tgpedersen wrote:
> And BTW what is the evidence Latin 'caupo' (cf. Old (?)
> German 'kaupo' "merchant") is native Latin and not a
> borrowed "colonial" word?
>
> Torsten
Latin "caupo" has an unsure origin.. Begining with Vergilius is found
the form "cupa" too.(not "cuppa" but "cupa")
The semantism is correlated with Greek "kapelos". The Greek word cannot
be explained trough IE. The posibility should be a loan from an non IE
language or that this is a IE language, have had already the form
"kapel-" and was in this form loaned into Greek language.
Ernout supposed to be a loan from a language of the Mediteranean area.
The Latin form with "au" should be correlated with etruscan language
since etruscan "au" should have an corespondent in Latin "a" (au:a).
Because of the germanic form , better said gothic form , it is avanced
the ideea that the initially form was an "o" so, *copare.
I remember Rosetti said latin have had the habbit of loosing the nasals.
Did the Greek too or not?
Alex