Sergejus:
> Just for the record: how would you etymologize *nestera 'niece'?
> *(h2)nep-t-ter-eh2 (vs. *netIjI < *(h2)nep-t-i-o), like Derksen?
Piotr:
> Either that, i.e. *nept-ih2 contaminated with the -(h2)ter- family
> terms (I think this solution was first proposed by Meillet), or,
> perhaps, *neti (also attested) contaminated with *sestra.
If the other IE family terms in *-xter were patterned on an original
misanalysis of the leader of the family *pxter- (ie: **p(a)-xter- <
nursery term *pa 'daddy', instead of *px-ter- < *pex- 'to feed') to
begin with, then it would appear that this contamination was a very
long term process.
As for, *nepot-, I'd have to take the view that it's an IndoTyrrhenian
term. Given both Lemnian /nafutH/ and Etruscan /nefts'/, deriving
the term for 'grandson' from Latin doesn't seem sensible, leaving
open a possibility for a Tyrrhenian term *nefota and a relationship
with *nepot- which would be have to be *nepata- in MIE based on
the standard Vowel Shift and QAR. Later, the treatment of *-ot-
as an unetymological pseudofix would be a natural product of the
spread of new paradigmatic accent patterns in Late IE.
= gLeN