Re: Identity of the 'language of geminates'

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

>
> At 3:58:53 PM on Saturday, October 18, 2008, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> > <BMScott@> wrote:
>
> >> At 6:02:05 AM on Saturday, October 18, 2008, tgpedersen
> >> wrote:
>
> >> [...]
>
> >>> The presence of perte "beat" in Jysk (where because of
> >>> p- it must be substrate, it can't be Germanic) and
> >>> kwarthæ "brim, edge" in ODa. is suspicious.
>
> >> The presence of *kwarthæ in ODan. hasn't even been
> >> established yet.
>
> > *-wa- > *-wo- > -o- is dialectal in Danish
>
> Irrelevant to the point that I was making. I was not
> objecting to the details of the derivation; I was pointing
> out that you've provided no reason to think that the Scand.
> words aren't borrowed from MLG. This is still the case.

THe usual MO when people try to determine the provenance of a word in
Continental Scandinavian is: if it is documented in ON it is
inherited, but if it isn't but documented in Low German then it's a
loan from Low German. This method is not foolproof, the fact that
something isn't documented in ON does not necessarily mean it wasn't
there. Anyway, even if the word is from Low German, the puzzle stands:
under the standard view, those words shouldn't be there. And BTW,
'I've provided no reason to think', you persevere, don't you?


Torsten