From: dgkilday57
Message: 65621
Date: 2010-01-12
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@> wrote:But if not Germanic, then what? It would have had to be borrowed before Grimm's Law as *kemil- or whatever, and that gives no advantage that I can see over assuming a derivative of inherited *k^em-, regardless of the difficulty in finding exact morphological parallels for the whole set of words. I am not ruling out the possibility of a loan, but mere l/n-suffix-alternation does not raise a red flag. In fact, by chance I ran across two Gmc. examples of -n > -l in loanwords: OHG <kumil> beside <kumin> from Lat. <cuminum> 'cumin', and Westf. <laemmel> from Lat. <lamina> 'layer'. But all these illustrate is that the suffix-alternation in inherited words was sufficiently common to be generalized. They do not make such an alternation diagnostic of loanwords.
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@> wrote:
> > >
> > > At 9:19:31 PM on Thursday, January 7, 2010, dgkilday57
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > [...]
> > >
> > > >>> In <himilizzi> usw. the Gmc. suffix *-itja apparently
> > > >>> functions as a collective, parallel to its use in OE
> > > >>> <Elmet> 'Elmwood' (cf. Kluge, Nom. Stammb. 2. Aufl. 36).
> > >
> > > I meant to address this before. My understanding is that
> > > the OE name is borrowed from Brit. *Elmet- (whence <Elfed>,
> > > the name of a cantref in Dyfed), and that Hamp at some point
> > > suggested that a Brit. *lim(-e:ton) 'elm-grove' might be
> > > involved.
> >
> > All right, that works well, and explains the isolation of <Elmet>, which thus cannot be used as a parallel to <himilizzi>.
>
> Unless of course you accept that *himil- etc is not Germanic.