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Re: Icelandic 'sem'/Swedish 'som' etymology?

From:Benct Philip Jonsson <bpjonsson@...>
Date:Monday, June 26, 2006, 15:40
Henrik Theiling skrev:
> Hi! > > Benct Philip Jonsson writes: > >>Henrik Theiling skrev: >> >>>Hi! >>>What is 'sem' in Icelandic derived from? Or Swedish 'som' or Faroese >>>'sum' (i.e., the modern North Germanic relative clause particle)? >>>I could not find a convincing etymology online and unfortunately don't >>>seem to have the appropriate books. >> >>Go to <http://tinyurl.com/fkz7l> and look for Root / lemma "sem-2". >>NB there is no space between the hyphen and the 2! > > > I did not find the relative pronoun cognates in this query. Why is it > this root the relative pronoun derives from? I probably missed > something.
True, but there is the pronominal adjective _samr_ which de Vries says is cognate. Hellquist's "Svensk etymologisk ordbok" says that _som/sum_ is from _sem_ in unstressed syllable (he probably means that the vowel first became @-ish and then became labialized by the following /m/). Hellquist too says that it derives from IE *sem, and relates it to Skt. _sam-_, OSax., OHG _sama/samo_ etc. -- /BP 8^)> -- Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot (Max Weinreich)

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Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>