Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/-naną

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This Proto-Germanic entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Proto-Germanic

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Etymology

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Reconstructed by Ringe[1] from an alternating suffix *-nō- (singular) ~ *-na- (nonsingular), from Proto-Indo-European *-néh₂- ~ *-nh₂-, from n-infix presents to laryngeal-final roots that were reanalysed as a separate suffix (as in several other branches).

Pronunciation

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Verb

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*-naną

  1. Forms fientive verbs, with a sense of 'to become (the base)'.

Inflection

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These verbs are always intransitive, so there are no passive forms. They seemed to have originally lacked a past participle as well.

Derived terms

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Descendants

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This suffix was preserved as a separate class only in Gothic. In Old High German, it mostly merged with the third weak class, while in the other descendants it merged with the second weak class.

  • Proto-West Germanic: *-nan
  • Old Norse: -na
    • Icelandic: -na
    • Faroese: -na
    • Norwegian:
      • Norwegian Nynorsk: -na
      • Norwegian Bokmål: -ne
    • Swedish: -na
    • Danish: -ne
  • Gothic: -𐌽𐌰𐌽 (-nan)

References

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  1. ^ Ringe, Donald (2006) From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic (A Linguistic History of English; 1)‎[1], Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN