Re: Octha or Ohta?

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

>
> W dniu 2012-01-31 17:43, Joao S. Lopes pisze:
> > Is there an etymology for the name of Octha of Kent, Anglo-Saxo king
> > during the 6th century?
>
> We find the variants <Octha> and <Octa>, which must be early Latinised
> spellings for <Ohta>, the hypocoristic abbreviation of any name with
> <o:ht> 'fear, terror' as the prototheme. The best known of such names is
> of course <O:ht-here> (= ON Óttarr).
>
> OE o:ht (cf. o:ga 'fright') is derived from Germanic *o:G- as in Goth.
> o:g; cf. what seems to be a surviving prohibitive injunctive formula in
> Gothic, <ni ogs þus> 'fear not', Goth. un-agands 'fearless' and the ON
> name <Egill> (< *aGilaz). All these words ultimately go back to PIE
> *h2agH-, with cognates in a few branches, including Gk. ákHos (s-stem)
> 'pain, distress', so there may be an etymological link between the
> Germanic names and Achilles.
>
> The long *o: of *o:G- probably comes from contracted reduplication in
> the perfect *h2a-h2ogH-/*h2a-h2gH-, which underlies the Germanic
> preterite-present.

But the other preteritive presents show no reduplication, and this appears to be a conserved archaism, since OE <wa:t> corresponds to Lat. <vi:di:>, Grk. <oida>, Skt. <veda>, all without reduplication.

And as long as we are on PP verbs, I have yet to see a satisfactory explanation of <magum> against <mag>. This one should show ablaut between sg. and pl. like the rest.

DGK