ḫāriš-

Comparing Hitt. ḫaḫriš- n. ‘lung’ with Pal. ḫāriš- n. ‘lung’, a Proto-Anatolian substantive *HEr-is- or -e/os- can be reconstructed. The reduplication in Hittite is surely secondary; on nominal reduplication in Hittite see Oettinger 1998b:454. The plene spelling of the root vowel in Palaic could tell us that we are dealing with an accented vowel *ó or with *é colored by *h₂ or *h₃. For the Hittite cognate, Puhvel (HED Ḫ:7) and Tischler (HEG A-H:124f.) offer no etymology.

[D.S.]

The most prominent source of words for ‘lung’ is the adjectival notion ‘light (in weight)’, cf. PGerm. *lunǥōn- ‘lung’, ModE lights ‘animal’s lung’, etc. (EWAhd V:1512). This semantic development is explained by the fact that the lungs of animals are floating in the cooking pot (because of trapped air) while the other parts of the offal do not. If PAnat. *Haris- ‘animal lung’ is named after this property, it can be derived from PIE *h₃er- ‘to begin to move, rise, leap up’ (LIV²:299f., Stüber 2002a:112) as ‘the (organ) risen (and thus floating in the broth)’. The s-stem reconstructed below is morphologically identical to Gk. ὄρος ‘mountain’ which, however, underwent a different semantic specification: PIE *h₃Ér-o/es- ‘rising’ > ‘elevation’ (cf. *h_1/3Ér-s-o- ‘buttocks’?) > Gk. ὄρος ‘elevation (of the landscape), mountain’. While Greek continues an agent noun (‘elevation’, cf. Stüber 2002a:231–234), Anatolian continues a result noun (‘risen’, cf. Stüber 2002a:234–236).Although there are some languages attesting the derivation of ‘lung’ from ‘chest’ (cf. CLICS² subgraph LUNG, accessed 2019-03-27), such a semantic pathway is less likely. One possibility, however, is a connection with the above-mentioned root PIE *h₃er- ‘to begin to move, rise, leap up’ with relation to the rising and lowering of the chest while breathing. Note that PAnat. *Háris- means ‘animal lung’ and animal chests are moving in a different direction while breathing than human ones.

The nouns Pal. ḫāriš- n. ‘lung’ and Hitt. ḫaḫriš- n. ‘id.’ can be traced back to a neuter s-stem noun PAnat. *Háris- n. ‘rising (organ)’. This form goes back to either a primary s-stem PIE *h₃Ér-o/es- n. ‘elevation’ (cf. Hitt. nepiš- < PIE *néb^h-es-) or to an s-stem PIE *h₃ér-i-s- derived from an i-stem PIE *h₃ór-i-/*h₃ér-i- ‘elevation’. Neither the secondary s-stem PIE *h₃ér-i-s- nor the i-stem PIE *h₃ór-i-/*h₃ér-i- have parallels in any non-Anatolian language and are thus less likely as proto-forms. On the contrary, the primary s-stem *h₃Ér-o/es- n. ‘elevation’ finds an exact morphological match in Gk. ὄρος ‘mountain’ (< ‘elevation’) which probably continues the derivational base of PIE *h_1/3Ér-s-o- ‘buttocks’ (< ‘having elevations’).

[A.O.]

Gk. ὄρος n. ‘mountain, height’ (Il.+)
GEW I:426, GEW III:164, DELG:825, EDG:1109f., LSJ:1255, LSJSuppl:231

(?)PIE *h_1/3Ér-s-o- m. ‘buttocks’,It is not clear whether Hitt. (uzu)arra- c. ‘buttocks, anus’ belongs here or not depending on the reflex of the anlauting laryngeal (cf. EDHIL:75 for one opinion). Furthermore, OIr. err ‘tail, back of a chariot’ shows the reflex of e-grade of the root which contradicts the affiliation to PIE *h₃er- ‘to rise’ (LIV²:299f.). However, disconnecting those two lexemes is an option. Therefore, NIL:246–248 reconstructs PIE *h₁órs-o- with an ablaut variant *h₁ers-eh₂- (beside *h₁ors-éh₂-).cf. Gk. ὄρρος ‘end of the os sacrum, rump’ (GEW I:427, DELG:827, EDG:1110f., LSJ:1256), Arm. oṙ i-st. ‘buttocks’ (EDAIL:531f.), PGerm. *arsa- ‘buttocks’ (EDPG:35)
IEW:340, NIL:246–248, EIEC:88