Re: [tied] Germanic prefixes and Verner's Law [was: German "ge-" be

From: Miguel Carrasquer
Message: 25013
Date: 2003-08-08

On Fri, 08 Aug 2003 19:10:30 +0200, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

>08-08-03 14:57, Miguel Carrasquer wrote:
>
>
>>>Leaving this marginal problem apart, the question remains why we don't
>>>get *ber-/*bra-/*bur- (no matter if the initial was phonetically *[b-]
>>>or *[B-]) rather than *fer-/*fra-/*fur- in unstressed prefixes.
>>
>> Yes. Is *ga- the only preverb affected by Verner's law?
>
>I think so. Interestingly, *ga- is also exceptional in that it has no
>free-standing counterpart and that it's _always_ unstressed, not only in
>verbs but also in nouns and adjectives. Thus, while hypothetical *bur-'
>would have alternated with *'fur- and with the free adprep that yields
>Eng. <for>, *ga- did not alternate with anything. Isolated archaic forms
>like *xanso: < *xansso: < *kom-dH(h1)t-ah2 were synchronically obscure
>and didn't count morphophonologically. What I'm suggesting is of course
>that the effect of Verner's Law was _eliminated_ very soon in the case
>of the alternating suffix but was retained in *ga- because all evidence
>of the original form had been lost.

Could be- (bi-) be another example? It's usually derived from *bhi-, but
*pe- ~ *po- (Hitt. p(e)-, Slav. po-) might fit equally well, if not better.

There are about 14 pages of be- in the Dutch-Polish part of the small WP
dictionary, and I got tired about 7 pages into it. The nicest examples
are:

bedekken pokryć
begeren pożądać
begieten polać
begin początek
begrafenis pogrzeb
begrip pojęcie
behagen podobać
behoefte potrzeba
behulpzaam pomocny
bekladden poplamić
bekleding pokrycie
bekoren pociągać
bekrachtigen potwierdzić
bemorsen pobrudzić
bereizen podróżować
beroepen powołać
beroeren poruszyć
beschilderen pomalować
besmeren posmarować
besmet poplamiony
etc.


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...