Reconstruction talk:Proto-Germanic/dēdiz

Gothic

Is dēþs really attestable on its own? My sources (ODS, SAOB and Torp) only list the prefixed gadēþs. – Krun 12:02, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter I think. ga- was a productive prefix in Gothic, so Gothic speakers would have definitely been aware of a variety of the word without it, even if they never used it. —CodeCat 12:21, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

OE -dǣde

I wonder if Old English adjectival -dǣde, < *dēdiz/*dēdijaz would represent a gerundive to the verb *dōną or derivation from this noun? Anglom (talk) 17:22, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

It looks like it should be a verbal adjective, yes? earfoþdǣde (“hard to do, difficult”), ēaþdǣde (“easy to do”), māndǣde (“doing evil, wicked”). Anglom (talk) 17:28, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I would tend to agree. But the form for this particular verb *dōną looks to be suppletive (in this case from the noun). Other adjectives such as earfoþlǽre (hard to teach) clearly show the verb element going back to PGmc *laizijaz (being to teach, teachable). These types of derived adjs are rife in OE. On the other hand, lǽwede (ignorant, lay; > (deprecated template usage) lewd) appears to be the same kind of derivation from a participle, possibly indicating that this derivation may have been productive in OE or proto-OE...Leasnam (talk) 00:02, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

I reconstructed the adjective as *dēdiz. These i-stem verbal adjectives generally seem to be derived from the non-singular preterite stem of strong verbs. Maybe they were originally some sort of stative adjective? Verbal adjectives from the first and second strong verb classes seem to show both o- and 0-grade forms though, where we would expect only 0-grade. But the remaining classes are remarkably predictable. It's also interesting to note that there are a few equivalent adjectives in Sanskrit, eg. भार्य (bhārya, “to be borne or supported”), implying *bērijaz rather than *bēriz. But Gothic seems to point to the latter suffix.

Verbal adjectives derived from weak verbs, at least class 1, tend to show the suffix *-ijaz, and there seems to be a late and very gradual Proto-Germanic tendency to change that suffix to *-īgaz, compare Gothic 𐌻𐌰𐌹𐍃𐌴𐌹𐌲𐍃 (laiseigs) instead of expected **𐌻𐌰𐌹𐍃𐌴𐌹𐍃 (**laiseis). I had noticed this before in Continental West Germanic cognates to Old English i-stem adjectives, so it might very well be a process that started in Common Germanic. *-gaz adjectives are originally denominative, so where they show verbal semantics, it's safe to assume they were originally adjectives in *-ijaz. Gothic (anda)𐌽𐌴𐌼𐌴𐌹𐌲𐍃 ((anda)nēmeigs) was likely originally *nēmijaz, derived from *nēmijaną, which itself was probably derived from *nēmiz, cf. Old English ġenǣman, fornǣman. Anglom (talk) 02:44, 30 September 2015 (UTC)