LL-L "Etymology" 2008.10.20 (10) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 20 October 2008 - Volume 10
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From: LUCAS ANNEAR <annear at wisc.edu>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2008.10.20 (09) [E]

Ron,

Is it the case then that English just tends to put a (intrusive) homorganic
(voiced) stop after a nasal, and before the frequentive 'l'?  Like 'crumb',
'crumble' (the 'b' only being in the noun by analogy)?  I guess I just
noticed that.

-Luke

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Etymology
>
> Yeah, I thought that was an impressive bit of etymological intuition
> on the
> part of Ze Hezza.
>
> I believe we are once again dealing with the old frequentive -l, and
> we are
> also dealing with an intrusive -d-. Theoretically:
>
> *dw**īne**
> > *dwīn (shwa elesion)
> > dwīn-l (frequentive suffixing)
> > dwīn-d-l (d-intrusion)
> > dwin-l (vowel shortening)
> > *dwindle*
>
> Other cases of (Old-Danish-inspired?) intrusive d:
>
> brindle < bren 'brown color'
> spindle < spin
>
> I'm happy to know LL-L has been useful to you, Luke. You're certainly
> very
> welcome. Feel free to ask me and others for LS or other cognates anytime.
>
> Oh, no! We got ourselves another member of the Luc ~ Luke clan!
>
> Regards,
> Reinhard/Ron

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Etymology

I think you're right, Luke. If we really tried to we could probably come up
with a list of examples.


Take for instance *tumble*, a frequentive derivative of Old English *tumb-*(
*tumbian*) 'to dance about'; related to German *tumelen* > *taumeln* 'to
reel', *tummeln* 'to mill about', Dutch *tuimelen* 'to tumble', Low Saxon *
tummeln* ~ *tümmeln* 'to mill about'. Since German has both a short and a
long variant and Dutch has one with a long vowel (u > ui), I believe that
there was no *b* there to begin with.

As an aside, what I find interesting about this particular group is that
German has a *t-* here rather than the expected *z-* (ts-), which leads me
to wonder if in German we are dealing with a very early loan from Saxon or
from Early Low or Middle Franconian -- i.e. a loan that entered the language
*after* affricatization (p > pf, t > ts, k > kx > x).

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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