[Ads-l] casemate ~ casement

W Brewer brewerwa at GMAIL.COM
Fri Jul 8 03:55:13 UTC 2016


Wikip:  << A casemate, sometimes erroneously rendered casement, is a
fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which guns are fired. >>
WB:  No nasal spread here. Italian <casamatta> being far in the past, this
obscure <-mate> looks like a [+human] homonym, leading to reinterpretation
as the high-frequency [-ment] suffix, as in <casement window>; cf. somewhat
semantically relevant <basement>.

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