Stang's Law and the Indo-European word for 'cow'

The present article investigates the etymology of the Indo-European word for "cow" and looks at two types of reconstruction, with and without laryngeal: *g(w)ous and *g(w)eh(3)us (suggested by Kurylowicz in 1927) or *g(w)h(3)eus (as already suggested by de Saussure in 1878). By assessing the instances where Stang's Law operated and failed to operate, we find that the correct reconstruction is *g(w)ous. The accusative singular of the word "cow" in Doric and Homeric Greek, Sanskrit, Sabellic and the Greek epsilon x alpha tau o mu beta eta are additional evidence in favour of this reconstruction. The article also looks at two possible arguments against that reconstruction (the short vowel a in the oblique cases and the disyllabic scansion of the first syllable in Vedic poetry): an ablaut type *nokwts, *nek(w)ts can account for the short a in the Indo-Iranian weak cases, and the absence of a disyllabic scansion in Avestan proves that the Vedic metre is the fruit of a poetic licence. Consequently, we see no reason why *gwous could not be kept.*

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