From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 67767
Date: 2011-06-14
NHG Wittum is also puzzling, as if from Gmc. *D. I wouldn't rule out contamination with Lat. vidualitium (not surprising in a legal term) and again with Ger. Witwe.Why did OHG have -d- as if from Gmc -T- ?
Probably adj. *wogWH-n-o- ~ *wogWH-m-o- (*m and *n vary in o-grade derivatives of *-men- stems), hence an i-stem noun by internal derivation. The adjective or the noun could be dialectally extended with *-s- (*wogWH-nos/-nes-, *wogWH-mis-) and Germanic transformed it into a weak noun. Folk-etymological influence of the 'wagon' word is possible here. One would expect an underlying neuter noun, *wegWH-mn./*ugWH-men-, but I'm not aware of its direct attestation anywhere.
Why does * PL wógWH-mis.+ corr. to PBalt wógWH-n.is.+ and PGmc wógWH-n.i-s.ón.+ > wogWH-n.à-s.on.+ ? Was there -mn- w/in the PIE form, or was it, do I dare?, a compound?
In Germanic, we often find "suffix ablaut": the unstressed vowel of an internal syllable varies between different qualities (the variation me be subject to dialectal preferences) no matter what its pre-Gmc. source. In the case of *wet(V)man-, /u/ is the most common reflex, but not the exclusive one. But compare e.g. OHG esil, Goth asilus (with an etymological /i/, VL asilu-) vs. OE eosol, esul, in which the suffix must have acquired its *u after the operation of palatal umlaut! Similar variation is found also in modern times. cf. English <stomach> or <rabbit>, which may or may not rhyme with <economic> and <abbot>, respectively.If you think the -u- in Gmc needs only a Gmc expl., perhaps you've noticed that -u- that appears to replace -x- varied w/out expl. > u/i/a/0 , as in widamo , etc., just as i > i/a/0 in * wógWH-n.i-s.ón.+ > wogWH-n.à-s.on.+ . All u/i from any source can so change. Since this happens in all IE branches, all w/out expl., it is very old and can't be expl. w/in Gmc alone.
Piotr