jheem the examples you give are very helpful and I am grateful to you (re medio-passive suffixes). I agree these are nominalized adjectives.

Nor do I disagree at all (and indeed I cited) the examples from Greek which you give eg Gr. θήλυς, θηλή. In the same semantic subset I also give τιθηνειν with immediate relative forms τιθήνη and τιθηνός.

My feeling is that there is a degree of non-specificity in the standard etymologies - when the formal and semantic variants in fact indicate such specificity.

I posited a Mediterranean variant *dhel- which I advanced is found in Gr. θήλυς, θηλή and L. *felios, the latter with the most literal sense of on the nipple. One poster gave a useful equivalent in another Italic language to similar effect. This posited specialism of PIE (Medit) *dhel- is probably also found in L. felix. L. *felios could itself directly come from an unattested Gr. θήλιος, in other words a Greek adjective formed on θηλή.

But I also argued that this dhel- specialism was not represented in L. femina - that coming from the same fundamental group (that I never disputed), but with the anterior (and less specialized) semantic content of simple production/fertility as against suckling. (It is hardly less sexist but that is not my fault.) A small but significant different in semantics and form. The taxonomy of etymology is still basic, and at the same time more complex, than it should be, by which I mean differences are ignored and false connexions made.

Your comments on the orthography of L. fellare are also enlightening - I acknowledge in my article that L. fellare could indeed be related to the same group, albeit tangentially. As stated I give full reference to the related Gr. vocabulary. I also give extensive reference to the Greek (and other vocabulary) relating to PIE. dhe-, dhei- and dheig- considered as one group with subsets. But however that argument is to be resolved, and even accepting the relation, I still do not see the Mediterranean *dhel- specialism in L. femina. If one fully accepts your argument (and I can see it is one of great erudition), you are positing a form *dhe(i)(l)men which points to an archaic Latin form in *felmen feminized to *felmina. (And of course -men/-min are indistinguishable here because of the Latin comparanda you give the genitive stems are -min.) We know the -e- in fel- is long (or should be if related to *felare) so felm- would naturally simplify to fem- rather than femm-. You present a great argument, to the extent that I have even added to it, after some thought.

I have been giving the entire subject some thought since posting here, in particularly with reference to how serious and vehement this stuff can become. I had the very funny thought (funny to me) that, for all the discussion between us, L. femina could have originated as the plural of L. femen ie as somewhat coarse sexist slang thighs, and then undergone some moderate to strong am(m)elioration (and a neuter plural to feminine singular transformation) to become a normal word for female.

In 3000 years from now, etymologists may be having fervent discussion over the word swich meaning woman, without knowing of an intermediate form swichikz coming from 20c. slang “sweet cheeks”. It is difficult to reconstruct (in detail) the thinking of 3000 years ago.

jheem we are looking at these things on a similar level and I read your posts with great interest.

Edward, if you take a look at the link to Pokorny’s dictionary which I gave above, you’ll see that the main entry is for the root *dhē(i)-, which also exists in an augmented form representing a set of cognates in *dhēl-. The -l- is an affix of some sort. The laryngealist (link) form of the root is given in Mallory and Adams dictionary of IE as: *dheh₁(i)-, which accounts for the lengthening of the e. So, there’s no l to account for in Latin femina as it comes directly down from the root without the affixed l.

Addendum: historical linguists fall into roughly two camps: (1) those who believe that reconstructions in a proto-language are the real thing as uttered by speakers of PIE and (2) those who take reconstructions as a kind of tip of the iceberg pointing at all the literature of philologists who have worked on the etymologies in the extant descendant languages. Before criticizing the common consensus on the etymology of a word, I would be sure to read up as much as possible the actual literature, outside of specialist or general dictionaries whose etymologies tend to be non-controversial and abridged, to see what’s what, before tackling proposing of a new etymology. Historical linguistics has been over two centuries in the making and there is a lot there to consider. Crafting etymologies is not just about looking for chance similarities. For example, if I went into a classical philologists list and posted that I had a new etymology for the place-name Athens from the Old English āðennan ‘to stretch out, expand’ because the Acropolis was this giant swelling over the rest of the city, I should not be at all surprised that my conjectures would meet with hostility or indifference.

As for the actual mechanism of linguistic change, I’d hazard to say that almost 99.9% of it is unconscious on the part of the speakers.

jheem, I think we are in complete agreement here. You say:-

“So, there’s no l to account for in Latin femina as it comes directly down from the root without the affixed l.”

This is precisely my point. You said in a sentence what I said over several hundred words. The *dhel- group, which clearly exists, is distinct from L. femina [albeit both of course manifestations of the basic root *dhe(i)].

Prompted by your reference to Pokorny, I just had a look at Starostin “Babel” to see this (from a search for L. femina):

“Proto-IE: *pēimen-, *bh- ?

Meaning: girl

Germanic: *faim-ōn- f., *faimin-jō f.

Latin: fēmina, -ae f. ‘Frau’

References: [Different in WP and Pok.]”

Interesting to see that Starostin is in disagreement with his tutor Pokorny. This seems to be a radical departure. Starostin is going much further than I have. As for a basic sense of “girl”, well this is really too much. As for the PGmc. roots Starostin proposes, I am unware of any such forms. After two hundred years, one might think some controversies could be resolved.

"After two hundred years, one might think some controversies could be resolved.”

By what means?