Re: Stative Verbs, or Perfect Tense

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
wrote:

> On 05-02-28 17:27, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > Kuhn has an article on the alternation -tt- ~ -ss- in

Nordwestblock,

> > cf hatt- ~ Latin cassis "helmet", Chatti ~ Hessen. The
> > -t- + -t > -ss- in Germanic, Italic and Celtic ppp.'s could be

the

> > result of a rule -tt- > -ss- in a substrate language, and -tt-

the

> > unchanged variant, hence the mixture of forms. Cf Latin matta

and

> > massa (with -a-), and Dutch mes "knife".
>
> Any intervocalic -tt-'s that appear in early Germanic in words

that are

> not obviously loanwords represent either irregular expressive

gemination

> (as in Goth. atta 'father' or in truncated personal names like

Otto <

> *auda-[whatever]), or the result of nasal assimilation after short
> vowels, where *-tn-, *-dn- and *-dHn- all end up as -tt-

(similarly for

> other stops). The precise etymology of tribal names like that of

the

> Chatti is inherently uncertain, but supposingthat they are "the

Hats"

> and that, as Pokorny has it, we are dealing with derivatives of
> *ka(:)dH- (perh. *k(a)h2-dH-, cf. <hood>) 'cover', a *-dHn- should

be

> assumed here (while Latin cassis < *kadH-ti-).

Yes, that is the standard argument, which Kuhn proposes to replace.
Do you want me to reproduce the arguments here or do you want to
read his articles yourself?

>Hessen is a re-Germanised
> Latin word (<populus Hassiorum> in the 8th century). Isn't <hass->
> simply a Latin rendering of Old Rhein Franconian *hazz- < *xatt-?
>

Personally I find Kuhn's arguments convincing; cf. above.


Torsten