Reconstruction talk:Proto-Germanic/erþaburgz
a/ō
[edit]This should be ō, I see no reason for the connective vowel to be "a". I have no idea how to change it though. Hrabnaz (talk) 18:52, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
- Why would it be ō? The default thematic connecting vowel in Germanic was -a-, just as -i- in Latin (from earlier -o-) and -o- (... mostly) in Ancient Greek. There doesn't seem to be any sign that compounds contained -ō- either, for instance, we'd expect Old High German **erdaburg, not erdburg, or Old Norse **jǫrðborg, not jarðborg. The fact that the default connecting/thematic vowel was -a-, and that it largely disappeared in the Northwest Germanic languages, is why Old Northwest Germanic languages appear to compound as though with bare stems, otherwise we'd expect some sign of intermittent -a- or -o-/-u- in such compounds. Compare Old English ġifu < *gebō, but ġif-heall < *geba-hallō. Burgundaz (talk) 14:42, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
- I'm just going off of what I see in the majority of compounds that have an ō-stem word as the first component.
- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/er%C3%BE%C5%8Dfallaz
- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/er%C3%BE%C5%8Dfastuz
- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/er%C3%BE%C5%8Dhnuts
- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/er%C3%BE%C5%8Dkundaz
- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/r%C5%ABn%C5%8Dstabaz
- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/%C3%9Eeud%C5%8Dbal%C3%BEaz
- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/%C3%9Eeud%C5%8Dberhtaz
- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/%C3%9Eeud%C5%8Dr%C4%ABks Hrabnaz (talk) 02:40, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
- Ah, gotcha. I guess you could say, since there is no concrete evidence either way since it's a reconstructed language, it can't be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Germanic didn't compound like that. But as I stated above, what little evidence there is does point to Germanic compounding largely just like Latin and Ancient Greek did, with simple thematic -o- representing the o-/-eh₂ class of nominals, because again, if *erþō compounded as *erþō-, we would definitely expect some sign of such formations from Old High German (-a- or -u-) or Old Norse (possible labial umlaut).
- But regardless of my own opinion, the only real (extensive) source that lists compounds in older Germanic is Orel's "A Handbook of Germanic Etymology", which follows the same assumption, where all compounds involving *erþō appear as *erþa-, (pages 85-86), e.g. *erþa-bazjan, *erþa-burgz, and so on. Burgundaz (talk) 20:39, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
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I have no problem with the word or whenever it existed or not. My issue is in regards to whenever the word should be reconstructed as Proto-Germanic *erþaburgz (“earthen mound, earthwork”) or *erþōburgz. This example is one of many PGmc where the first noun of the reconstructed compound ends with "ō" but the reconstructed compound has medial "a". I would normally check the descendent to see if I can deduce more information, however, most have no medial compound vowel e.g. Old English eorþburh, Old High German erdburg, Old Norse jarðborh. So now, I'm left wondering what form it should be. 𐌷𐌻𐌿𐌳𐌰𐍅𐌹𐌲𐍃 𐌰𐌻𐌰𐍂𐌴𐌹𐌺𐌹𐌲𐌲𐍃 (talk) 03:19, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
- The default medial vowel in pre-Germanic had become -o- for the thematic classes, as in Celtic and Latin. PGmc medial*-ō- would presumably have left some trace in OHG. Burgundaz (talk) 08:54, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
- Kept. The discussion both here and on the talk page really seems to be whether the page should be moved to a different title, not deleted outright. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:00, 21 August 2023 (UTC)