Re: Germanic KW

> > How about this:
> > OHG garo,
> > MHG gar, garwer
> > ON go,rr "prepared, complete"
> >
> > < PGerm. *gar-wa ("cooked"), ppp in -wo of *gWHer- "warm" v.
> >
> > (whence *garw-jan > ON ger(v)jan, Da. gøre "do")
>
> Do these mean 'prepare, cook' like OE gegearwian?

Scandinavian gøre/göra/gjøre means "do" and nothing else; the root of
'do' survives only in 'dåd' "deed".

> > Difficult to get around without allowing for dialectal
> > development.
>
> Though different Germanic languages do show specific developments
> later, most words don't show evidence that there was variation
> within each Proto-Germanic word.

You could always claim kW > p within Germanic branches. The problem is
that the kW/p boundaries don't respect Germanic dialect boundaries.

> That is, there isn't one group showing *wulfaz and another *wulxWaz.

This is upside down. If there had been one group showing *wulfaz and
another *wulxWaz it could have been accounted for by a kW > p (vel
sim.) rule. The 'sporadic', ie. unpredictable change shows that the
kW > p rule must have been pre-Germanic.

An English parallel to ulfr/ylgr is fox/vixen; that is known (or
assumed) to be the result of dialect mixture.

> This seems to show there was sporadic change but not dialects each
> with regular change.

There were dialect within the substrate and/or sociolects. The dialect
boundaries of -k-/-p- of kriechen/creep are not respected by the
related crouch, crutch etc.


Torsten