Re: That old Odin scenario ...

On 2008-05-04 17:04, tgpedersen wrote:

> It is difficult in at least Russian to analyze out the *em- verb from
> prefixed compounds of it, since the preverbs add an extra -n-. From
> that one might be false analysis arrive at a root *nem-. Now if that
> process had been more widespread in the IE languages, the vacillation
> between *em- and *nem- could be explained that way.

If we are talking about Proto-Slavic, you don't have to abstract
*(j)eNti (*(j)ImoN) out of anything. It's very well attested on its own
(OCS jeNti/imoN, ORu jati/imu, Ukr. jaty/jmu, Pol. ja,c'/(OPol.) ime,,
Serb./Cr. jeti/imem, etc.), and of course not _all_ preverbs add an
extra -n-, even in Russian. By contrast, there is no +neNti/+nImoN in
any Slavic language

Piotr