From: petusek
Message: 34404
Date: 2004-10-01
----- Original Message -----
From: tgpedersen
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, October 01, 2004 2:39 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: *Twah-
>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>
>wrote:
>> At 10:37:16 AM on Wednesday, September 29, 2004, tgpedersen
>> wrote:
>>
>> > Perhaps I should also point out that there is a
>> > development þw- > Germanic kW- (English 'twig', Danish
>> > 'kvist';
>>
>> What's the evidence that these two are cognate? So far as I
>> know, the actual development is from MHG tw- to kw- in East
>> Middle German dialects; it's not even a general MHG change,
>> let alone a Germanic development.
>>
>Falk & Torp has
>
>Kvist I (liden gren), sv. quist, oldn. kvistr = m.eng. twist "gren,
>kvist". Beslegtet er oldn. og n. folk. kvîsl, f. "kløftet gren eller
>redskab, arm af en aa" der staar i aflydsforhold til ags.
>twisla "arm af en elv", oht. zwisila "gaffelformet gjenstand, gren".
>
>The only other example of tw- > kw- I can find in F&T is
>
>Kvidre, sv qvittra, n. dial. kvitra og skvitra. ... kan sammenlignes
>de aabenbart onomatopoietiske oht. zwizzirôn (nht
>zwitschern) "kvidre", m.eng. twiteren (eng. twitter) "kvidre":
>om /kw/ af /tw/ se kvist.
>
>Torsten
A question arises here, whether this /tw-/ > /kw-/ could have occured due to
the dissimilation (since followed by other dent./alv.
clusters: -st-/-t-/-d-) or not. Analogy might be possible, too, if there
were similar (but original!) kw-words, i.e. of similar phonetics and
semantics. Are there any? The rarity of this effect migh possibly point to
dissim. or analogy.
Petusek