Re: Wuz

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>
wrote:

> At 8:06:33 AM on Thursday, July 15, 2004, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> >>>> To the best of my knowledge the word is completely
> >>>> isolated even within N.Gmc., unless one assumes that it
> >>>> belongs with <vada> 'to wade', which is already pretty
> >>>> conjectural and also requires a semantic development
> >>>> that could not reasonably be assumed elsewhere.
>
> >>> Ordbog over det danske Sprog has a 'vasse' "wade", fig.
> >>> "move clumsily, as if wading through water", dialectal
> >>> and loaned from Norwegian. There goes your
> >>> 'conjectural'.
>
> >> No. 'Conjectural' here referred to the proposed
> >> relationship, not to the existence of the word. I already
> >> knew about Norwegian <vasse> 'to wade'; its existence is
> >> the only reason even to consider the possibility of a
> >> relationship in the first place.
>
> > Tsk-tsk.
> > And presumably the reason you didn't mention it in the
> > first place.
>
> Why bother? As far as I'm concerned, it has little bearing
> on the point that was actually at issue, namely, why one
> wouldn't spend much time on <vass> 'reed' in etymologizing a
> Dutch place-name. I gave you the one outside possibility of
> a relative of which I'm aware and pointed out why, even if
> it were legitimate, it wouldn't be particularly helpful to
> you; that seemed quite adequate for a brief answer to a
> question that it hardly seemed necessary to ask.
>

Wrt. origin, there are two options for Swedish 'vass' "reed":
1) The word is Germanic.
2) The word belongs to a substrate language

ad 1) So is Dutch, and therefore it is relevant to consider 'vass' in
the reconstruction of a Dutch place-name.

ad 2) We would have no a priori knowledge of the extension of that
substrate language, and therefore it is relevant to consider 'vass'
in the reconstruction of a Dutch place-name.

The third possibility is of course to think of 'vass' as a
spontaneous creation of the Swedish-speakers. Personally I don't
think that's how words are made.

Torsten