Re: *Twah-

> >I just discovered South German 'zwagen'. This contrasts with
> >OHG 'dwahan', 'twahan'. I checked with other roots in *þw-, and it
> >seems to be a pattern, PGrm. *þw- > OHG dw-, German zw-, rather
> >unexpected. Perhaps one should look at a German connection after

all?

> >
> >Torsten
>
> Hm, yes, perhaps, it isn't impossible, but German zw- always > Cz

cv- and

> never c^v-, and as for G -g- > Cz -x-, I must find some more cases

of this

> change (if it had been adopted before the g > h change in Cz-Sk, it

would

> have looked like cvah-, not cvax- and certainly not c^vax-, if

followed by a

> vowel. However, if this -h- is followed by a consonant or if it is
> word-final, it gets devoiced and does change to -x-).

*þwahan is an irregular verb (at least in ON) and therefore should
vary in accordandance with Verner. One would expect different
outcomes in the process of regularisaton (cf the h ~ g of
OHG 'dwahan' ~ South German 'zwagen').
BTW which written Czech letter corresponds to what you write as -x- ?

>We would thus have to
> expect, that it was *zwag or *zwag-t- (does anything similar occur

in

> German?)

I found South German 'zwagen' in the list of cognates for 'to' (vb.)
in my Dansk Etymologisk Ordbog. The entry for 'tvætte' does not
contain a German cognate, but I can't exclude that it might exist.


that once might have been borrowed from German. Yet still, there is

> c^v- in Czech, which is so confusing! :-)
>

Absolutely! The question is whether the þw- on its way to zw- passed
a stage that would be similar to c^v-. But all the loans have cv- as
you pointed out.
The idea that the sense "wash" of c^va:xat comes from ca:kat comes
from where? What is the evidence that it wasn't original in c^va:xat?

> Another possibility is a contamination of the two words: one being a
> German(ic) loan, the other being a genuine Cz onomat. verb. That is

*twah-

> (> *xxxx- ) > cvax- plus Cz c^a:kat "to splash". I don't know, both

zwagen

> and c^va(:)x(t)at are puzzling and need much more further

investigation.

>

Perhaps I should also point out that there is a development þw- >
Germanic kW- (English 'twig', Danish 'kvist'; English '(a)thwart',
German 'quer', German 'Zwerchfell', Swiss German 'Dwarr-(brücke)'
(bridge on the old Srt. Gotthard route)).

Torsten