Re: Gesserit [was: RE: Dune Conlang]
From: | Grandsire, C.A. <grandsir@...> |
Date: | Friday, November 12, 1999, 13:47 |
FFlores wrote:
>
> Lars Henrik Mathiesen <thorinn@...> wrote:
> > FFlores wrote:
> > > How do you break _gesserit_ down? It looks absolutely non-Latin to me!
> > > (Plus, how do you *pronounce* it?)
>
> > gero (1) gerere gessi gestum. Lit. (1) [to carry , bear]; esp. [to
> > wear]. (2) [to bear, give birth to]. Transf., [to carry about,
> > display an appearance]; 'personam gerere', [to act a part]; 'se
> > gerere', [to conduct oneself (with adv.); to carry about, entertain
> > a feeling; to carry on, conduct, manage business]; 'res gestae',
> > [exploits, esp. warlike exploits].
>
> Oh! I'd never imagined such amount of irregularity. But it turns
> out that *this* must be the root of Spanish _gerente_ 'manager'
> (as in a company's department). The semantics are strange, but
> it seems to fit after you imagine a lot of meaning shifts...
> _Gerente_ is practically a 'semantic isolate' (?); the root
> is not used in Spanish, AFAIK, in any other word (well, there's
> the verb _gerenciar_, of direct Latin origin, or maybe analogical),
> and the name for the charge and the activity, _gerencia_.
>
In French, we have "ge'rant" (cognate with Spanish _gerente_), the name
of the activity is "ge'rance" and the verb is "ge'rer".
--
Christophe Grandsire
Philips Research Laboratories -- Building WB 145
Prof. Holstlaan 4
5656 AA Eindhoven
The Netherlands
Phone: +31-40-27-45006
E-mail: grandsir@natlab.research.philips.com