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Sanskrit panthah, Avestan pantà, Old Persian pay im, Latin pons (and its compound pontifex), Greek ponto? and pato?, Armenian hwn (genitive hni), Old Church Slavic ppntb, Old Prussian pintis cannot easily be reconciled into one single paradigm and, consequently, the exact reconstruction is debated. It has been argued that the Indo-Iranian, Latin, Armenian and Balto-Slavic forms are evidence for an i stem, either original (Schmidt, Bezzenberger, Hirt e.a.) or of secondary and laryngeal origin (Beekes, Schrijver). Starting from the two different "i reconstructions" this article re- examines the Latin, Greek and Indo-Iranian cognates, and tries to account for the evolutions in the different languages. We agree with Beekes, Schrijver and De Vaan in that the Latin nominative is problematic and the Armenian form corresponds perfectly to a reconstruction *pontH. In addition, we believe that also the compound pontifex and the Scythian name Pantikaph? fit into this schema. However, we have our doubts as to the paradigm with a nominative *Hs and an accusative *eHm, find the independent innovation in Sanskrit and Avestan less likely, and consider the Old Persian form pyim not conclusive, because it is a back-formation on the nominative and especially in light of the Scythian name Pantikaph?, which raises some questions as to the exact Iranian treatment of the Proto-Indo-Iranian cluster *nth. We therefore believe that the original reconstruction *ponteh1s (made by Pedersen in 1926) still has preference, despite the problems that it poses for Latin.*
Reconstruction 1: the i is of Indo-European origin
The first theory is that of Schmidt (1885:370-374), Hirt (1895:249, 1921: 39,55-56, 1927:75-76,102),1 Bezzenberger (1908b), Reichelt (1901:267, 1909:156) and Kent (1953:30,52,61) who argued that the Sanskrit case forms pathibhih, the compound pathikrt (first pointed out by Kuhn 1855:75), the Old-Persian payim, the Latin genitive plural pontium and the Balto-Slavic forms were evidence of the fact that the original Indo-European paradigm contained an i. In addition, the Latin compound pontifex (Meringer 1890:23) and the Armenian genitive hni were adduced as proof for the i stem, but especially Bezzenberger (1908a:96- 97) opposed the link with the Latin form pontifex. Schmidt assumed a root with a lengthened grade *ponthói- in the nominative and accusative singular and a zero grade *pnthi- in the oblique cases. He argued that the languages with...