Reconstruction talk:Proto-West Germanic/wulbi

*wulgī

Is it possible this this is descended from *wulgī and was altered for tabooistic reasons? The OE form could easily be explained as conforming to wulf, but the OHG is a bit more difficult. @Leasnam, Rua, Mahagaja, Mnemosientje --{{victar|talk}} 00:13, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Well, *wulfaz itself underwent the same kʷ > p change, presumably for tabooistic reasons, so wulbi could have followed it at any time. —Mahāgaja · talk 06:17, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

@Mahagaja: Right, so I'm inclined to just say this is descended from *wulgī and its tabooistic variant *wulbī. --{{victar|talk}} 21:41, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

@Victar, Mahagaja: Or, as Kuiper argues, the labiovelar was delabialised before *-y-, leading to an alternation *wulbī (with the same artikulatorischer Sprung as *wulfaz) ~ *wulgjōz that was later levelled in different ways in West and North Germanic. Indeed, Swedish ylva appears to imply that the alternation was still present in Proto-Norse. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:41, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

@Victar, Mahagaja: Turns out ylva is apparently Elfdalian only; check Kroonen 2013: 598 s. v. *wulgī ~ *wulbjō-. See also introduction p. xxxii. Kroonen considers the *-b- of West Germanic and Elfdalian to be secondary and adopted from the masculine form prior to Verner's law, although given that Verner's law is Proto-Germanic, this does seem to imply that the Proto-Germanic term featured an alternation *-g- ~ *-b- – or perhaps Kroonen is suggesting that there were two distinct Proto-Germanic lexemes meaning 'she-wolf', one with *-g- and one with *-b-, which have been preserved side by side as late as Proto-Norse; he's not explicit about it, and the hypothetical possibility strikes me as hard to believe. In any case, the so-called artikulatorischer Sprung kʷ > p is attested in several other Germanic lexemes, most of them numerals, so it's certainly not a tabooistic deformation, but a more or less regular sound development. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:04, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

So if we construct a common PWG *wulbi/ON ylgr PG entry, what should it be under, *wulhwī? --{{victar|talk}} 16:29, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

@Victar: Personally, I favour *wulbī as per Kuiper, but *wulgī as per Kroonen is also a possibility, and I wouldn't oppose it. I would avoid *wulhwī as I cannot see a case for this reconstruction. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:29, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

@Victar: If anything, *wulgwī would be a conceivable alternative. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:33, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke: Right, sorry, yes, I meant *wulgwī, per the current etymology on *wulgī. --{{victar|talk}} 21:30, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

I think the most likely solution is PG nom. sg. *wulbī(z), gen. sg. *wulgjōz (implying that the artikulatorische Sprung postdates the unrounding before *-j-), which was inherited as such by Proto-Norse, but levelled to PWG nsg. *wulbi, gsg. *wulbijo, and analogously in part of North Germanic, but in another part the levelling went the other way, hence Proto-Norse nsg. *wulgī(z), gsg. *wulgijōz. It is odd that Kroonen does not even mention OE wylf, by the way; it's not strictly diagnostic, but fits the PWG reconstruction. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:09, 8 January 2024 (UTC)