Re: [tied] Re: Allofamy, allofams

On 2006-07-06 11:29, tgpedersen wrote:

> If these three glosses existed in Germanic when Verner applied, that
> is correct. But ex hypothese (meo) they are allofams of something
> else, thus potentially loans into Proto-Germanic. Eg. from a language
> which had variation in finals *-Vn,x-/*-Vn,g- -> *-V:-/*-Vn,-, such
> as many Sino-Tibetan languages do. Now suppose "go" was borrowed in
> the form *ga:-/*gan,- but "hang" (originally the same word)
> and "catch" were borrowed in the earlier form *hanx-/*han,- and
> *fanx-/*fan, (before Grimm, obviously), we'd get the development you
> described.

How come that the distribution of *x ~ *g in the forms of these words is
the same as in other strong verbs affected by Verner's Law -- i.e.
conditioned by the location of pre-Germanic accent? And 'hang' at least
has impeccable cognates abroad, including Hitt. ka:nki/kankanzi and Skt.
s'aNkate. I don't want to argue about the ultimate origin of this word,
but it was surely *k^onk- at a certain point and must have been *kank-
in pre-Germanic before the first stage of Grimm's Law. If it's a loan,
it's still _much_ older than Proto-Germanic. Incidentally, there was no
*x (*h) or *f in pre-Germanic, so *fanx- can't have been borrowed in
this form.

Piotr