Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic/dakrū

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This Proto-Celtic 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-Celtic

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Etymology

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From Proto-Indo-European *dáḱru (tear).

Noun

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*dakrū n

  1. tear
  2. drop of liquid

Inflection

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This entry needs an inflection-table template.

Reconstruction notes

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The reconstruction of this noun's declension is difficult, since Old Irish and Brittonic clearly show independent secondary developments that obscure the old Proto-Celtic situation. See Hamp (1971) for more details.[1]

  • The GPC, followed by Jackson, reconstruct a singular *dakrū, plural *dakrowes, but there is no regular way to derive such a paradigm on an Indo-European basis.
  • In Old Irish, the word became a neuter o-stem, which Hamp believes must have happened after general apocope that made u-stems homophones to o-stems outside the genitive singular.
  • Brittonic has Welsh with i-affection and Breton without i-affection. Hamp explains this via a very archaic plural form *dakrū (< *dáḱruh₂), which would yield Middle Welsh deigyr via regular i-affection; the Breton singular form either could have been formed by reverting the i-affection, or Breton simply inherited a singular *dakru.
  • Thurneysen (and implicitly Matasović, by copying Thurneysen's reconstruction[2]) suppose this word switched to the o-stems, meaning that Middle Welsh deigyr must instead be explained as a secondarily masculine i-affected plural.

Descendants

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  • Proto-Brythonic: *dėgr
  • Old Irish: dér, dǽr

References

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  1. ^ Hamp, Eric (1971) “Varia III”, in Ériu[1], volume 22, Royal Irish Academy, →ISSN, →JSTOR, pages 181–187
  2. ^ Matasović, Ranko (2009) “*dakro-”, in Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 9), Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, page 87