Re: [tied] Albanian mend-

I hope you need not ask again about unstressed /e/ in Latin words, so I'll skip that part of your query.

As for -nt-, it did become -nd- in Albanian, also in Latin loans, cf. qind <-- cent-, prind <-- parent-, etc. But the change of e > i before -nd- was not general in Albanian, cf. argend 'silver', quendër 'centre, hub' (Lat. argent-, centr-). If I remember correctly, it originally occurred in "umlauting" environments.

The Latin word for 'lie' was <mentior> (inf. menti:ri). The environment explains the palatalisation in Romanian.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: "alex_lycos" <altamix@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, February 08, 2003 9:54 AM
Subject: [tied] Albanian mend-


> There are several words with the beginning form "mend-" in Albanian but
> I am not sure if this is a root too.
>
> mend= intelect, spirit, understanding, etc
> mende= spirit, understanding, intention
> mendër= mint, peppermint (!)
> mendësi= mentality
> mendim = thinking, thought, oppinion
> mendimtar= thinker
> mendje= underastanding
> mendjeflutur = lightminded
> mendon= to think
> menduar= thoughtful
>
> There are several derivatives more , but all with the help of "mend-".
> Except "mendër"= peppermint, the others seems to belong to the same root
> and about this root I should like to know if this is our old Latin root
> "mens, mentis".
>
> Question: does a latin /t/ become an /d/ in Albanian?
>
> The Romanian words with similar senses of "mens, mentis" are too made
> with the root "mint-".
> The problem which I see here is as follow:
>
> -"mens" and "dens" have all long /e/ but the accusativ forms "mentis"
> and "dentis" have a short /e/ and short /i/.
>
> That means that the forms in PBR should have been *mEndE and *dEntE. It
> seems that first /E/ did not dyphtongued and how Miguel said in the rule
> 2b, /E/ closed to /i/ ( 2b=Before /m/ or /mn/, /e/ (original or from /E/
> is further closed to /i/). So the forms should have been in PBR *mintE
> and dintE*.
> And here is my problem.
> Can it be we miss a rule more regarding the final position of /E/? If
> not, then there is an irregular development since we expect forms as:
> mintE > mintiea > mint,ea > mint,ã
> dintE > dintiea > dint,ea > dint,ã
> if in both languages the original word is the Latin "mentis" then we
> observe that in Romanian and Albanian, the /d/ and /t/ became not
> palatalised.
> But there is indeed an word in Romanian which shows this phonetic form
> "mintsã"= to lie , " a mintsi".This word is given as coming from Latin
> "mintiri"
> Since I do not find this word in my dictionary, I will be very
> thankfully for knowing if this Latin "mintiri" has short or long /i/ in
> both positions within the word.
> I cannot say something about Romanian "mentã" = peppermint, cognate of
> Albanian "mendër" because the etymology of this word is given as coming
> from 3 languages: Slavic "menta", Latin "mentha", French "mentha".I don'
> t believe it has a Latin or Slavic origin since the "e" remains "e" and
> did not became "i" before "n". An another word for this plant is "izmã"
> (Mentha piperita ) with unknown etymology.
>
> Alex