Re: Etymology of the Italian surname 'Brighenti'

At 4:06:15 PM on Sunday, September 21, 2008, tgpedersen wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...> wrote:

>> At 4:57:06 PM on Saturday, September 20, 2008, tgpedersen
>> wrote:

>> [...]

>>> This is how I imagined the -en- > -in- rule of Germanic
>>> happened.
>>> Once it inflected:

>>> *sprenga *sprengm.
>>> *sprengis *sprengiþ
>>> *sprengiþ *sprengn.þ

>>> with umlaut
>>> *sprenga *sprengm.
>>> *springis *springiþ
>>> *springiþ *sprengn.þ

>>> generalized
>>> *springa *springm.
>>> *springis *springiþ
>>> *springiþ *springn.þ

>>> vel sim., Brian!

>> Pre-nasal raising (*e > *i / _NC) is distinct from
>> i-umlaut of *e and occurs in all classes of words.
>> (E.g., *kinnuz 'cheek' by way of *genwu- from *g^é:nu-s ~
>> *g^énw- 'jaw'.) It must also be a relatively late change
>> in pre-PGmc., in view of Finn. <rengas> 'ring' from a
>> pre-stage of PGmc. *hringaz.

> I know.

And as long as you continue to post this sort of silliness,
I'll continue to assume that you do not know. It's a
typical Torstenism: an implausible and unnecessary
explanation of something perfectly straightforward.

> But I think the *-en- > *-in- spread as hypercorrection
> from those strong verbs being regularized, see
> http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/Shibbolethisation.html

Why? At best your fixation on shibboleths makes you a blind
man claiming that an elephant is very like a rope.

Brian