User talk:Rua/Archives/2014/January

Noble gas configuration

Please review this newly created page. This is my first article on Wiki.I would be glad if you give some valuable suggestions.Skr15081997 (talk) 09:32, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Old Norse consonant sequences hr, hl, hv, hn

I think you need to be careful about stating "therefore they were probably realized as" etc. I think it's reasonable only to conclude that the h in hr, hl, hn was something like /h/ (perhaps combined into a single voiceless sonorant), whereas the h in hv was something like /x/; not more than that. Also, whether to analyze them as a single phoneme or two phonemes is a separate issue, and doesn't hinge on the pronunciation so much as the distribution, which seems to indicate pretty clearly that they were clusters. Benwing (talk) 20:20, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Harbistaz or harubistaz?

Hello. I see you created an etymology for "harvest" as *harbistaz. I put *harubistaz in one article, which seems to have made its way all over the web as a result. The source of this is Campbell "Old English Grammar" p. 82, where he glosses OE hærfest as < "probably" *haruvist-. For him this is not a typo as it's listed in section 203 "Double Umlaut" under the heading a+u+i. However, he may be wrong and the "probably" indicates some uncertainty although he also has a footnote referring to O. Ritter Vermischte Beiträge for "less certain instances of double umlaut". The other "probably" words are hælfter "halter" < *haluftri, ǣċe "eternal" < *ajuki- (cross-referenced to another section that gives ǣċe < *ǣċi < *æyċi < *æjyki < *ajuki, compared to Gothic ajukduþs but where the more common spelling ēċe is described as hard to explain). Other examples of the same phenomenon are gædeling "companion" (OS gaduling), æðeling "prince (ON öðlungr), fæsten "fasting" (OS fastunnia), lætemest "last" (cf. Gothic superlatives in -umists), etc. What is the source of *harbistaz? Benwing (talk) 22:02, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Also, ON haust < *harbistaz or *harbustaz or *harubistaz seems rather unexpected regardless of the proto-form. Note e.g. OE sūðerne vs. ON súðrœnn, where ON is better at not syncopating unstressed medical syllables than OE. If this derivation is correct at all, perhaps there's some folk etymology involving a word meaning "hot" or similar? Benwing (talk) 22:15, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

There's no evidence of a middle syllable in any West Germanic language that I can see. They all reflect *harbist- relatively straightforwardly. I don't see how the Old Norse form can derive from either of them though. *r is a stable phoneme and isn't really prone to disappearing, so why it's not in the ON form I can't really say. In any case, the root is related to Latin carpere, which makes the case for *harb- stronger too. CodeCat (talk) 23:53, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree with you on the lack of any evident u. I think the reason why Campbell reconstructs *harubistaz is the difficulty in getting hærfest from *harbistaz. Instead you'd expect **hierfest due to breaking + umlaut, or Anglian **herfest. From a putative *harbustaz you'd expect **hearfest with breaking. The form hærfest is hard to get by any process except for double umlaut, where the lack of breaking of æ is exactly what you'd expect (*harubistaz > *hærufist by AF brightening, f/v merger > *harufist by retraction > *haryfist by umlaut > *hærefest by double umlaut, unstressed vowel weakening > *hærfest by syncopation). The only other normal source of æ before r + consonant is from late metathesis (gærs "grass" < *græs < *gras). Benwing (talk) 02:42, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

BTW ME hervest is what you'd expect from Anglian **herfest, with modern harvest by the normal sound change *erC > *arC, so who knows. Benwing (talk) 02:44, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

It could also be *harbustaz. Unstressed medial -u- tended to change to -i- in most of the Germanic languages, but probably late enough so that it caused backing of the -a- in Old English. So something like this: PG *harbustaz > WG *harbust > Early OE (brightening) *hærvust > (a-restoration) *harvust > (u > i) *harvist > (umlaut) *hærvist > (i > e) hærvest (the attested form). CodeCat (talk) 14:18, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Hmm. Normally, unstressed -u- in OE appears as o, and even if it appears as e it doesn't trigger umlaut. The change from -u- to -i- does occur in some words but in those cases it's found across the West Germanic languages which implies it was earlier than the OE split off. Note also that there was very little time between a-restoration and the phonologization of umlaut. Benwing (talk) 20:23, 24 January 2014 (UTC)