Re: s->h


"Dušan Vukotić" <dusan.vukotic@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Can you explain the etymology of the Spanish word 'pasado', but do not
tell me only "this word is from Latin, Greek, Gothic, Celtic, Persian,
Sanskrit..." etc.
What is the exact basis of the word 'pasado'? What sound changes
occurred before that word gained its present form?
Simple questions, are they not?
I hardly can wait to see your "well-known" answer.

You can start breathing again now. Here it is:

Latin "passus" step, pace was verbed in the colloquial language to "passare", to move onward, proceed. It had the regular past participle "passadum". Final "m" was lost by late Latin, geminate consonants including "-ss-" became non-geminate in Iberian Romance some time during the first millenium, and unstressed final "-u" opened to "-o" in early Castillian Spanish.

The Latin noun "passus" comes from Old Latin "padtus" by the regular sound change "-dt-" > "-ss-" . That is, "pad-" stretch" with suffix "-t-" denoting verbal action (the stretch of the legs in walking). The verb "pandere", stretch, bend (PP "passus") is cognate. "Pad-" and "pand-" apparently come from PIE "*pandos", bent (as does Old Norse fattr).

Serbian "put", Sanskrit "pantha:s-", Avestan 'pa(n)T-", Greek "patos" and "pontis", Latin "pons", old Irish "a:itt", Armenian "hun", English "find", all come from PIE "*pent-", find one's way -- and are not related to "*pand-", as far as I know. (But IANAL...)

And none of these have anything to do with Serbian prefix "po-" (<*pos)

J.

.

Relevant Pages

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