--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
>
> W dniu 2010-03-16 01:53, dgkilday57 pisze:
>
> > All right, I stand corrected. Celtic *nemeto- it is. Nevertheless I see
> > no particular advantage to presuming that *-esto- originated by
> > conflation ("dialectal" or otherwise) of regular *-eto- with the
> > non-final stem-form *-es-; perhaps I missed something earlier in the thread.
>
> It accounts e.g. for the absence of o-derivatives od es-stems in PIE.
> Adjectives in *-to- are usually deverbal rather than denominative, but
> traces of *-t/s- alternations are found here and there.
I wonder whether *nemeto- might have been remodelled after *weneto-, or perhaps derived from a laryngeal-final root itself.
For Italic at least, Buck's view (Oscan and Umbrian Grammar, sec. 259), that adjectives of this sort are formed directly from noun-stems with the participial suffix *-to-, seems adequate. The first conjugation is highly productive in denominatives. From *gHasta: 'spear' (for example) we can derive *gHasta:- 'to equip with a spear', and the participle *gHasta:-tos 'equipped with a spear' (Latin <hasta:tus>, Umbrian acc. pl. <hostatu>). With verbs like *gHasta:- falling largely into disuse, it would be natural for Italic-speakers to extract *-tos as a denominal suffix indicating possession or association. Thus we have Italic *medes-tos 'having proper measure, right, just' (Lat. <modestus> by crossing with <modus>, Umb. <mersto> acc. sg. m.) from the /es/-stem *medes-, *medos (Umb. <mers>).
With <honor> and <honestus>, I think we are dealing with reflexes of IE *g^Hen- 'to raise, elevate, take up' vel sim. The /es/-stem *g^Henes-, *g^Henos 'raising, elevation' would become in Old Latin *henes-, *henos. The nom./acc. sg. would undergo /o/-umlaut, just as *hemo: (old acc. <hemonem>, Paul. Fest.) went to <homo:>. This umlauted root-vowel would then spread from *honos to the other cases and the associated adjective *henestos, hence Lat. <honestus>. The old sense of this adjective, 'elevated', survives in the legal term <honestior>, which is contrasted to <humilior>. In the later Empire, the distinction between honestiores and humiliores effectively replaced the old one between patricians and plebeians.
Like <amor>, <labor>, <timor>, and some others, <honor> (older <hono:s>, still common in classical Latin) is an abstract deverbal noun which can be used concretely. OL *heno:s would have been umlauted to <hono:s> as above. The sense 'raising' has been specialized in two basic ways. On the one hand, <honor> is 'elevation to public office', hence 'public office, magistracy' and figuratively 'distinction, honor'. On the other hand, <honor> is 'elevation of an offering to the gods', hence 'sacrificial animal on the altar' and 'libation on the table'. Both these latter literal senses are found in the Aeneid, and the attempt to explain them as 'honor paid to the gods' in apposition to omitted nouns meaning 'offering' is very clumsy.
The IE root *g^Hen- was postulated by Wiedemann (Etymologien. 1. Got. <du-ginnan> usw., BB 27:193-205, 1901) to explain Proto-Albanian *zeno: (Tosk <ze.:>, Gheg <za,>) 'I take; seize; begin; hire; conceive (a child)' as well as the Germanic group which includes Gothic <du-ginnan>, Old English <on-ginnan>, <be-ginnan>, etc., 'to begin'. The Gmc. geminate is explained by a generalized present stem *g^Hen-w- or *g^Hen-n- corresponding to the Sanskrit 8th or 9th present class. In my view an original sense 'to pick up, take up, raise, suscipere, tollere' for *g^Hen- explains the attested senses of these words reasonably well, and those of <honor> and <honestus>.
DGK