From: Torsten
Message: 69039
Date: 2012-03-20
>Various German verbs bremen, bremsen, premen, all "brake" (once done by pressing something against the wheel), eg
>
> > I've never been clear on the origin of the alternation seen in the
> > Latin verb <premo> / <premere> / <pressi> / <pressus>. The IEW's
> > position (IEW pp.818-19), if I understand it correctly, is that
> > <prem-> and <pres-> show two different (and semantically opaque)
> > derivational suffixes attached to the same stem, but I don't know
> > of a single other Latin verb that shows this kind of contrast
> > within a single paradigm. Are there any other theories on the
> > origin of the <premere> / <pressus> alternation?
>
> There is one other verb root which shows similar variants: *trem- ~
> *tres- 'tremble'. As opposed to *prem- ~ *pres- (or *pret/d-?
> otherwise the <-ss-> in <pressus> must be analogical) ~ *prem-, both
> *trem- and *tres- can be found outside Italic, hence the frequently
> repeated suggestion that *prem- ~ *pres- owes its existence to the
> influence or *trem- ~ *tres-. Of course the latter pair is as
> puzzling as the former, but there are other examples of alliterating
> "extended" roots like *drem-, *drah2-, *dreu- 'run' or *gWem-,
> *gWah2- 'move, come', presumably scattered relicts of barely
> reconstructible pre-PIE morphology. It's all guesswork, of course.
>
> > My best guess so far is that the <-m-> of <premo> / <premere> is a
> > nasal infix, assimilated to a labial under the influence of the
> > initial <p->, though that doesn't fully explain what the original > > stem would have been (<pressi> could reflect <*pred->, <*pret->,
> > <*pres->, or perhaps simply <*pre->). Do you see any problems with
> > this theory?
>
> Extra-Italic cognates have *per- 'push, hit, fight' (with no
> extensions).