From: andythewiros
Message: 65312
Date: 2009-10-27
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@...> wrote:
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> Regarding the putative connection between Old English <hentan>, <huntian> and Gothic <fra-hinþan> etc., the OED (s.v. <hunt>) refers the reader to A.S. Napier, "Old English Notes" (MQLL 1:130-131, 1898):
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> "... That O.E. <huntian>, 'to hunt,' is related to the Gothic <hinþan>, 'to seize, take prisoner' (cp. also G. <hunþs>, 'captivity,' O.E. <hu:þ> 'booty,' etc.) is the generally accepted view. An Indogermanic <t>, of which the <þ> in <hinþan> is the regular Germanic representative, could, under certain conditions, especially when next to a nasal, become Indog. <d>, as in Lat. <mendax> beside <mentiri> (cp. Brugmann, Gdr., 2nd Ed. I. sec. 701, and Anm. d). This Indog. <d> yielded the Germanic <t> which we have in <huntian>. In the same way has arisen the <t> in O.E. <hentan>, 'to seize, pursue' (= *<hantjan>), which is, though, so far as I am aware, it has not been pointed out before, the causative verb belonging to the same strong verb <hinþan>. Similarly from the Indog. root *<mn.t> (cp. Lat. <mens>, <mentis>) come both O.E. <gemynd> (N.E. <mind>) and O.E. <myntan>, 'to think, intend.' ..."
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> Now, firstly, the etymological connection between Latin <mendax> 'lying' and <menti:ri:> 'to lie' should be rejected. The former is instead derivable from <mendum>, <menda> 'defect, fault, blemish', which explains its inanimate usage. Horace uses <mendax> to describe a farm which has produced less than the expected crop. The defect, or <mendum>, is not immediately apparent but shows up after the growing season. Similarly, the mendacity of a speaker is not immediately apparent but shows up after his statements are compared with the facts. Thus the resemblance is merely fortuitous between <mendax> and <menti:ri:>, the latter originally 'to fabricate in one's mind' and indeed derived from Indo-European *mn.tí- along with Lat. <mens> 'mind', Sanskrit <matí-> 'understanding, reason', and Gmc. *(ga-)mundi- 'memory, mind', OE <gemynd>.
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> Secondly, the ad-hoc voicing of an IE tenuis, next to a nasal or otherwise, under poorly understood "certain" conditions, although endorsed by Osthoff, Brugmann, Kluge, and others, is an unsatisfactory explanatory mechanism. "Wir haben es eben mit den letzten ausläufern einer altidg. regel zu tun, welche auch im germ. ihre spuren hinterlassen hat." Thus Kluge (PBB 9:181, 1884) sweeps the problem under the rug of antiquity. In an earlier posting (#64987) I argued that IE *deik^- 'to show' does not require a variant *deig^-, since <digitus> can be derived within Latin without recourse to *deik^- at all, and *taik- beside *taih- can be explained by regular processes within Germanic. With OE <hentan> and <huntian>, as well as <myntan>, we have only Gmc. forms to explain and we should make no recourse to ad-hoc voicing at an earlier time-depth.
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> Thirdly, OE <hentan>, despite its protoform *hantjan, cannot be the causative of <hinþan> (or as tacitly assumed by Napier, a parallel strong verb *hintan reflecting IE */d/, voiced under those elusive "certain" conditions). If the sense of the latter is 'to seize, take prisoner' or as I have argued elsewhere 'to incite, urge into motion, chase', then <hentan> should be a transitive verb meaning 'to cause (someone) to seize or chase', just as <drencan> (from *drankjan) means 'to cause (someone) to drink', hence 'to drench (someone)'. But <hentan> is intransitive and uses a preposition or takes the genitive of the object of pursuit.
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> To clear up these problems we may begin with OE <myntan> 'to think, intend', reflecting *muntjan 'to form an idea' vel sim., from a neuter(?) thematic noun *munta- 'idea, concept' vel sim. Rather than connecting directly with IE *mn.tí- we may consider the root *mendH- 'to learn' (e.g. Greek <mantháno:> 'I learn', with nasally extended zero-grade present; the aorist <émathon> is regular). The neuter zero-grade passive *mn.dH-nó- 'thing learned' would become regularly Gmc. *muntta- by Kluge's Law. In this position geminates were simplified in most West Gmc. dialects including OE, but not Old High Alamannic. Swiss German has [an,kx@] 'butter' requiring OHA *anccho (from *ankkan-) beside Old High German <ancho>, Middle HG <anke> (*ankan-); likewise SwG [lun,k@] 'lung' from OHA *lunggun beside OHG <lungun>, OE <lungen> (examples from Kauffmann, PBB 12:521,524, 1887). This reduces *muntta- to *munta- and gives us OE <myntan> regularly from *mendH-.
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> Similarly, OE <(ge)hentan> 'to pursue, grasp, seize' (intr. w/gen. or prep.) can be referred not to a causative but a factitive, *hantjan 'to make a pursuit, give chase', from a strong feminine *hanto:- 'act of incitation, chase, pursuit', Gmc. *hantto:-, from the abstract *k^ont-ná:- 'incitation', from *k^ent- 'to incite'. As explained elsewhere, I believe Gmc. *hunDa- 'hound' comes from the same IE root, being a zero-grade animate *k^n.t-ó- 'facilitator of incitation, means by which prey is chased'.
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> Finally, OE <huntian> 'to hunt', earlier *hunto:jan, is based on the weak agent-noun <huntan-> 'hunter, hunting spider' (i.e. one which pursues prey rather than ambushing it in a web). And OE <huntan-> in my view represents Gmc. *hunttan- from IE *k^n.t-nón- 'inciter, chaser'. Thus, both 'hent' and 'hunt' can be brought together with 'hound', and no ad-hoc voicing shenanigans are necessary.
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> As for the nouns mentioned by Napier (and elsewhere by Torsten), OE <hu:þ> and OHG <hunda> (the latter glossed <praeda>, usually rendered 'booty') can be referred to a Gmc. st. fem. *hunþo:-, from a zero-grade paroxytone *k^n.´ta:- 'that which is incited or chased', i.e. 'prey'. The formation is parallel to Greek <díke:> 'way, custom, lawful right', originally 'that which is pointed out', from *deik^-. Latin <praeda> can also mean 'prey' ("cervi luporum praeda rapacium", Hor.) and another OHG gloss <herihunda> 'army-prey', i.e. 'booty' makes clear the military metaphor. The Gothic st. masc. by-form <hunþs> is attested only as the acc. sg. <hunþa> (Eph. 4:8), rendering Greek <aikhmalo:sían> 'captivity' (in this passage 'body of captives' would make no sense). As we have seen, Paul likes metaphors based on <aikhmé:> 'spear-point, spear', and Ulfilas likes to render them with derivatives of <hinþan>. The literal sense of Goth. <hunþs> was probably something like 'result of chasing', possibly with the implication of spears, if indeed there was a noun *hinþra- or *hinþan- in the sense of <aikhmé:>, as suggested earlier.
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> DGK
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