Re: [tied] Germanic prefixes and Verner's Law [was: German "ge-" be

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

> 08-08-03 21:08, Miguel Carrasquer wrote:
>
> > Could be- (bi-) be another example? It's usually derived from

*bhi-, but

> > *pe- ~ *po- (Hitt. p(e)-, Slav. po-) might fit equally well, if

not better.

>
> I thought about it too, and I think it's possible, if hard to

prove,

> that *bi meaning 'on either side, around' (presumably connected

with

> *umbi < *h2n.t-bHi) was confused with a similar prefix with an

intensive

> meaning ('all over, thoroughly'). Isn't *po-/*p(e)-/*pi- really a
> truncated variant of *h2po- ~ *h2ap-, as in <off/of> and <after> (<
> *h2ap-tero-)? Of course PGmc. *af-/*ab- would not have been
> synchronically relatable to *bi-, so *fi- wouldn't have been

restored.

>

I've been eyeing that *h2pi- for some time with a thought to put it
into my *h2-p- "water" and "across" collection.

Torsten