Re: Torsten's theory reviewed

At 5:41:25 AM on Thursday, September 30, 2010, Torsten wrote:

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

>> At 6:19:44 AM on Sunday, September 26, 2010, Torsten wrote:

[...]

>>> But "arogis deda / alagu þleuba dedun" with two
>>> sparate(?) meanings of "do" sounds contrived.

>> Not separate meanings; the first instance is (on this
>> reading) merely pleonastic.

> Can't be, it's the same verb

Of course it can. In a linguistic context 'pleonastic'
means '[i]nvolving the use of words which are redundant, in
that they merely repeat information already expressed
elsewhere' (Trask, A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in
Linguistics). I could also have said 'redundant'.

>>> Now if the scrabble rules allow me to subtract a
>>> consonant, I think I'll pick a -t- instead of an -l-.

>> They don't allow you to do so arbitrarily. Both <Gis-> and
>> <-gis> are very well attested Gmc. name themes; <-gist> is
>> not. Moreover, there was a fairly common <l>-suffix by
>> which themes could be extended, so it would not be very
>> surprising if an inherent final <-l> were sometimes lost.

>> For that matter, it's not clear that anything has to be
>> lost: the 'arrow-shaft, beam, staff' word may be an <-l>
>> diminutive of an ablaut variant of the 'spear' word, in
>> which case the theme *gīsa- may simply continue the variant
>> itself.

>>> Put differently, it might be plausible, but so is the
>>> -gist interpretation, given the facts at hand.

>> A rune carver's error for an unattested <Arogast>

> Your claim. You forget the 'd' is actually there.

You missed the point. What is actually there is <Arogisd>;
if this represents unattested <Arogast>, both the <i> and
the <d> require explanation. The <d> can be explained as
the result of confusion following the High German sound
shift, but the <i> remains an error.

>> does not seem to me as plausible as a reading that uses
>> only attested elements. Support for a genuine <-gist>
>> theme is nil.

> You wish.

I don't really care one way or the other. However, the word
in 'Beowulf' certainly doesn't offer any such support, and
not just because it doesn't appear there as a name theme.
Whether that <gist> represents <giest> 'guest' or <gæ:st>
'spirit', the form is OE, and so far as I can tell not
standard for any OE dialect. The PGmc. sources are *gastiz
and *gaistaz, respectively, neither of which can be expected
to produce <gist> in a southern German context.

Brian