Re: [tied] mereu

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex" wrote:

>>> You just took the wrong root in Pokorny. Try with #1233 for
>>> "mare" & "mai"
>>
>> 1. You still avoid to discuss the main issue, that is "mereu" not
>> being related at all with "mare" or with "mai";
>> 2. "mare" & "mai" are still unrelated in Romanian, the latter is
>> the comparative, coming from Latin "magis" (`more`, `to a greater
>> extent`) as well as Italian "mai", Cat., Occ. "més", Fr. "mais",
>> Sp. "más", Port. "mais"; Romanian "mare" could have a mixed story
>> out of "mas/marem" but not interfering with Latin "magis".
>
> I do not avoid to discusse. I simply don't see the hungarian word
> as being the basis for the Rom. word from the semanticaly aspect
> here. The word "mereu" does not mean anything as rigide or fix

Of course it does. A thing lasting `for ever` in time is fixed,
does not change [*].

> 1)-it shows a continuity at several time intervals, something which
> become more and more

Not "more and more" but "continuously". That is "without change" ->
fixed.

> 2)-it shows an action which grows slowly, without haste

That meaning exists only in your imagination. Romanian word means
`always, all the time, (for) ever; ceaselessly`. It does not mean
`_growing_ all the time`. It can be used in such contexts but it
still needs another word referring to growth.

> How we draw it the meaning is of something which become "more"
> and not something which is rigide or fixed.

You could have learned it from my previous message, it's still a
matter of not being blind to keep in mind the phrase labeled by [*]
at the beginning of this message.

> Beside Hungarian "ö" is not reflected as "eu" in Rom. but simply
> "o".

Yeah, right. See "heleSteu", "hinteu", "feredeu", etc. or the
whole bunch of Transylvanian placenames ending in -eu or -ãu.

> Thus it appears to me to be in the same family with "mare" and
> "mai" since is related to "making more, keeping more".

Never mind about nonsense.

> Your comparation with italian "mai" has by no means any probant
> value as being from Latin "magis" since the semantic aspect of
> the Rom. word is _another_ as the Italian one;

Well, as expected, you just jumped on wrong conclusions from a
very superficial analysis. In which concerns meaning, the first
thing to look is not Italian "mai" but Latin "magis": `to a greater
extent, more nearly`; `rather, instead`; `more`; forms comparative
of an adjective. Exactly as Romanian "mai". Now, in order to find
this sense also for Italian word you should look in old texts (but
this literary meaning is still known by nowdays Italians, out of
the shifted meaning `never`): "per far sempre mai verdi i miei
desiri" says Alighieri or "mai sì che lo conosco" Boccaccio. So
the meaning shifted _in Italian_ (and French: "jamais"), not in
Romanian -- so much about your inability to accept valid paths of
semantical slips which are rather current not only for Romanian
but also for Western Romance. Of course, you did ignore Ibero-
Romance forms having preserved the comparative meaning.

> In fact, for making the comparative, Rom. has again a special
> place in this Romance system since it is different as the
> comparative of Romance languages

You are just totally ignorant. The comparative is the same in
Ibero-Romance and it's just another word having got over the time
the very same meaning into a similar pattern for Italian & French.

> One assumption can be that "mai" is in fact the reduced form of
> "mãri" and "mai mult" is "mãri mult";

BS

> As for "magis" I have a lot against lost of intervocalic "g" in
> Rom.

It was lost in all Romance, so it's safely a late VL phenomenon,
not specifical to Eastern Romance (speaking of "magis").

Marius Iacomi