Proto-North Caucasian: *mūrʒ_wĕ
Meaning: corner, edge
Notes: A common NC root; the semantic development 'corner, angle' > 'horn' in PWC is rather natural, and all phonetic correspondences are regular. Abdokov (1983, 107) distinguishes within WC a separate, but phonetically close, root with the meaning 'root' - which he compares with EC *Hiƛ̣_īwV 'root' (q.v.); this seems hardly plausible for phonetic reasons (also, the need for reconstructing two separate WC roots seems dubious, see above).
