h₁epi-gʷem-
“to come upon, arrive at”supervene, souvenir, convene, event
Compound yielding Latin supervenīre, English supervene, souvenir, convene, event.
Discussion
The compound *h₁epi-gʷem- reconstructs a Proto-Indo-European formation meaning "to come upon, to arrive at," built from the preverb *h₁epi ("upon, at, near") and the root *gʷem- ("to come, to go"). The labio-velar *gʷ followed distinct paths in the daughter branches: in Latin it yielded ven- (from *gʷem- via *gʷen- with nasal present), producing venīre ("to come"), while the preverb *h₁epi surfaces in various Latin prefixal forms. Convenīre ("to come together") gave English convene and convention, encoding the idea of multiple parties arriving at one place or one agreement. Supervenīre ("to come upon from above") yielded supervene, a term preserved in philosophical and legal discourse. Perhaps most evocative is the French descendant souvenir, from Latin subvenīre ("to come up from below, to come to mind"), which acquired the specialized meaning of a memory or memento — something that comes up to the surface of consciousness. Greek baínein ("to go, to walk") connects to the same root, with the labio-velar yielding b in Greek, generating basis ("a stepping") and the agent suffix -batēs seen in acrobat. In the Germanic branch, the root underwent the expected sound changes to produce Old English cuman, Modern English come, while the compound *wil-kuman- ("one who comes as desired") yielded welcome. The semantic coherence across five millennia — from the reconstructed *h₁epi-gʷem- through Latin adventus to English adventure — testifies to the enduring centrality of motion and arrival in Indo-European conceptual vocabulary.