Re: That old Odin scenario ...

On 2008-05-04 13:33, tgpedersen wrote:

> But -t before plural -i beconmes -ci, right?

No. It remains as *-ti, we have further palatalisation to <-ci> /-ts'i/
in Polish (not to be confused with <cy> /-tsI/ from *-k- before the
masculine plural *-i (second palatalisation, the regressive part).
Elsewhere in Slavic it's just -ti.

> Well compare DEO
> 'nem [easy] adj, MDa, No. id., OSw. næmber, ON næmr "leaning easily",
> -næmr "what can be taken or learned" in cmpds. like fastnæmr
> "steadfast", netnæmr "which can be taken with a net", uppnæmr "which
> can be defeated", tornæmr "difficult to learn", corrsp. to 2nd elmt.
> of Gothic andane:ms, Germ. angenehm "pleasant"; from Germ. *ne:mia-,
> varbal adj. of II nemme ["take, grasp,; get an impression or
> understanding of"]. - Cf. fingernem ["good with one's hands"], ...
> lærenem ["eager to learn"]... tungnem ["slow in understanding"]
> '
> and I nemme "capacity for understanding" (< *na:mia).
>
> It seems 'nem' is short for some sort of compound (*let-nem?); Slavic
> *nemU could be too (cf. 'tungnem'), cf. also today 'nem' "easy" being
> used of people who are fooled easily. What to do with the n- is of
> course an old problem, namely how to draw a borderline between PIE
> *em- and *nem-.

Is that supposed to account for *ne^mU 'speechless'? Anyway, Slavic
(alongside Celtic, Italic, Baltic, Tocharian and possibly Anatolian) has
reflexes of *h1em- only (none of *nem-), so the *ne- + *h1em- etymology
is not particularly problematic _within_ Slavic.

Piotr