Gothic <-ws> is found only after
vowels (<gw> is a special case -- a labiovelar consonant).
<-lws> is impossible also in Gothic. <walwjan> and <wilwan>
only show that postconsonantal /w/ could occur before vowels and glides (as in
my examples -- *-alwaz, etc.). Where it occurred, <-ws> (in Wulfila's
late Gothic dialect) resulted from vowel reduction in the original ending,
e.g. saiws < *saiwaz. When representic Gothic words and proper names,
the Romans substituted their own equivalent morphology, replacing final -s
(< -*az) with their own -us.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2002 6:58 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Pliny's "Guthalvs"
I wrote:
<<If the Germanic word had originally been
something like "Guthalws," Pliny
would have seen <Guthalvs> in his
sources, and would have written what he saw
-- not knowing if the <v>
stood for a /w/ or a /u/--->>
Piotr replied:
<<However,
"-alws" is not a permissible Germanic sound combination. It would
have had
to be -alwaz, *-alwiz, or *-alw-o:n- to be phonetically and
morphologically
plausible,...>>
Let me stop you there. My Gothic dictionary
gives some examples of -ws and
-alw-:
áiws, sm. time, lifetime, age,
world
ni áiw, never
alêws, adj. of olives;
saggws, sm. song,
music
triggws, adj. true, faithful
af-walw-jan, wv. I, to roll
away
wilw-an, sv. III, to rob, plunder, take by force
So why again is
-alws or -alw- against all Germanic sound laws?