Re: ficken

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

>
> On 2008-01-21 19:57, alexandru_mg3 wrote:
>
> > Regarding the sematism of the abstraction it could work: but

why "pre-"

> > was lost? This is difficult to explain: I don't remember any

Latin word

> > in Romanian that lost his Latin prefix
>
> Most words with prefixes occur also without them. <praepu:tium>
> contained a bound morpheme which, however, made perfect sense. If

the

> foreskin constitutes the front (prae-) of the -pu:tium, What can

this

> -pu:tium be? Let me think...
>
> In the same way, English speakers may, more or less jocularly,

restore

> <kempt> and <couth> through back-derivation from <unkempt,

uncouth>,

> though the actual free-occurring forms of the past participles of

OE

> cemban and cunnan have been extinct for centuries.
> Piotr
>

I can agree with you in general but:

You didn't understand my objection:

I. Latin prefix prae (and not only) is not active in Proto-Romanian
=> this means that during Romanization it wasn't perceived as a
prefix at all:
Reasons:
1. there are no Proto/Old Romanian derivatives based on Latin prae-
2. we have a single word that kept pre-
Romanian prinde < Latin pre[he]ndere => but pri- in prinde means
nothing...

II. Latin *pu:tium is unattested

III. Based on I and II, you need to prove that *pu:tium really
existed in the Late Romance times, somewhere in Europe, and entered
like this in Romanian ( because Balkan Romance didn't make
derivatives,abstrations,etc... based on Latin prefix *prae-)

Marius