LL-L "Etymology" 2003.04.05 (01) [A/E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: Allison Turner-hansen <athansen at arches.uga.edu>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2003.04.04 (02) [E]

Dear Ron, William, Gary, Lowlanders,
Regarding the indefinite articles a/an: 'a:n' was the Old English
word for "one".  The nasal was lost before a following word starting with
a consonant and retained before a following word starting with a vowel, as
is still the case today.  Is this a case of sandhi?

To William and Gary's examples of word-boundary misanalysis I
would add 'an adder' from 'a nadder'.   A sillier example is in the rhyme
"I scream for ice cream".

Also, in Middle English there was 'nis' (meaning 'isn't) from 'ne
is'.  I know, I know, this is *not* an example of misanalysis, being
merely a contraction.  I just like it and wanted to share it.  This no
longer exists anywhere, does it?  How about in the other Lowlands
languages?

Speaking of word-boundary misanalysis made me think of s-mobile.
In Indo-European languages there are words that start with 's' in
some languages while the same word is seen without the 's' in others.  The
word for snow comes to mind, which is 'nix' in Latin.  Often there are
both variants in the same language with divergent meanings: nose vs.
sneeze.  This s-mobile is supposed to have come from the inflectional
ending -s from the preceding word. It was on very many of the case
endings in Proto-Indo-European.

Allison Turner-Hansen

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From: jari at delphisexpress.com <jari at delphisexpress.com>
Subject: nie nie / dalk

Hello!

I heb twee vragen:

1) Wat betekent het woord "dalk" nou eigenlijk, en wat is zijn "etymologie"?

2) Waar komt the "double negative" in het Afrikaans (nie - nie) vandaan?

Baie dankie!

Jari Nousiainen

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From: R. F. Hahn <admin at lowlands-l.net>
Subject: Etymology

Tervetuloa / Welkom, Jari!

Reinhard/Ron

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