Re: Re[2]: [tied] Latinus geminus

On Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 4:28 AM, Brian M. Scott <BMScott@...> wrote:

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

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