On 2007-05-26 11:46, alexandru_mg3 wrote:
> Another Slavic Germanic word is:
>
> *kwors-to > Proto-Slavic *kwarsta > OCS *xvrastU 'osier', Russian
> xvorost 'brushwood'
> *kwors-to > Proto-Germanic *kwarsta > OE *hyrst 'bush'
There's no Germanic *xwarsta- (I suppose this is what you mean). There
are only reflexes of *xarsta- 'wickerwork, grid' and *xursti- 'wood,
shrubbery' (OE hyrst derives from the latter). They are probably related
to each other, in which case they should both be assigned to the root
*kert- 'turn, weave', and analysed as *kort-to- and *kr.t-ti-. As an
alternative, *xursti- (but not *xarsta-) could be related to *kWres- (as
in Celt. *kWristo- 'wood'), but even so it's relationship with Slavic
*xvorstU is difficult to maintain. In my opinion, the Slavic word could
be a blend involving Germanic *xarsta- and Slavic *xvostU 'tuft, clump;
tail'/*xvastU 'weed'.
> What is the PIE genitive form here?
If you mean Slavic *xvorstU, it's an ordinary thematic masculine (an
o-stem). The PIE genitive of such stems was *-os(j)o, but in Slavic it
was replaced by the original ablative ending (giving Slavic *-a).
> P.S. : On the other hand, you can see that Germanic kw is not kw > xw
>> fw > f here as you have supposed for : penkWe > *fimfi etc... : his
> output is *h
My suggestion was that the assimilaton of *xW > *f took place if there
was another labial segment in the same root. Of course in numerous words
pre-Germanic *kW yields *xw, and the assimilation doesn't occur 100% of
the time, e.g. *kWekWlo- 'wheel' > *xWexWla/*xWeGWla- >
*xwexla-/*xWewla-/*xWeGla- (e.g. OE hweohhol ~ hwe:ol ~ hweogol ~
hweowol), where I would expect assimilation at least in some of the
variants. However, OFris. fial proves that it did sometimes occur
(perhaps to be analogically removed throught the influence of those
forms in which the second labiovelar had been delabialised sufficiently
early).
Piotr