eyes” and Present ˆssomai 278 “to see, to forbode, give to foresee” (from the
Indo-European root *(s)ok w - “eye”, “to see”, but some irregular forms have led to the
assumption of a phoneme like *k s at the end of this root 279 ). In that case, an Indo-
European protoform *s e k w k w o- “horse” 280 is reconstructed which can be considered
related to e´kwo- > ek w o- in its dialectal Western Indo-European centum form discussed
above. Yet such a form does not fit the usual reconstruction: the s- mobile is not
confirmed by cognate forms in the other Indo-European dialects (but see below on
276 Lejeune 1972, 83, n.1; 190, n.2; 280, n.1. Cf. Chantraine 1973, 334; 1979, 2; Panagl 1985, 283; see the
discussion in Adams, Mallory, and Miller 1997, 274. It seems possible to suggest a correlation between
these linguistic data and the unexpectedly late time of the appearance of the horse in continental
Greece (on the latter, see the remark by Mallory 1997a, 68-69, where the possibility of the relatively
late arrival of the Indo-European Greeks to Greece, as suggested by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov 1984/1995
I as well as by Carruba, is not taken into account).
277 As B. Vine has pointed out to me, the h- is absent in initial position as well in fippom°neow in an
inscription from Asia Minor which otherwise does not drop h-. See Blümel 1993, 32.
278 Lejeune, ib., 46.
279 Chantraine 1990, 813. The important difference from the name for horse consists in the following *-ywhich
may explain the development of *okw-. 280 Cf. a similar protoform reconstructed by Goetze in an attempt to reconcile forms of different families:
Goetze 1962, 35; Gamkrelidze and Ivanov 1984/1995, 478, n.21. The first to propose an old form *sesqw- >
sêqw- was Marr 1922; 1933, 142-143, but as usual his brilliant idea is lost among a number of absolutely
fantastic suggestions.