Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/sneygʷʰ-

This Proto-Indo-European entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Proto-Indo-European

Root

*sneygʷʰ-

1. to snow

Reconstruction notes

Karl Hoffman proposed in 1965 that the original meaning of the root was "to stick, remain", with semantic shift to "snow" (i.e. snow is that which sticks). That sense is still being assigned in LIV. However, that interpretation is highly unlikely, given that all the other daughters except Sanskrit (and also within Indo-Iranian and even Indo-Aryan family itself; cf. Prakrit reflex siṇēha "snow, hoarfrost") point to "to snow" as the original meaning of the root. According to Cheung (2007), Hoffman's explanation that this meaning could have coexisted with the meaning "to snow" is untenable. Cheung (2007) argues that the Sanskrit meaning "to stick, remain; sticky fluid" is secondary (possibly of slang origin) "perhaps from whitish bodily fluids which are compared to snow, notably snot and spit".

Derived terms

• *snéygʷʰ-e-ti (thematic root present)
  • Proto-Germanic: *snīwaną (see there for further descendants)
  • Proto-Indo-Iranian: *snáyǰʰati
    • Proto-Iranian: *snáyǰati
      • Avestan: 𐬯𐬥𐬀𐬉𐬲𐬀𐬌𐬙𐬌 (snaēžaⁱti, “to snow”)
• *snigʷʰ-e-ti (zero-grade thematic root present)
  • Hellenic:
    • Ancient Greek: νίφω (níphō)
• *sni-né-gʷʰ-ti ~ *sni-n-gʷʰ-énti (nasal-infix present)
  • Italic:
    • Latin: ningit/ninguit
• *snigʷʰ-yé-ti (ye-present)
  • Proto-Celtic: *snigʷyeti (see there for further descendants)
  • Proto-Indo-Iranian: *sniǰʰyáti
    • Proto-Indo-Aryan: *sníźʰyati
      • Sanskrit: स्निह्यति (sníhyati, “to be adhesive or sticky; to remain, stick”)
• *snéygʷʰ-s (“snow”)
• *snóygʷʰ-o-s (“snow”)
• Unsorted formations:
  • Balto-Slavic:
    • Latvian: snigt
    • Lithuanian: snìgti
  • Indo-Iranian:
    • Iranian:
      • Shughni: жиниҷ (žiniǰ)
  • Tocharian:
    • Tocharian B: śiñcatstse (“snowy”) (< nominalized *śiñce (“snow”) < *snigʷʰēn)

References

• Rix, Helmut, editor (2001), Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben [Lexicon of Indo-European Verbs] (in German), 2nd edition, Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, →ISBN, page 573
• Cheung, Johnny (2007) Etymological Dictionary of the Iranian Verb (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 2), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 349
• Matasović, Ranko (2009) Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 9), Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, page 349
• Derksen, Rick (2008) Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 4), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 457
• Pokorny, Julius (1959) Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch [Indo-European Etymological Dictionary] (in German), volume 3, Bern, München: Francke Verlag, page 974
• Mayrhofer, Manfred (1996) Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen [Etymological Dictionary of Old Indo-Aryan]‎ (in German), volume II, Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, page 772
• Wodtko, Dagmar S., Irslinger, Britta, Schneider, Carolin (2008) Nomina im indogermanischen Lexikon [Nouns in the Indo-European Lexicon] (in German), Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, pages 622–623
• Mallory, J. P., Adams, D. Q., editors (1997), Encyclopedia of Indo-European culture, London, Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, page 530
• Buck, Carl Darling (1949) A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, § 1.76, pages 68–69
• Gamkrelidze, Th. V., Ivanov, V. V. (1995) Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans. A Reconstruction and Historical Analysis of a Proto-Language and Proto-Culture. Part I: The Text (Trends in linguistics. Studies and monographs; 80), Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, page 587
• The template Template:R:ine:AHD does not use the parameter(s):

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  Please see Module:checkparams for help with this warning.Watkins, Calvert (1985) “sneigʷh-”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt