From: Richard Wordingham
Message: 27407
Date: 2003-11-18
> At 3:06:59 PM on Tuesday, November 18, 2003, alex wrote:Of the Oxford Etymological Dictionary's 4 words "ruff" -
>
> > Brian M. Scott wrote:
>
> >> No, you don't: as Richard said, these are examples of
> >> GERMANIC *k, from PIE *g or *g^. OE <tæ:can> 'to teach'
> >> has /k/ intervocalically in the infinitive but /x/ before
> >> /t/ in the 1,3sg.pret.ind. <tæhte>. Similarly, <þencan>
> >> 'to think' has /k/ (that's Germanic *k) in the infinitive
> >> but /x/ before /t/ in the 1,3sg.pret.ind. <þo:hte>. The
> >> point is that Gmc. *kt becomes /xt/, but in most
> >> environments *k remains /k/.
>
> > Do I understand you false woe you mean here with " *k
> > remains /k/" the Gmc *k and not the PIE *k ?
>
> Yes, Gmc. *k.
>
> > I was speaking about the PIE *k if I remember right.
>
> That was the problem: Richard's examples have nothing to do
> with PIE *k.
>
> >>> That is a bad examle: The german "rupfen" is Latin
> >>> "rumpere", Thracia "rompaia ( rendered by Greek as
> >>> rompaia); The lost of "m" is in Rom. today of old
> >>> "rumpe" to actualy "rupe", so I think. My dictyionary
> >>> gives german "rumpfen" from "ruppen" belonging to the
> >>> same family as rubbeln; IE cognates are shown by
> >>> "rubbeln" I have no ideea how you would get from root
> >>> *reuk Latin "rumpere" and German rupp, both having
> >>> already the "p" there; in fact it doesnt matter how you
> >>> draw it, you cannot avoid the stage "p".
>
> >> This is irrelevant nonsense. The point is that English
> >> <rough>, with /f/, is from OE _ru:h_, from Gmc. *ru:hwa-;
> >> this Gmc. *h is from PIE *k (Watkins gives *ru&-k- as the
> >> source), so English <rough> is in fact an example of the
> >> change /k/ > /f/ (by way of /x/).
>
> > I got it now. Just one question. Why do you make me belive
> > you think English "ruff" is not deriving from the same
> > root as German "raufen"?
>
> I said nothing about <raufen> at all. There are at least
> three unrelated English words <ruff>, none of which has
> anything to do with <raufen> or <rough>; did you mean
> <rough>? Its German cognate is <rauh>. The change from /x/
> to /f/ in words like <rough> only goes back to ca.1300 or so
> anyway, becoming more common in the 15th century; for the
> word <rough> itself I don't know of any <f> spellings before
> the 16th century.