Re: [tied] Re: Pliny's "Guthalvs"

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 15870
Date: 2002-10-02

Gothic <-ws> is found only after vowels (<gw> is a special case -- a labiovelar consonant). <-lws> is impossible also in Gothic. <walwjan> and <wilwan> only show that postconsonantal /w/ could occur before vowels and glides (as in my examples -- *-alwaz, etc.). Where it occurred, <-ws> (in Wulfila's late Gothic dialect) resulted from vowel reduction in the original ending, e.g. saiws < *saiwaz. When representic Gothic words and proper names, the Romans substituted their own equivalent morphology, replacing final -s (< -*az) with their own -us.
 
Piotr
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: x99lynx@...
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2002 6:58 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Pliny's "Guthalvs"

I wrote:
<<If the Germanic word had originally been something like "Guthalws," Pliny
would have seen <Guthalvs> in his sources, and would have written what he saw
-- not knowing if the <v> stood for a /w/ or a /u/--->>

Piotr replied:
<<However, "-alws" is not a permissible Germanic sound combination. It would
have had to be -alwaz, *-alwiz, or *-alw-o:n- to be phonetically and
morphologically plausible,...>>

Let me stop you there.  My Gothic dictionary gives some examples of -ws and
-alw-:
áiws, sm. time, lifetime, age, world
ni áiw, never
alêws, adj. of olives;
saggws, sm. song, music
triggws, adj. true, faithful
af-walw-jan, wv. I, to roll away
wilw-an, sv. III, to rob, plunder, take by force

So why again is -alws or -alw- against all Germanic sound laws?