[B-Greek] GENNAW

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Fri May 27 11:10:04 EDT 2005


 
On Friday, May 27, 2005, at 10:36AM, George F Somsel <gfsomsel at juno.com> wrote:

>On Fri, 27 May 2005 07:09:05 -0700 william zeitler
><william at faithfulbible.com> writes:
>> > They are simply the same word- one now obsolete in English and the 
>> other
>> > not.
>> 
>> Hmm... are they REALLY "the same word"?
>> 
>> 'Beget': to father or sire.
>> 'Birth': a. The emergence and separation of offspring from the body 
>> of the
>> mother.
>> (http://www.thefreedictionary.com)
>> 
>_________
>
>BTW:  No, they are not the same word.  Their origins are, in fact,
>different.

This isn't quite right -- nor is it quite wrong. In fact the same root GEN/GON/GN underlies both GINOMAI "be born" and GENNAW "father/beget" but GENNAW has the additional formative element -NA- which gives a causative force to the root.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



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