NW vs. E Gmc

[Sean Crist]

On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU wrote:

(I wrote:)

>> 2. Marc Pierce mentioned gemination before *j.  Actually, this is a
>> strictly WGmc innovation, and thus isn't evidence one way or the other for
>> the grouping of the three Gmc branches.

> Doesn't North Germanic geminate -kj- -gj- to -kkj- -ggj-?  (I don't have my
> handbooks at hand.)

Yes.  (Gordon 1957, p. 282)  However, WGG applies to a much broader range
of cases: all of the consonants except *r (and *z) get geminated before
*j, and there also sporadic gemination of *p, *t, *k, and *h before *r and
*l.  This broader gemination is strictly West Germanic.

I actually don't know of a good argument against the idea that the
gemination of velars could have been a common NWGmc innovation; I'd have
to do a good bit of looking to see if there's anything in the relative
chronology which would prevent this.  Anyone know?

> The Gothic passive (actually, a PIE middle formation) has West
> Germanic parallels, such as OE _ha:tte_ 'is named' (cf. Gothic
> _haitada_), contrasting with active _ha:tT_ (T = thorn) 'calls'
> (Gothic. _haitiT_).

It's true that an old passive form is fossilized here, but the speakers of
OE and OHG almost certainly considered this word to be a separate lexical
item in its own right.  A similar case: most speakers of modern English
probably consider "forlorn" a separate lexical item and are completely
unaware that the word contains a fossilized old past participle of "lose".

  \/ __ __    _\_     --Sean Crist  (kurisuto at unagi.cis.upenn.edu)
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