Re: [tied] Re: Ingvar and Ivar

----- Original Message -----

From: tgpedersen@...

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2001 1:55 PM

Subject: Odp: [tied] Re: Ingvar and Ivar

>> OHG had zand which has become zahn in Modern German

> Aha. But how?

 

The OHG consonant shift transformed *tanT- into [tsand] <zand>, a word which had a d-less by-form <zan> already in Old High German -- a rather banal case of cluster reduction. The lengthening of /a/ before a single voiced consonant (indicated as <ah> in modern orthography) is a regular Middle High German process (cf. Hahn, OHG hano).

>> The Danish/Swedish -d is of later origin, as in mand, and should NOT be directly compared with Dutch tand.

> Aha. And where does that suddenly appear from?
> BTW, "mand" is only Danish, not Swedish.

What I meant was that the -d was secondary, as in (Danish) mand. As a matter of fact, Swedish normally has <-nn> for etymological *-nT- (e.g. Swedish and Norwegian sann 'true' [vs. Danish sand], English sooth, OHG sand, all reflecting PGmc. *sanT-), and since tann 'tooth' occurs in Swedish dialects, I suspect Danish influence in Standard Swedish tand. I have no Danish or Swedish historical grammar at hand to check the details, but as far as I recall Danish secondary -nd- resulted either from epenthesis (mannR > mandr > mand already in Old Danish) or from orthographic hypercorrection (-nd- confused with -nn-) in Middle Danish (<kvinde> 'woman', <tynd> 'thin', <ind> 'in' etc.). Only the latter process could have produced <tand>. If this is wrong, please correct me.

 

Anyway, all the North and West Germanic forms reflect the allomorph *dont- > *tanT-. A solitary nil grade reflex (but without Verner's Law) is found in the Gothic "tooth" word tunT-u-s, which, unlike the rest, is a derived form replacing an original root noun.

 

Piotr