“My life in etymology” is a story of a new etymological dictionary of English. The essay tells of how the project began and developed and how work on the dictionary engulfed its originator and became the culmination of his career in philology.

Having been persuaded that this is a useful exercise, the author traces his growth as an etymologist and Indo-Europeanist from his early linguistic situation and guidance via a series of sidesteps through science, engineering, slavistics and an iconoclast Indo-Europeanist mentor to a barely supervised PhD in the subject. It is hoped readers will not be unduly disturbed by the author’s lack of formal training in the precise disciplines in which he continues to publish in the belief that the background here portrayed may explain his adherence to a number of minority views.

(Some remarks on the roots *seh3- and *seh1p- in Anatolian). The paper discusses the Hittite words sūwasali- (a functionary), sapāsalli- ‘scout’ and the eleven words containing the individualizing suffix -sepa-. While sūwasali- is tentatively connected with the PIE root *seh1/3- ‘to be/become full’ (as “filler”), sapāsalli- and -sepa- could be Luwian resp. Hittite instantiations of the root *seh1p- ‘to perceive’, the latter showing a transitionfrom an action noun ‘perception’ to a result noun ‘occurrence’, which is later bleached semantically. Details of the word formation of the concerning forms are discussed, too.

The present article investigates the problem of *h2o and *oh2 in Indo-European. suggestions (Ruijgh-Lindeman, Rix-Beekes, Kortlandt and Hamp) have been made, but no agreement has been reached in the scholarship. In Mayrhofer 1986 Rix-Beekes was followed, in Bammesberger’s 1988 survey work of the Laryngeal Theory, two of the four theories were posited: Kimball 1988 following Rix-Beekes and Ruijgh 1988 following Kortlandt. More recently, Sihler 1995 agreed with Ruijgh- Lindeman, and in Mallory-Adams 2006 Hamp was followed. We first discuss the four different theories critically, and then proceed to the evidence by analysing the active perfect vocalism in ā, the compounds in -ηγός/αγός and the compound ἱππημολγός. The article finds that the perfect vocalism in ᾱ can be explained by the Greek tendency to create an ablaut paradigm a/ā (as argued by Kimball and Hackstein) and by a double analogy with the aorist (as is proved by the perfect form τέθηκα, which is also due to analogy with the aorist). With regard to the compounds, the article finds that the compounds in -η/αγός can be explained by analogy with the verb forms in a and ā and that the ā in ἱππημολγός is a form of Kompositionsdehnung, which is proved by the compounds ἱππήλατος and θανατηφόρος. We therefore hold that *h2 did not colour o into a and that there is no need for *h4 either.*