On Sat, 29 Mar 2003 12:17:37 +0000, Abdullah Konushevci
<
akonushevci@...> wrote:
>Probabley You have right, but I can't understand why You don't
>accept the simple fact that Slavic nov- must be derived from much
>earlest form nev-< (cf. Greek neos). At least, basic vowel of PIE
>was e.
Of course I accept that. But PIE /eu/ becomes Slavic /ov/ in
heterosyllabic position before non-front vowel (*newos > novU,
*k^lewos > slovo), and /ov/ then spreads to the rest of the paradigm
(e.g. compar. nove^jI(s^), gen. slovese).
>And in vesti we have nothing to do with saying something new,
>like we have in "news" or in novosti. Why couldn't be vesti an
>aphetic form of (ne)vesti?
Because it's not vesti but ve^sti with a jat'.
>I can't also understand why You and
>others always avoid Alb. semantic cognat reja ( or much oldest form
>e reja) "the new one" or probabley Yout think that Slavic are
>aliens. I have just cited an authority in linguistic as Trubezkoy
>and I agree completley with here view. Could You or others at least
>give me just one another exmaple or cogant in other languages.
There's also Irish nuachar "lover, spouse" (C.D. Buck: "cpd. of nua-
"new'; second part disputed perh. a vbl. n. to cuirim "place, put",
the whole orig. "newly settled, newcomer (in the home)").
The point is that there is no way to derive neve^sta from *newos. A
putative *new-is-ta: would have given *novIsta (*nevIsta if the
semantic connection with "new" had been broken off early). A compound
like the Irish word above (*new-wed(h)-ta:?) would have given Slavic
*njuve(^)sta.
In order to give another example or cognate in another language, we'd
first have to establish whether Slavic neve^sta is from *ne-wed(h)-ta:
("not (yet) wedded": nubile girl, bride) or from *ne-woid-ta:, and if
the latter, if that is to be taken in a passive sense ("the unknown
one") or in an active sense ("the unknowing one"). In the latter
case, the word must originally have been "girl" [or perhaps "virgin"
if we interpret "to know" in the 'Biblical' sense] as is the case with
a number of other negative compounds denoting young people (unknowing,
unspeaking, unable), such as perhaps PIE *ne-pot-, or Lat. infans,
Greek ne:pios, Pol. niemowle~, Irish no:diu (< *no-widio:n-), all
"child, infant".
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...