tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post515268184355819151..comments2024-02-19T12:11:32.695+01:00Comments on Language Evolution: The Middle English Dictionary Needs a Fucking UpdatePiotr Gąsiorowskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-31572447962816785262019-04-13T21:21:35.814+02:002019-04-13T21:21:35.814+02:00Verner's Law doesn't operate here. The PIE...Verner's Law doesn't operate here. The PIE root was *<b>perd-</b>. Modern English has generalised the e-grade of the present stem (/ɛr/ > /ar/ was a semi-regular Middle English change).<br /><br />If the verb had remained strong, it could have become something like *<i>fart</i>, *<i>fart</i> (or *<i>furt</i>), *<i>forten</i>, but note that all the surviving Class III strong verbs with OE <i>-eorC-</i> have been regularised.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-43230988356139491312019-03-29T08:04:05.325+01:002019-03-29T08:04:05.325+01:00Re:
“*feortan (1/3 sg. pret. *feart, pret. pl. *fu...Re:<br />“*feortan (1/3 sg. pret. *feart, pret. pl. *furton, p.p. *forten)” — if the Vern has t become regular, what would be the present-day reflexes of its strong forms?KateGladstonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07062492442607584456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-3432504521562000732017-04-27T10:44:45.116+02:002017-04-27T10:44:45.116+02:00Indeed, ſee the diſcuſsion above.Indeed, ſee <a href="http://langevo.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-middle-english-dictionary-needs.html?showComment=1442248591183#c1182831665481030783" rel="nofollow">the diſcuſsion</a> above.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-61375427063133903932017-04-26T19:29:42.636+02:002017-04-26T19:29:42.636+02:00You may already be aware of this, but the reason f...You may already be aware of this, but the reason for the apparently high use of fuck, fucking, and fucker prior to 1820 in Google books nGram viewer is due to it misreading long s as f in forms of the word suck (and also such).Peter Buchananhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03268344666206253378noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-77056627386975786722015-09-23T23:36:45.845+02:002015-09-23T23:36:45.845+02:00if a Beornfriþ was affectionately called Beffa by ...<i>if a Beornfriþ was affectionately called Beffa by his kith and kin, or if an Ēadberht was known less formally as Eabba, neither the /f/ nor the /b/ was replaced by /pp/ upon becoming geminated</i><br /><br />Such things did occasionally happen, though, like when Þeodberht became Becca.<br /><br /><i>There may be a historical connection between KL and expressive gemination, but the latter was mnotivated by the former, not the other way round.</i><br /><br />Yes: KL rendered baby-language nicknames interpretable as good old Indo-European <i>n</i>-stem nicknames, thus declinable, and it introduced long consonants into adult language, making the names less awkward to pronounce.David Marjanovićhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00233722577300632805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-11828316654810307832015-09-14T18:36:31.183+02:002015-09-14T18:36:31.183+02:00An excellent idea! It's easily testable. We sh...An excellent idea! It's easily testable. We should expect a large number of nonsense readings like "fing" and "feven" about 1800, dropping down to almost zero about 1820, and this is exactly what we find:<br /><br /><a href="https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=fing&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cfing%3B%2Cc0" rel="nofollow">FING</a><br /><a href="https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=feven&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cfeven%3B%2Cc0" rel="nofollow">FEVEN</a><br /><br />Whether this accounts for all the early 19th century appearances of <i>fuck</i> is a different matter, also worth checking. If we add up the occurrences of <i>fuck</i> and <i>suck</i> during the first two decades of the 19th century (assuming that they all mean 'suck'), there seems to be a hard-to-explain surplus of them.<br /><br /><a href="https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=fuck%2C+suck&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cfuck%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Csuck%3B%2Cc0" rel="nofollow">FUCK, SUCK</a><br /><br />So either sucking was a popular topic at the time or some of the <i>fucks</i> have to be taken at face value... <i>Or</i> there is some other word producing -- so to speak -- spurious <i>fucks</i> (and possibly <i>sucks</i> as well). An examination of actual examples from Google books shows that this is indeed the case: the (quite unexpected) source of false readings turns out to be <i>such</i>.<br /><br />It goes to show how careful one has to be with toy analytic tools.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-1003735885367070472015-09-14T16:45:37.977+02:002015-09-14T16:45:37.977+02:00As for the Arthurian story: we should now start di...As for the Arthurian story: we should now start digging in the Middle English court archives, in Cheshire and elsewhere, in search of surnames like <i>Lickebythenavele</i>. The MED records <i>Gaufridus Lickefinger</i> (1205), <i>Hugo Likkeberd</i> (1230), and two Reginalds, <i>Lickepipin</i> (1309) and <i>Likkeloue</i> (1310).Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-572182871471201602015-09-14T16:42:35.665+02:002015-09-14T16:42:35.665+02:00I suspect that the use of "fuck" in book...I suspect that the use of "fuck" in books in the early 19th century is an artefact of the fact that the long s (often confused with an f) had not completely disappeared at that time.Athel Cornish-Bowdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05993242236208061356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-46767692166589810682015-09-14T10:25:34.362+02:002015-09-14T10:25:34.362+02:00One can argue that "expressive" (hypocor...One can argue that "expressive" (hypocoristic, etc.) gemination is a real enough phenomenon in (post-Proto-)Germanic, but it works differently from Kluges Law. For example, if a Beornfriþ was affectionately called Beffa by his kith and kin, or if an Ēadberht was known less formally as Eabba, neither the /f/ nor the /b/ was replaced by /pp/ upon becoming geminated. There may be a historical connection between KL and expressive gemination, but the latter was mnotivated by the former, not the other way round.<br /><br />Kluge's Law is not just about gemination, anyway. It also elegantly accounts for many otherwise problematic forms with unexpected voiceless stops in Germanic: <i>white</i>, <i>deep</i>, <i>teach</i>, etc. the alternatives (PIE and PGmc. "root variants" , PIE *<b>b</b>, etc.) are <i>ad hoc</i> and create more problems than they "solve".Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4569985457770997949.post-27529804038741475672015-09-14T00:47:45.979+02:002015-09-14T00:47:45.979+02:00As I said at LH, the objectors to Kluge's Law ...As I said at LH, the objectors to Kluge's Law simply explain away each case, one by one, rather than accepting the methodologically obvious, even to the point of saying <i>lick</i> is expressive gemination — from an onomatopoetic root, I suppose!<br /><br />There's a story about King Arthur going off to the Roman wars and locking Guinevere in a guillotine-style chastity belt designed by Merlin. When Arthur returns, he performs a short-arm inspection, and dismisses all of his knights in disgrace except Lancelot, whose equipment has remained intact. When he tells Lancelot he is the best knight of Logres, Lancelot replies /lʷʊ ˈlʷʊlʷʊ ˈlʷʊlʷʊ/.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.com