--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
>
> On 2008-10-10 02:24, Brian M. Scott wrote:
>
> > I've two questions. First, have I overlooked some obvious
> > problem with the idea? Secondly, has anyone seen <-ivet> or
> > the like as an AFr treatment of OE <-iht>?
>
> No, I haven't, and I think you're absolutely rivet. I suppose the
> editors of the MED think likewise. They cite a number of names of
> places, people and ships containing <knight>, with the whole range of
> odd ME spellings, but nothing like "knivet". They have the following
> entry for <knivet>:
>
> knivet (n.) Also knevet. [?Dim. of kni:f.]
>
> (a) A knife; (b) as surname.
> (a) a1475 PPl.A(1) (Ashm 1468) 5.62: Kneuet [Trin-C: a knyf be his
syde].
> (b) (1232) Inquis.PM Hen.III 3: Thomas Knyvet.
>
Re: Vennemann's derivation of canivet etc from Basque kanibet etc
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/60160
Trask: The history of Basque
p. 128
'The evidence for word-initial k in Pre-Basque is scanty and doubtful.
The monosyllable ke 'smoke' has everywhere a voiceless initial, as do
a very few other words which look plausibly ancient, such as koipe
'oil' and kirats 'stench'. Indigenous formations with initial k are
now common, especially in northern varieties, but virtually all such
items postdate the Roman period and hence cannot be projected back
into Pre-Basque. We may also note one or two regional variants such as
kar 'flame', a variant of the more usual gar.'
As a matter of fact Latin k- > Basque g- is the most common in loans
(corpus > gorputz "body", castanea > gazta(i)ña "chestnut"), in some
cases the result is a doublet with g- and k- respctively (cattu- >
gatu/katu and in some again a k- alone (catena > katea). That makes it
likely that Basque has loaned the term from some other language at
least within the timeframe where these substitution were in use (a few
centuries at the most before Roman times (which began in the 1st cent.
BCE). I should have noticed that sooner.
The other possibility is that the word belongs to Schrijver's language
of geminates
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/46131
One might be tempted to solve the puzzle of the semantic relatedness
of roots with labial and with velar in auslaut (sup-/suk-, dup-/duk-,
deup-/druk-) by claiming that the original auslaut was a labio-velar
(thus *sukW-, *dukW-, *drukW-, or, if the loans are pre-Grimm, *sugW-,
*dugW-, *drugW-) which has separated already dialectically or
paradigmatically in the donor language(s).
From
'Urfi. /h/
Das Original von fi. tuhto 'Ruderbank' könnte ein /f/ haben; man
vergleiche urgerm. *þufto:n- > an. þofta 'id.'. Es sei aber auch an
mnd. ducht (mit /xt/ < /ft/) erinnert. Das Original von fi. tiuhta
'Granne; eine Art Weberkamm' dürfte urgerm. *stiftaz (> ahd. steft
'Achse, mhd. stift, steft, 'Stachel, Dorn, Stift') sein; /uh/ in
tiuhta, woneben mundartlich auch tihta vorkommt, ist dann der Reflex
von urgerm. /f/ (Fi. tiuhta wurde von E. Itkonen (1971: 123-133)
ausführlich behandelt; vgl. zur Wiedergabe von urgerm. /f/ durch /uh/
Itkonen 1971: 130). Die Sequenz /uh/ enthält sowohl ein labiales wie
auch ein spirantisches Element und reflektiert somit die Merkmale
"labial" und "spirantisch" von urgerm. /f/.'
In other words, it was /xW/. The root of 'stift' *stip- is matched
semantically with a root *stik-: labila/velar alternation. The root of
*knixt-, OFri kniuht, *knak-, has a matching root *knap-.
So *knaxWt/*knixWt, var. kniGW&t?
On the French spelling: the pronunciation /kt/ for the spelling [gt]
in Danish of (mainly) (Low)German loans in /xt/ is supposed to be a
Germanism, most dialects have /jt/, eg standard Da. slagter /slakt&R/,
(old) dialects /slæjt&R/; and Da. knægt /knekt/, Jysk /knejt/ "boy"
Torsten