Double nasal presents

Abstract

Double nasal presents—presents containing both a nasal infix and a nasal suffix—are found in Greek (type λιμπάνω ‘leave’), Celtic (e.g., OIr. ro·finnadar (< *wind-n-) ‘get to know’), and Germanic (Go. du-ginnan (← *-gunnan < *gund-n-) ‘begin’). It is argued here that all such formations have a common origin. The starting point was the nasal-infix present of the root *ghed- ‘grasp’, which originally had the form *gh(n̥)néd-/*ghn̥d-´. With the reinterpretation of the root as *ghend-, the strong stem of the nasal-infix present was remade to *ghn̥d-né/ó-, and in the post-IE period the pattern was extended to other nasal-infix presents (*lin(é)kw- → *linkw-né/ó-, *u̯in(é)d- → *u̯ind-né/ó-, etc.). A corollary of the analysis is that the -a- of the Greek and Armenian presents in *-ane/o- (< *-n̥ne/o-) is epenthetic, and that the absence of a nasal in the root syllable of Arm. lkʿanem, gtanem, etc. is secondary.