At 5:53:35 AM on Saturday, March 17, 2012, Torsten wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> <bm.brian@...> wrote:
>> At 7:26:49 PM on Friday, March 16, 2012, Torsten wrote:
>>> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
>>> <bm.brian@> wrote:
>>>> At 6:18:45 AM on Thursday, March 15, 2012, Torsten
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> However, Norwegian 'ras'. It can't be Slavic liquid
>>>>> metathesis(?); is it Schrijver's bird lnguage?
>>>> It's ON <rass>, metathesized from earlier (attested)
>>>> <ars>.
>>> Obviously it is ('ars' still in jysk), but why? That's
>>> not a regular rule.
>> Why should it be?
> I have a hunch those metatheses occur in loanwords in
> Germanic.
Which of course doesn't answer the question.
>> Neither is <bridd> ~ <bird>,
> AFAIK that word is isolated in English.
<bærstlian> ~ <brastlian> 'crackle', <cerse> ~ <cresse>
'cress', <cyrps> ~ <crisp> 'curly', <dærstan> ~ <dræstan>
'dregs', <forsc> ~ <frosc> 'frog', <forst> ~ <frost>
'frost', <gærs> ~ <græs> 'grass', <first> ~ <frist>
'period', <burna> ~ <brunna> (in place-names) 'stream',
<þirda> ~ <þridda> 'third', <froht> ~ <forht> 'afraid',
<þrop> ~ <þorp> 'farm; village', etc.
>> not to mention a number of other /rV/ ~ /Vr/ metatheses.
And while I'm thinking about it, Cont. Scand. <kors>.
> PIE *bhren-, *bhron-, *bhr.n- would regularly give P-Germ.
> *brin-, *bran-, *burn-, which is bound to get regularised
> one way or the other.
For a while, perhaps. From the OED:
The modern verb represents two earlier verbs, viz. (1) the
intransitive strong verb, Gothic brinnan, (brann, brunnum;
brunnans), Old Norse brinnan (later brennan), Old Saxon,
Old High German, Middle High German brinnan, Old English
brinnan, by metathesis *birnan, bernan, beornan, (bran,
barn, born, bearn; burnon, bornen) ‘ardere’; and (2) the
derived factitive weak verb, Gothic brannjan (brannida,
branniþs), Old Norse brenna, Old Saxon, Old High German
brenn(i)an, (Middle High German and German brennen), Old
English bærnan (by metathesis for bręnnan), bærnde,
‘urere’. Beornan and bærnan were still distinct in Old
English, but ran together early in the Middle English
period. Middle English had four types of the present stem,
bern-, brin(n-, barn-, bren(n-, the two former of which
appear to represent the intransitive, and the third the
transitive Old English verb; bren(n- appears to be mainly
the Old Norse brenna, but may partly have originated by
metathesis < bern-. Of the original strong verb, the
strong past tense does not appear later than Layamon, and
the distinction of transitive and intransitive was soon
lost, the different types being used indiscriminately as
to sense, though with dialectal preferences. Brenne, brent
was the most common type in late Middle English, and even
down to the 16th cent., when it was somewhat abruptly
dispossessed by burn, burnt, apparently the descendant of
the earlier bern-, birn-, though the continuity is not
very clearly made out, as, between the 13th and 16th
cents., this type is scarcely recorded in Scottish
writers.
In other words, in English it's gone /Vr/ > /rV/ > /Vr/.
> *bhrest-, *bhrost-, *bhr.st- similarly.
From the OED:
(1) A Common Germanic strong verb: Old English berstan
(past tense bærst , burston , participle borsten ) = Old
Frisian bersta , Old Saxon brestan (brast , bruston ;
brostan ), (Middle Dutch, Dutch berstan , barsten , Low
German barsten , basten ), Old High German brestan (Middle
High German brestan , German bersten from Low German), Old
Norse bresta , (brast , brustum ; brostinn ), (Swedish
brista , Danish briste ) < Germanic *brestan , possibly <
*brek-st-an , a derivative (intensive) of brek-an to break
v.
(2) The earlier brest- of West Germanic became by
metathesis berst- in Old English, Frisian, Dutch, and Low
German (whence also it has passed into modern German in
place of Middle High German brest-). In English this
berst- mostly again became brest- in Middle English,
partly perhaps under Norse influence, whence the past
participle brosten still, in northern dialect; but this
has since the 16th cent. gone back to berst, changed by
the disturbing influence of r to burst. So that we have
the alternate series Germanic and West Germanic brest-,
Old English berst-, Middle English brest, modern English
berst, burst. But the 15–16th cent. had often brust and
brast, barst in the present; and the northern dialect had
brist, bryst, as in Danish.
(3) The original strong conjugation survived during the
Middle English period, with the typical forms, after
metathesis, bresten, brast, brosten, but with much
disturbance and mixture of forms in 14–15th cent. In the
16th cent. a very common form was brast for all the
principal parts; but about the end of that century, burst
(for all the parts) began to gain the ascendancy which it
has since maintained, though the past tense was frequently
brast in 17th and the past participle bursten till 18th
cent. Various old forms survive dialectally, and in U.S.
the past tense and participle are frequently bursted,
vulgarly busted.
In short, this verb has also shown considerable vacillation.
Neither verb is a very good advertisement for stable
regularization.
>> De Vries s.v. <ars> suggests taboo deformation, which
>> could certainly be a(nother) contributing factor.
> Faute de mieux, yes.
Actually, the combination of factors looks like a pretty
good explanation to anyone who isn't (to paraphrase Roger
Lass) a substrate romantic.
Brian