On 2006-09-22 14:47, tgpedersen wrote:
> I'll read that as: and that is a reason to believe ...
> If we assume that every lost branch in NWEurope had -tt- > -ss-
> we will have to separate the words in -tt- from those in -ss- or
> account for them as taboo distortions. I find it strange that the
> taboo distortion in both words went -ss- -> -tt-, ie. back to
> where it had come from. I don't think your restriction holds.
I don't regard *-tt- as a taboo distortion of *-ss- or as a reversal of
the change, but as a doublet form, closely related but separable. I
think *-tt- goes back to *-tn- > *-dn- > *-dd- (with occasional
metathesis producing *-nd- > *-nt-, which escapes nasal assimilation).
*kunto:n- is discussed in Lühr's Habilitationsschrift among the possible
examples of "die 'expressive' Nasalierung im Germanischen". She notes
the -tt- variants but doesn't dicuss the possibility of metathesis.
Instead, she suspects the contamination of *kutto:n- (MHG kotze, etc.)
with *kunði- in the meaning 'gender, sex' --> 'genitals', which looks a
bit far-fetched to me. The connection with the Latin word seems to good
to be rejected lightly (if the Germanic term is a loan, the source could
even be something "Italoid").
Piotr