From: alexandru_mg3
Message: 54057
Date: 2008-02-23
>Thanks Brian too...
> At 5:20:24 PM on Saturday, February 23, 2008, alexandru_mg3 wrote:
>
> > 1. On my side I consider that the right root [for Latin
> > <geminus> and Skt. <yama'->] is *g^em-
>
> > 2. But if we take a look here
>
> > http://www.indoeuropean.nl/cgi-bin/response.cgi?
> > root=leiden&morpho=0&basename=%5Cdata%5Cie%5Cceltic&first=1191
>
> > you can see that the proposed cognates for Celtic
> > *yem-o-no are Lat. geminus and Skt. yam'a-
>
> > Anybody could help me with a clarification here?
>
> So far as I can tell, no one thinks that <geminus> is
> *regularly* derived from *yemo-no-. Pokorny thought that
> the /g/ was probably from his *gem- 'greifen,
> zusammenpressen', and Watkins only tentatively assigns
> <geminus> to his *yem- ('Perhaps altered in Latin
> <geminus>').
>
> Not everyone agrees, however. At Google Books I was able to
> see Eric P. Hamp's 'The Indo-European terms for "marriage"'
> in Languages and Cultures: Studies in Honor of Edgar C.
> Polomé (Trends in Linguistics 36):
>
> It seems to me that Schwartz is clearly correct (p. 200)
> in attributing to *g'em- the primary meaning of 'pairing,
> coupling', which is reflected in Rig-Vedic <vi-já:man->
> 'paired, twin' and Latin <geminus>. The development of
> the sense 'twin' for Irish <emon> from the base *yem-
> 'grasp together' is, as Schwarz implies, quite another
> matter.
>
> The reference is to Martin Schwartz, Monumentum H.S. Nyberg,
> Acta Iranica II. 1975. 195-211.
>
> Later he glosses *g'em- 'pair, couple; copulate, mate,
> consummate a marriage', adding 'I have been present at
> Balkan wedding feasts where this act has been ritually
> attested to by the institutional waving -- with some
> embarrassment and not with obscenity -- of a blood-stained
> cloth'.
>
> Brian