G&P:
>> I had an idea a couple of years ago that <aeque> "equally, evenly"
>> should be parsed as <ae>+<que> in the same way as <susque> and <deque>.
>
> Unfortunately, (a) the final que has a long vowel; (b) we're stuck with
> the adjective aequus. It seems unavoidable that the root is *aequ-
Thanks. Perhaps I'll try again -- I'm never as eloquent as I imagine. I
had several ideas, confusing them then but even more in retrospect. The
first was that the ending <-i:cus> itself could stem from a -- uh --
cliticization of the "icon"-word, say something like *Hei-k- "alike".
The next was that the root element of that word could be <ae(u)> from
<aeuom> "even(ly)" or "continuous" or some such. Then I thought that
<aeque> could be from <ae(u)-> and <-i:cus>, with <anti:que> as a
parallel, but also that the ending could be <que> as in <deque>, using
the supposed root <ae(u)->. But at least the latter would need
reanalysis to yield the adjective and the verb ... It all ended in my
usual level of confusion.
Of course, such ideas have been turned up and down before by far more
knowledgeable people than me, and me returning them with no theoretical
backing is pretty much worthless. But on a couple of occasions handing
miscellaneous thoughts to Douglas has been quite productive. This time I
was encouraged by him apparently turning some of the same ideas, and if
my contribution should be useless I could always hope for some light on
the base of my confusion.
--
Trond Engen