Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic/lubī
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This Proto-Celtic entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence. |
Proto-Celtic
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Proto-Indo-European *lewbʰ- (“leaf”). Compare with English leaf and Latin liber (“book”).
Noun
[edit]*lubī f[1]
Declension
[edit]| Feminine ī/yā-stem | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| singular | dual | plural | |
| nominative | *lubī | *lubī | *lubiyās |
| vocative | *lubī | *lubī | *lubiyās |
| accusative | *lubīm | *lubī | *lubīms |
| genitive | *lubyās | *lubyous | *lubyom |
| dative | *lubyai | *lubyābom | *lubyābos |
| locative | *? | *? | *? |
| instrumental | *? | *lubyābim | *lubyābis |
Reconstruction notes
[edit]- The only direct indication of inflectional class is Old Irish. On the surface, a declension with nominative luib, genitive singular lubae and Middle Irish luba(i) is hopelessly ambiguous between an original ī-stem and an ā-stem with a secondarily palatalized nominative singular.
- The deciding factor in favour of an original ī-stem over an ā-stem is the lack of a-affection in both Brittonic and Old Irish; in Old Irish for instance we would expect **lo(i)b instead of actual luib.
- The Brittonic forms do not exhibit i-affection, leading to Schrijver to reconstruct instead *lubis,[2] and him to assume that in Old Irish, this word only secondarily joined the ī-stems because this word's feminine gender and non-genitive palatalization in the singular. Schrijver's reasoning is difficult to accept since many feminine i-stems exist in Old Irish, invalidating any motivation to even switch to the ī-stems in the first place.
- Instead, an easier way to unite the ī-stem inflection in Old Irish and the non-affection in Brittonic is to assume that Brittonic inherited the oblique stem *lubyā-, which would regularly lose its second syllable without any affections in Brittonic. This very strategy was used by Schrijver himself (albeit for different purposes) to unify the Brittonic derivatives of *nāwā (“boat”), via assuming an intermediate ī-stem *nāwī, oblique *nāwyā-.
Derived terms
[edit]Descendants
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Matasović, Ranko (2009) Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 9), Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, page 247
- ^ Schrijver, Peter C. H. (1995) Studies in British Celtic historical phonology (Leiden studies in Indo-European; 5), Amsterdam, Atlanta: Rodopi, page 147