From: alex_lycos
Message: 20440
Date: 2003-03-28
> ----- Original Message -----What if we are on the wrong path with the meaning? Is there an anothere
> From: "Daniel J. Milton" <dmilt1896@...>
> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2003 9:00 PM
> Subject: [tied] Re: bg. nvEsta
>
>
> *****
>> "The newest one" certainly makes more sense than "the unknown" for
>> "bride". However, does the I.E superlative *-isto show up in
>> Slavic?
>
> Well, it doesn't. One could of course claim that *neve^sta is an
> isolated archaic formation, but one additional difficulty is the fact
> that in the groups that have it (Germanic, Greek, Indo-Iranian)
> *-isto- attaches itself directly to the root without a thematic
> "buffer", i.e. *new-isto-, not *newo-isto-. *ne + *woista: (=
> *woid-ta:) is certainly more plausible from the formal point of view,
> especially since *(iz-)ve^stU 'known' is well attested in Slavic. Cf.
> also *ve^stI 'news', *ve^stiti 'announce', etc. Perhaps the precise
> meaning was 'not officially pronounced married' rather than 'unknown'
>
> Piotr