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Re: ad-



Ah yes, the problem of prefixes...

I've had a similar problem just a few days ago, trying to find
words for "be present" and "be absent".  For the former, there 
was already |adsere (adsóu, adsés, adsíx...)|, which probably
should be |azere (adsóu, azés, azíx)| instead, though the -ds-
could have spread to the other forms by analogy.  Jovian likes
to drop initial schwas, but then there would have been 
ambiguities here: |haen side| [hEn dzi:d] "they were" and |haen
dside| [hEn dzi:d] would sound the same.  Still, it would be a
small problem, since "be" and "be present" aren't that different.

However, if I try to derive "be absent" from {abesse}, I get the
forms |adsóu| (1sg), |adsume| (1pl) and |adsón| (3pl) identical
to the corresponding forms of "be present".  That sucks.

On the other hand, if I use {deesse}, I get |dsou, des, dix| etc.
These are pretty spiffy, except that the past participle |dside|
would again clash with the forms derived from {esse} and 
{adesse}.  I guess I could replace |dsou|, |dside| etc with 
|desóu|, |deside| etc, but that would feel somewhat unjovian.

Do you consider it realistic to use other Latin words as a base
for "be present" and "be absent"?  |Praeesse| or |inesse| for 
the former, maybe?


-- Christian Thalmann