Re: [tied] Re: Whence Grimm?

07-04-2004 11:17, tgpedersen wrote:

> The following is taken from Kuhn:
>
> Greek teu~khos "implement"
> PGmc. *teug- id. ("Zeug")

Any reason why <Zeug> can't belong to the etymon of *deuk-? It's a very
large word-family in Germanic, showing plenty of derived meanings (see
Pokorny for details).

> Greek doru/doratós "spear"
> Homer g.sg. dourós, doúratos
> dat. dourí, doúrati
> n.a.pl. dou~ra, doúrata
> PGmc. *darr-/*darraT-/*daruT- id. (archaic)
> ON darr, darraDr
> OE daroD
> OHG tart
>
> PIE *dorwn.t
>
> The spear was early regularised to two different stems. Both stems
> occur in Germanic, where they must be loans.

The stem variant <do(u)rat-> is a Greek innovation. Outside Greek there
is no support for an IE *dorw-n.t-. You could at best claim a post-Grimm
loan from Greek, but the form of *dar(r)VT- doesn't quite fit that
scenario either. There are also some related Germanic verbs meaning
'hurt' (OE derian, OHG terren, taro:n) and the noun *daro: 'harm' (OE
daru, OHG tara), so I suspect a native Germanic formation, even if the
external connections of the root *dar- are uncertain.

Piotr