Reconstruction talk:Proto-Indo-European/dʰewbʰ-

dʰewbʰ- ‘deep’ and dʰewbʰ- ‘to whisk, be obscured’

Now that dʰewb ‘deep’ has been moved to dʰewbʰ, various pages which previously pointed (a non-existent page?) dʰewbʰ- ‘to whisk, be obscured; black’ are now pointing to dʰewbʰ- ‘deep’. e.g. Proto-Germanic *daubaz and Proto-Celtic *dubus. Are dʰewbʰ- ‘deep’ and dʰewbʰ- ‘to whisk, be obscured; black’ actually the same word? --Caoimhin (talk) 20:46, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

@Caoimhin: Also at Proto-Germanic *dūbǭ, where I just added a sourced etymology from Kroonen. I'm sceptical about the “to whisk” root and suspect it could be spurious, a relic from the Pokorny era. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:09, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I have a problem with the cognates of dʰewbʰ and dʰewb being from the same root. Namely it is unexplained how dʰewbʰ leads to some roots derivative words here. The English word “deep” creates a problem for dʰewbʰ being the reconstructed root for that word, as that should render the term “deeb” and not “deep” due to Grimm’s law. If this is reconstructed as dʰewb, on the other hand, then Grimm’s law follows perfectly.

There’s also the Greek word “βύθος”, which is claimed to be derived from a metathesis of this root. This is problematic because Grassman’s law wouldn’t have taken effect until after the breathy voiced consonants of PIE devoiced into the aspirated plosives of Ancient Greek, meaning that the final form of this word would have been “πύθος”. Once again though, if the corresponding root is dʰewb, then the spelling in Greek makes sense after the alleged metathesis.

Dubious as the root dʰewb may be, due to the inclusion of the contested *b, whose actual existence in PIE is disputed, the derivative dʰewb root with an unaspirated *b makes more sense, as it would not violate either of these well established sound laws. I therefore argue that dʰewbʰ and dʰewb should be considered separate roots. 2600:1007:B113:9EFA:ED8E:1DCD:1D92:BB4F 16:26, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Slight correction here. “Βυθός” was written with the accent in the wrong place. The rule still applies though. 2600:1007:B113:9EFA:ED8E:1DCD:1D92:BB4F 16:29, 7 June 2024 (UTC)