Latin perfects and Fluent Etruscan in 30 days!

[Max W Wheeler]

On am-:

On Mon, 21 Jun 1999, Eduard Selleslagh wrote:

> May I add the following element to the data: Lat. 'amb-' ('around'), a
> prepositional prefix (Greek 'amphí'), and Catalan 'amb' ('with'), probably
> derived from the former.  I  think the 'b' (Grk. 'ph') is hardly a phonetic
> problem.

> Ed.

Catalan <amb> ~ [am], and Occitan <ambe> ~ <ame> ~ <eme>, however, are
not the original forms of the preposition meaning 'with'. This was <ab>
in both languages, from Latin <apud> 'at', 'chez'. It is likely that
[am] was originally a conditioned variant before nasal consonants. Since
<en> `in' had a variant [em] before labial consonants, these
prepositions mutually influenced each other in form, and in part in
meaning. In Catalan <viatjar amb avió> and <viatjar en avió> are both
current for `travel by plane, fly'; in spoken Valencian <en> has
replaced <ab> ~ <amb> altogether. The influence spreads to the
preposition <a> < L. <ad> `to'. Colloquial Catalan has <li vaig dir amb
ella> ~ <li vaig dir an ella> `I said to her'; standard <li vaig dir a
ella>.

However, the main problem with Ed's etymology (apart from the timing) is
that Lat. <amb(i)-> is not a preposition. It is rare as a prefix, and
dubiously productive. And Catalan <amb> is not a prefix.

But in any case, hasn't *mbhi got a perfectly good IE pedigree, nothing
to do with am- of Lat. amare?

Max
___________________________________________________________________________
Max W. Wheeler <maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk>
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QH, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1273 678975; fax: +44 (0)1273 671320
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