Re: [tied] The recent terror attacks prompting a question

From: tgpedersen
Message: 39107
Date: 2005-07-08

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
wrote:
> Carl Hult wrote:
>
> > Today´s grisly terror attack in London had me thinking of the
word
> > terror and its relatives in other tungues. When something like
this
> > happens I tend to seek comfort in linguistics. What I am
thinking of is
> > whether the swedish verb ´darra´ (shake) (old swedish the same)
can
> > correlate and correspond to lat. tremor. The online etymology
database
> > has the PIE base *tre- for tremor and tremble, ´shake´, and my
question
> > is; can -t- change into -d- like this or is it grammatically
> > impossible? Can *tre- become swedish ´darra´?
>
> First, my condolences and feeling of solidarity for all those who
have
> been touched in any way by the bombings and their consequences.
>
> The roots *tres- (with the rarer and probably secondary variant
*ters-)
> and *trem- have the same meaning of 'shake, tremble'; both occur
in
> Latin. They are generally believed to be extensions of something
older
> and more elementary like **ter- (unattested on its own) plus old
> derivational suffixes. I don't know the etymology of <darra>, but
it
> can't be related to either, given the normal patterns of
correspondence.
>

Falk & Torp
"
'dirre' in recent ablaut to Sw. 'darra' ODa. 'darre'. Next to it are
forms with -dr- for -rr-: Nw. dial. 'didra' and 'dadra',
Eng. 'didder' (and 'dodder'), G.
dial. 'tattern', 'dattern' "tremble" [TP: cf G. 'zittern' id.].
These side forms seem to represent different types of reduplication,
a complete ('darra' from *dar-dr-ôn) and an incomplete ('dadra' from
*da-dr-ôn); cf. Gr. 'toithorúzein' "tremble" from IE root
*dher "jump" (Gr. thórnusthai), to which also
Lit. 'drebù' "trembles" and Arm. 'dordoj^el' "tremble"
"

There is in some IE roots what appears to be an alternation bh/p,
dh/t etc which isn't discussed much, since one can't use much sense
of it. Møller refers to it extensively, since there are similar
alternations in Semitic.


Torsten