The listed forms are related with a great degree of probability, but several assimilative processes must have happened in different languages (which is usual for root structures of this type, containing two stops. In PN (where *gw- regularly > *k-) *gwāṭa > *kōṭa- > *kōta- (progressive assimilation); in PTs *gwāṭa > *gʷɨṭV > *gʷɨdV (also progressive assimilation). In PL *gwāṭa > *ḳ(ʷ)aṭa (regressive assimilation); on PWC see above.

    A suspicious feature is loss of labialisation in PL and PAK; it may suggest that the protoform should be rather reconstructed as *gāṭwa (with shift of labialisation in PN and PAT), because labialisation of dentals is in general easier lost than the labialisation of velars.

    In view of everything said it seems probable that the Kartvelian name for "hen" (*katam-) is an old Nakh loanword - since the Nakh form can not be separated from other EC data.