From: tgpedersen
Message: 59221
Date: 2008-06-12
>I didn't claim that shift in diphthongs is an unusual occurrence.
> At 1:38:41 PM on Thursday, June 12, 2008, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> > <BMScott@> wrote:
>
> >> At 4:47:34 AM on Thursday, June 12, 2008, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> >>> As for couch grass, that must be related to a different
> >>> root eg. *gWih3w- "live" (cf. Da. 'kvikgræs' "couch
> >>> grass", or something else, is 'couch' related?)
>
> >> This <couch> is. Couch grass is also quitch grass, and
> >> <quitch> directly continues OE <cwice>; <couch> seems
> >> originally to have represented /kutS/, so the development
> >> must have been something like /wi/ > /uj/ > /u/. It's also
> >> quick grass, twitch (with the opposite development from that
> >> seen in German quer < OHG twerh), and in the U.S. quack
> >> grass.
>
> > I've seen that development recently in a bid to explain
> > river Dvina -> German Düna; supposedly LG has swester ->
> > süster too (Du. zuster, Sw. syster, Da. søster), I thought
> > myself of Dutch zoet /zu:t/, LG soet /sö:t/, German süss,
> > Sw söt, Da. sød "sweet". But those distribution 1) don't
> > match geographically with each other, 2) or with any other
> > known major.
>
> So? Stress shift in diphthongs is hardly an unusual
> occurrence.
> > Further, if there were any truth to this supposedI didn't claim that either. I think you might have missed this paragraph:
> > Inguaeonic *k > ts,
>
> What on earth are you talking about? There is no *k > ts in
> quitch > twitch (or anywhere else in the quoted post).