From: Bhrihskwobhloukstroy
Message: 70254
Date: 2012-10-24
>(...)
> (...) Now, Gallo-Latin <beccus> 'beak' opens a can of worms. If we(....)
> temporarily disregard the issue of some Romance reflexes pointing to close
> /e./, we might notice the similarity to Old English <becca> 'ligo' i.e.
> 'hoe', explained by N. van Wijk (IF 24:232-3, 1909) on the basis of *bHeg-
> 'to break', the weak noun continuing either *bHegnon- or preferably
> *bHegon-, *bHegn- with Kluge operating on some of the oblique cases, the
> geminate then being generalized. If a similar thing happened in Celtic,
> *bekkon- might have signified 'pecking bird, woodpecker, figpecker, etc.',
> reinterpreted in Gaulish as 'beaky bird', whence the extraction of *bekkos
> 'beak'. But several things have to go right for this explanation to work.
>
> I think the comparison of Kluge's and Graszmann's Laws is good. That is,
> there is a strong (but not universal) tendency for this sort of thing to
> happen independently. In my post "Kluge's Law in Italic?" I understood
> Latin <siccus> 'dry' as continuing *sikW-nos, from the root *seikW-. I have
> never liked the idea of "expressive gemination", particularly when dryness
> hardly requires more "expressiveness" than wetness; indeed one would expect
> the reverse. But labiovelars in Germanic do NOT behave this way under
> Kluge, so the assimilation in Gmc. and Italic cannot be due to the SAME
> EVENT. Likewise if it happened in Macedonian to produce the name Perdikkas,
> as suggested.
>
> Anyhow, unless we can agree on the origin of geminates in Celtic, we haveJust a rapid detail before the impasse: do You accept Wood's
> reached an impasse.
>
> DGK