Re: [tied] *gwh in Gmc.

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 4905
Date: 2000-12-02

Some folks believe that Germanic *ban-o:n- (English bane) reflects *gWHon- (*gWHen- 'kill, strike'). Not very likely, in my opinion, also because of the aberrant vocalism. Uncontroversial examples like *warma- 'warm' < *gWHormo-, *snaiwa- 'snow' < *snoigWHo-, *newr-o:n- 'kidney' < *negWHr- suggest that *gWH > *GW > w in all positions except after nasals (where a stop allophone of /G/ was retained, as in the 'sing' word), before /u/ (*gWHn-t- > *GWunT- > *GunT- 'battle'), and possibly when flanked by historically back vowels (*dHogWHo- > *DaGWa- > *DaGa- 'day'). The development of *-GW- produced by Verner's Law (< *-kW-') was the same.
 
Piotr
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
To: cybalist@egroups.com
Sent: Saturday, December 02, 2000 3:37 AM
Subject: [tied] *gwh in Gmc.

In Collinge's "The Laws of Indo-European", under "Siever's Law II"
(i.e. the development of PIE *gwh), reference is made to a work by
Seebold 1967 ("Die Vertretung idg. *gwh- in Germanischen", KZ
81.104-133).  In Collinge's summary table, it is stated that "*/gwh/"
gives /b/ in initial position (except before /u/).  What is this
about?  Pokorny doesn't seem to recognize this development, and the
only root with initial *gwh- that I found in Pokorny and that I was
able to link to initial *b- in Germanic would be *gwhedh- "bitten,
begehren".  (I thought if anybody here knows, I might spare myself the
inconvenience of getting hold of the appropiate issue of Kuhn's
Zeitschrift ...)

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