From: Rick McCallister
Message: 61946
Date: 2008-12-07
> From: Andrew Jarrette <anjarrette@...>In Ibero-Romance, it's laverca. For some reason, it's not in DRAE but it should be in Coromines/as. I believe it's from *lawerk-
> Subject: [tied] Re: Negation
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Saturday, December 6, 2008, 11:50 PM
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
> <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> >
> > On 2008-12-06 00:37, tgpedersen wrote:
> >
> > > You forgot 'ever' (of course of different
> origin)?
> >
> > Not entirely different. Practically all writers on the
> subject
> derive OE
> > (n)æ:fre in one way or another from PGmc. *aiw- <
> *h2aiw-. If Anatoly
> > Liberman's analysis (a late comp. of <a:,
> a:wa> 'always, ever') is
> > correct, the -r- comes from the *z of the comparative
> suffix *-izan-
> > (incidentally, it seems to me the variant <a:wa>
> contains two
> *aiwa-'s =
> > 'ever-ever'). The etymology is surely
> imaginative and
> thought-provoking,
> > like most of Liberman's ideas, and explains the
> strangely late
> > attestation of <æ:fre>. Still, I wouldn't
> say that it is definitely
> > superior to the older etymology, æ:fre <
> *æ:-feore (*aiwi- plus the
> > dat.sg. of <feorh> 'life'), a compound
> corresponding to the
> > well-attested phrase <a: to: feore> 'for
> evermore' (also <a:wa to:
> > feore> and even <æ:fre to feore>). If the
> second etymology is correct,
> > the *r is part of the noun feorh < *ferxWu-
> 'life', not a suffix at all.
> >
> > Piotr
> >
>
> What's your opinion on the idea that it may come from
> *a:/*æ: plus
> *byre "time, opportunity, occurrence", i.e.
> "a lifetime of
> occurrences" or some such (idea mentioned in OED). Is
> this less
> believable than or equally believable to the idea of <a:
> in feore> or
> <æ: feore>?
>
> Also, how does a comparative of *a:w explain the <f>?
> When does OE *w
> ever become /v/ (I know we have <laverock> beside
> <lark> from OE
> <læ:werce>, but OE also has <la:ferce> whose
> <f> I think may be
> etymological <f> (i.e. from a variant formation, not
> from a regular
> phonetic development of /w/))? I think OED says that some
> English
> dialects pronounce or used to pronounce <wr-> with a
> /v/, was that a
> general feature which would explain the /v/ in
> <æ:fre> appearing in
> all dialects and to the present day, when <wr-> in
> initial position
> does not have /vr/ in almost all if not all modern
> dialects?
>
> Andrew