Re: [tied] Re: Renfrew's theory renamed as Vasco-Caucasian

On 2007-10-01 11:01, tgpedersen wrote:

> We have
> ON em, ert (est), er, erum, eruþ, eru,
> OE am, art, is, aru, aru, aru

This is almost OK for Northumbrian (except that the 2sg. is arþ and the
pl. is <arun> -- sorry, I didn't spot the typo in my own posting) and
Mercian, where the forms are <eam, earþ, is, earon>. West Saxon,
however, has

eom, eart, is, sind(on)

> What part of that can't be explained by analogy? Why do we need a root
> *er-?

How, then, do you explain WS eart (the diphthong <ea> represents the
breaking of pre-OE *æ < *a)? It's a lonely a-form in WS: where does it
come from? Finally, the Anglian final fricative in <(e)arþ> makes no
sense in Anglian unless it's inherited.

Piotr