Re: [tied] Re: About the etymology of *nepo:t- "nephew/grandson"

On Mon, 15 Jan 2001 19:02:29 +0100, "Piotr Gasiorowski"
<gpiotr@...> wrote:

>To play the devil's advocate, I will admit that *pot-n-ih2- does contain *pot-n-, but here we are talking more concretely about "master" and "mistress", not about "power". Words like "mistress" wear off easily because of their frequent use as forms of address (> "Mrs", and likewise in innumerable languages), so *poti-nih2- > *potnih2- is a very likely development.

Speaking of which, I have this crazy idea that Pol. <pani> is from
*potnih2. I know about all the objections (potnih2 should have given
poni, loss of -t- before -n- is not known to cause compensatory
lengthening, Old Czech <hpán>, etc.), but it would be so nice if it
were true...


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...