Re: [tied] A remark to *k'onk-

What do you make of the Hittite pattern ka:nki 'hangs [transitive!]' (-a:- = a scriptio plena vowel), pl. kankanzi, usually thought to reflect *k^onk-/*k^nk-ont-? The *o/zero alternation looks rather natural here, while an *a/zero (?) ablaut pattern in the hi-conjugation remains to be discovered and discussed. It is one of those mysterious o-presents that make some people postulate a whole special class of verbs conjugated like the Hittite hi-verbs. What if the original "branch" word was *k^onkos 'hanger' or *k^nk-(stressed suffix-) rather than *k^ank-?

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: Petr Strossa

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Monday, September 10, 2001 12:26 PM

Subject: [tied] A remark to *k'onk-

The presumed root *k'onk- of Germ. words like English _hang_ is still quite a mystery for me. I could somehow intuitively imagine the development of such a verb from original perfect forms with intransitive meaning to a regularly derived causative/transitive. _If_it_were_so_, the o-grade in the forms of both types would be natural. But the Germanic forms look almost the other way round (?): the forms with transitive meaning (OE. _ho:n_ <- PG. *hanhan) seem to be older, while for the forms with intransitive meaning, a kind of regular derivation is supposed. (Calvert Watkins gives Prim. Germ. *hange:n -- stative/intransitive type. But according to J. & E.M. Wright, OE. _hangian_ could perhaps be an original denominative! But from what noun?) Well, what if the `original' root was in fact not *k'onk-, but *k'ank- -- identical with that one meaning `branch'? (This root is mentioned in connection with such words as OSl./PSl. `soNkU', Cz./Russ. `suk', Pol. `se,k' and Welsh `cainc'.) The semantic shift is not so unexpectable: e.g., Czech _viset_ (`to hang') and the similar words in all Slav. languages are also sometimes explained as cognate to Old Prussian _vipis_ (`branch'); after all, what could people hang things on in the oldest times? This hypothesis (I think) does not bring more light to the question why the old-looking `simple thematic' verb forms have transitive meaning (perhaps it was generally more natural for these forms?), but at least it could explain the intransitive Germ. forms as derived -- either in a really denominative way, or as stative/intransitive verb type from a root giving also nouns. What do you think of it?