On 2006-03-30 00:06, gleyink wrote:
> Are there any examples of a PIE prefix that
> CANNOT be plausibly derived from an independent lexeme? If not,
> the "usual negative answer" is, I suppose, a semi-accurate reflection
> of this state of affairs.
Jens's O-fix is one possible example, although, for obvious reasons, any
guesses about its ultimate origin are pure speculation at the present
state of our knowledge. At the very least, it has no obvious etymology,
and it does play a grammatical function (forming causative/iterative
verbs). I wonder if the mysterious prefix *o- that appears here and
there, as in *o-hwi-o-m 'egg', o-sd-o-s 'perch' (if in fact related to
*sed-) or *o-tl(h2)-o-s (Gk. otlos 'suffering', from *telh2- 'bear [fig.
suffer]') is the same thing. It's remarkable to what extent the effects
produced by the "Rasmussen *O" resemble compositional reduction: the
Saussurean loss of laryngeals is analogous to what normally happens in
the second element of compounds; ditto the simplification of consonant
clusters (as in *tormos < O-trh1-mn-o-), cf. RV vira-ps'-a- (<
*-pk^w-o-). This _may_ be pure convergence, but still the similarity is
striking.
Piotr