Reconstruction talk:Proto-Germanic/sturmaz

Etymology

Pre-Germanic *sr̥mos would give Germanic **surmaz; the -r- would need to be non-syllabic to generate an epenthetic -t-. It's also possible the cluster -sr- made it at least to Verner's law, as its Verner form -zr- was resolved to -r- with lengthening of the preceding vowel; cf. *hērą < *hezram < *kesróm. This would imply syllabic -r̥- was resolved to -ur- long before the epenthesis of -str-.

*sturmaz requires Pre-Germanic *str̥mos or *sturmos, which makes it very likely it was formed to the root of *staurijaną (“to disturb, destroy”). Anglom (talk) 18:05, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

A very good point. As far as I know (and what Ringe says), epenthesis before syllabic sonorants happened pretty early on. But I'm not sure about the lengthening before -zr-. I'm pretty sure that Proto-Germanic still had real examples of -zr-? —CodeCat 18:29, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

I can't think of any off the top of my head, though there are many with -rz-. My information mostly comes from here: [[1]]. It wasn't a far-reaching sound change, it only affects a handful of forms at best. Anglom (talk) 18:57, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

The paper I've referenced argues that *t-epenthesis in Germanic affected also word-initial *sr̥, and that there seem to be no reliable examples of *sr̥- > **sur-.

As for the medial situation, I'm not sure I see the problem; is there anything that would argue against dating Verner's Law as earlier than the unpacking of syllabics?--Tropylium (talk) 12:40, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

You know, honestly, I cannot think of anything that would counter either of those points. About the only other thing I can offer is that the three words in the paper have other plausible etymologies, but the proposed etymologies seem just as plausible. Anglom (talk) 16:23, 19 July 2015 (UTC)