Re: [tied] On do/tun

>the vocalism in Germanic [do/tun] (why *-o: or *-a: instead of *e:?).

Ouch. I hate it when people ask sensible questions I should have thought
of.

Is the -e- vocalism found in "deed", Gothic ga-de:ths? Pokorny suggests
it is also found in the ending of the weak preterite (Gothic albo-de:dun
etc). I take it he means in the dual and plural.

We can imagine an IE aorist *dhe:m, *dhe:s, *dhe:t. Can we imagine an -o-
vocalism for the first person (as elsewhere in IE verbs) giving *dho:m,
*dhe:s, *dhe:t? This would explain the Gothic forms -da, -de:s -da which
form weak preterite endings, and would also suggest an origin for the -o-
vocalism in the present.

Streitberg "Urgermanishce Grammatik" offers for verbs in -e:
full grade: e:/o: long grade e:/o: zero grade:
Schwa/null
which isn't very helpful. However, he does put into the same category:
Gothic te:kan preterite to:kan to touch
Gothic gre:tan preterite gaigro:t to cry
Gothic saian preterite saiso: to sow
and J Wright "Grammar of the Gothic Language" adds a few more, all with this
pattern of -e:- (or -ai) present, -o:- preterite.

It is not impossible that there was interference from the preterite onto the
vocalism of the present as we know happened elsewhere.

Peter

----- Original Message -----
From: "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" <mcv@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 2:26 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] On do/tun


> On Mon, 21 Jan 2002 20:26:10 -0000, "P&G" <petegray@...>
> wrote:
>
> >> Can anyone help me out in finding about the remote origins of the
> >> english/german verbs do/tun?.
> >
> >It's a very wide-spread Indo-European root, *dheh1. It appears with
> >reduplication in Sanskrit (dadha:mi) and Greek (tithe:mi) and in both
> >languages also in forms without the reduplication. In Latin the initial
> >#dh- appears by a regular sound change as an f-, so the root is hidden in
> >the word facio (no firm explanation for the -c-) and it also appears in
> >compounds as -do, as in credo, abdo, condo, perdo, but there could well
be
> >contamination from the "give" root *deh3.
> >
> >It is also attested in Armenian, Phrygian, Messapic, OCS, Hittite,
> >Tocharian and Lycian
> >
> >It is very productive, with various noun and adjective forms.
> >
> >Hope that gives you enough information.
>
> That explains most of it, except the vocalism in Germanic (why *-o: or
> *-a: instead of *e:?). Unfortunately, I don't know. Shame on me. So
> why?
>
>
> =======================
> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
> mcv@...
>
>
>
>
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