--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
> Slavic stryjI/strUjI. The maning "father's brother" follows
> naturally if derived from *p&2ter-, while "old man" >
> "father's brother" is much less evident semantically.
Are you suggesting a one-way change the other way, or just little
connection in general? We certainly have the colloquial usage of
_grandad_ for 'old man' in English, and in Thai _lung_ 'parent's
elder sibling' is similarly used for 'old man'. Conversely, Latin
_senior_ 'elder' yields English _sire_ 'father', admittedly more
commonly used as a verb than as a noun. What do we know of the
evolution of the kinship naming system of the Balto-Slavs?
Incidentally, gentlemen, may I suggest we update the subject title
of our postings. We now have at least four threads all
labelled 'Nominative Loss: A strengthened theory'.
Richard.