Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:
> I've never seen this kind of metathesis in Slavic reconstructions, so I
> assume it's ad hoc here, just to account for the long vowel. The alleged
> (dialectal) Slavic *xapati 'snap, catch (violently)' is isolated and can
> well be a loan from Low German (cf. Dutch happen 'snap').
On second thoughts, I retract this part. *xapati is attested in Old
Russian and Old Czech, and so has to be older than that. Still, verbs
with -ati infinitives and -je- presents include numerous expressive and
originally iconic words. To stick to Polish examples, we have <chrapac'>
'snore', <s'wistac'> 'whistle', <chlupac'> 'splash about', etc., plus
the whole group of expressive iteratives in *-ot-ati/*-ot-joN (Pol.
<furkotac'> 'flutter', <chichotac'> 'giggle', <bel/kotac'> 'mumble').
Some of such verbs may be reconstructible back to Proto-Slavic and even
PIE, but others are evidently of recent coinage, since the pattern was
highly productive in Proto-Slavic and in the individual Slavic dialects.
As the core meaning of *xapati is 'snatch, snap', the verb may be an
instance of PSl. onomatopoeia (cf. the Pol. interjection <chap(s)!>
symbolising a quick bite). LGer. happen, hapsen may be the same kind of
onomatopoeia, even if coined independently.
I don't retract my suggestion that *xopiti is a loan.
Piotr