Proto-North Caucasian: *ɦswǟmV̆
Meaning: a k. of bird (heath-cock, owl)
Notes: Reconstructed for the PEC level. Correspondences are regular - except for the accent paradigm in Avar (paradigm C would be expected). This must be explained by supposing contamination of this root with PEC *ʔVms_wĕlʔē 'wild turkey' q.v. We must stress that these roots must be kept strictly distinct because of different reflexes of *sw (tense in *ʔVms_wĕlʔē, lax in *ɦswǟmV̆), although they tend to merge due to phonetic and semantic proximity.
