Notes: See Abdokov 1983, 89. Cf. also Urart. aršǝ 'young people, children' (see Diakonoff-Starostin 1986, 36). One of the widely spread nominal stems with changing class prefixes. The WC evidence suggests that it may have been originally verbal ("to bear"), but in all modern languages it is used only as a noun. Phonetic correspondences are quite regular; the only problem is Lak. -s (-š would be expected normally). The seemingly classless forms (PC *ʔožǝ, Lak. ars, PD *ʔurši, Khin. ši) reflect the PEC form with the weak male class prefix *u_=ɨšwĔ; the only form which can reflect an original prefixless stem is the PL plural *š:i-p:V ( < *šʷi-bV). In Lak., Darg. and Urart. the stem obtained a secondary medial -r- (no trace of it in any other language); it can not be a feminine class affix, because the word means only 'son, boy' in these languages. This -r- probably reflects an oblique stem with the *-rV suffix (*-ɨ̆šwĔ-rV- > *-ɨ̆ršwV).
Notes: Reconstructed for the PEC level. A very complicated case. It is probable that the word is a PEC compound, and it is possible to decipher PEC *jĕrƛ̣_wV 'belt, leather strap' in its second part. The first part, in that case, can be reconstructed approximately as *čɦVm(V)-, but it is difficult to identify this morpheme with any independent EC root. The original polyconsonantal structure *čɦVm-jĕrƛ̣_wV, having an expressive meaning ("whip"), naturally underwent very complicated and irregular changes in most daughter-languages.
Notes: Correspondences are regular, and this is undoubtedly a common NC kinship term. Cf. also HU *nas- > Hurr. naž-ardǝ 'concubines' (see Diakonoff-Starostin 1986, 37). The root has interesting parallels in other linguistic families: Semitic (Arab. niswa 'women', nisāʔ id. - whence Turk. nisa); IE (*snus- 'daughter-in-law') - thus being an old Eurasiatic "Wanderwort".
Notes: The vocalism is hard to reconstruct (because of morphological restructuring in daughter-languages). The root is represented widely enough to justify its reconstruction for PNC.
