smaak

Fragment of a discussion from User talk:Rua
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{{inh}} was fine, it was *smakkuz. Modern long vowels come from either Proto-Germanic long vowels/diphthongs, or from short vowels in an open syllable. In Middle Dutch, these two types of long vowels are still different (we write the former as â ê ô and the latter as ā ē ō) and some dialects such as Limburgish still keep them apart. From a Proto-Germanic short vowel + geminate consonant you'd expect a short vowel in modern Dutch.

Since the modern word has a long vowel, it can't come from *smakkuz but must come from a form that satisfies either of the long-vowel criteria. Sadly, Limburgish has lost the word, and has borrowed smaak from Dutch, so it's no help here.

As for schmecken, it's from Proto-Germanic *smakjaną, a class 1 weak denominative verb.

Rua (mew)23:19, 14 December 2017

@Isomorphyc, FWIW, the *smakkuz entry suggests this became Old Dutch smak, matching the closed-syllable pattern of a short vowel, and this then turned into Middle Dutch smake. That -e on the end suggests that the term might be parsed as sma + ke phonologically, making the a now an open syllable.

@Rua, am I parsing that correctly? And is the Descendants list correct as shown in the *smakkuz entry?

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig23:53, 14 December 2017

But then the question is where the extra vowel came from, and why the k was degeminated.

Rua (mew)23:54, 14 December 2017