It would have had to be the first privative
compound ever, so exceptional it is. I sincerely doubt if you could quote a
single parallel case. Old Indic and Greek compound accent is later than PIE
vowel reductions, cf. aks.ita- and aphthiton, both with initial accent (on the
reduced negative prefix). You didn't address my objection to reconstructing PIE
*po:ts 'powerful (?)' rather than *poti-. The alternating part of *nepot- is
invariably the second syllable: *nepo:ts, pl. *nepotes, Gen.sg. *nept-os,
fem. *nept-ih2-, adj. *nept-ijo-. The fact that Germanic has *nef-o:n- makes me
suspect that the real internal division (if any) is *nep-ot-.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, January 15, 2001 11:59 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: About the etymology of *nepo:t-
"nephew/grandson"
This compound was lexicalized early, and we shouldn't expect
it to
behave like other privative compounds. Judging by Ved.
<nápa:t>,
it's either a PD of the type *népo:ts, *n.pótos, or (more
likely) a
static noun *népo:ts, *népt(o)s.