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Is there a law that prohibits PIE stems starting with what traditionally reconstructed as non-palatal /g/?

So far I encountered with only one stem that the sources consistently reconstruct with this phoneme: gloiu̯os "clay". Is this stem reconstructed reliably? Cannot it be a borrowing?

Note that I know about a prohibition on stems starting with "r-".

Anixx
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  • Have you ever read a chapter on PIE phonology in any intro textbook, e.g. Fortson 2010, p. 57, at the very bottom? That should help. As for the ban on word-initial r, can you please "refresh my memory"? – Alex B. Nov 30 '12 at 16:58
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    @Alex B. I currently cannot point you exactly to the source, but my impression is that prohibition on initial r- is currently widely recognized. All roots that seemed to contain initial r- are currently reconstructed with initial laryngeal. – Anixx Nov 30 '12 at 17:43
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    @Alex B. As for example from Fortson, Starling gives the same root as g(')rās-/-ē- For each root with this initial phoneme I encountered different sources gave different reconstructions of the initial phoneme. – Anixx Nov 30 '12 at 17:53
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    Well, the plain velars are relatively infrequent to begin with (assuming they really existed), so it could be just a statistical fluke if there are no reconstructed roots beginning with g. LIV does list some roots with g-, though it marks many of them with a question mark. – TKR May 27 '14 at 22:14
  • What about *gel (cold)? – Joël May 28 '14 at 01:31
  • @Joël in my dictionaries it starts from palatal k. celtos cold celos cover cels storing room colia̯ hiding place – Anixx May 28 '14 at 10:20

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