Re: [tied] hospes

Compare Gk. ksen(w)os 'guest, friend; stranger, foreigner'.

Actually, the Slavic words *gospodI 'lord, dominus' and *gospodarI 'host' are difficult to etymologise. The derivation from *gHosti-poti- would require at least two ad hoc steps (the syncope of the first *-ti- and the voicing of the second *t). The word is often suspected of having Iranian connections, as in Szemerényi's interesting proposal: *wik^-poti- 'chief of a clan' > Iranian *vis-pati- (attested in Avestan; cf. Skt. vis'-pati-, Lith. vies^-pats 'lord') > *guspad ~ *gospad (regular development, attested in Middle Persian), hence Slavic *gaspadi- > *gospodI. Borrowing would also explain the stem-type variation *gospodU (Gen. gospoda) ~ *gospodI.

Georgiev, in turn, attempted to derive *gospodI from hypothetical Gothic *gast-faTs, Gen. *gast-fadis. Szemerényi's hypothesis is slightly more convincing from the semantic point of view.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: stefan

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2001 9:20 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] hospes

From: "Giuseppe Pagliarulo" <g.pagliarulo@...> > I have a question: could Latin hospes "host" be derived from > *ghosti-pot-s "one who has power over a foreigner"?> Thanks in advance to everyone who will answer, Hi, Giuseppe I have just joined the list, so this is my debut. I think that Latin "hospes" is derived from "*ghosti-potis-" whose original meaning was probably something like "master of the stranger" or "master of the enemy"(Skt "pati"- master) . Stranger, enemy, guest and host are rather muddled up. *ghosti is preserved in Slavonic "gosti, gost,gosc..."guest. You will find again *gosti-pot(d) in Old Slav. gospodi, master or in Polish gospodarz, host. Ciao Stefan PS. I am a bilingual (English/Polish) journalist from Great Britain.