Reconstruction talk:Proto-West Germanic/diubul

The High German "f" instead of "b" requires *diuful, doesn't it? 2.202.159.25 01:04, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

PS: Okay, Frings's theory is that it was influenced by "tiuf" (deep), but others say that it was simply borrowed through the Romance *diavolus. 2.202.159.25 01:10, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

The East Central German forms with "b" are at any rate irrelevant as internal "v" regular becomes "b" in them, thus also "Oben" for oven. 2.202.159.25 01:13, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

PPS: Frings certainly knew this and maybe he has some kind of explanation, BUT: OHG "f" represented to distinct phonemes, namely /ɸ~f/ < Germanic /p/, and /f~v/ < Germanic /f/. These did not merge until late MHG (and even then only in some dialects). The word for devil clearly had the latter phoneme and accordingly in MHG it became "tiuvel", not "*tiufel". 2.202.159.25 01:24, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

What’s with the consonantism Haber ←→ Hafer, Seiber ←→ Seifer ←→ Sabber, and the like? Since when is this variation in effect? Maybe it depends on whether attestations are Central or Upper German; and then Central German forms may be borrowed in Upper German writing (as one now everywhere writes Hafer). On the other hand, the /b/ in the Upper German forms of this devil word may be analogically levelled on the model of this kind of words and thus a fricative the original Proto-West Germanic, the reconstruction spurious. Fay Freak (talk) 02:20, 15 February 2021 (UTC)