Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic/mal-
Appearance
Proto-Celtic
[edit]Noun
[edit]*mal- f
Reconstruction notes
[edit]Reconstruction of this word is very difficult.
- Middle Irish mala (nom. sg.) and Old Irish mailgib (dat. pl.) (the nominative singular is unattested in Old Irish), at face value, can only be reconciled by a reconstruction of *maleixs (nom. sg.), *maleig(ʷ)- (oblique stem). This reconstruction obviously cannot yield Breton malvenn directly.
- Thurneysen speculates that the velar-stem inflection in Goidelic may have been acquired secondarily.[1]
- Fleuriot's attempt to decompose Breton malvenn as a compound[2] cannot be accepted, because the Old Irish word **find "hair" he compares to the putative second element -venn does not actually exist, with Fleuriot misunderstanding all relevant Old Irish material.
- Deshayes's proposal that Breton malvenn is a singulative of a stem *malw-[3] does not work, since -lw- normally yields -lb- in Old Irish.
- Koch's *malaxs[4] cannot correctly yield the palatalized syncopated forms in Old Irish nor Middle Irish mala.
- Pokorny's *malixs[5] and De Bernardo Stempel's i-stem *malis[6] fail to provide any explanation for the Middle Irish nominative singular mala (**mail would be expected).
- Pokorny's *malixs is also invalidated by the genitive singular malach and accusative/dative singular malaig attested in early Irish; one would instead expect **mailech and **mailig respectively.
Descendants
[edit]- Proto-Brythonic:
- Old Irish: malae
References
[edit]- ^ Thurneysen, Rudolf (1940) D. A. Binchy and Osborn Bergin, transl., A Grammar of Old Irish, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, →ISBN, § 319, page 203; reprinted 2017
- ^ Fleuriot, Léon, Evans, Claude (1985) “uinan”, in A Dictionary of Old Breton – Dictionnaire du vieux breton: Historical and Comparative (in French), Toronto: Prepcorp, page 326
- ^ Deshayes, Albert (2003) “malwenn”, in Dictionnaire étymologique du breton (in French), Douarnenez: Le Chasse-Marée, →ISBN, page 488
- ^ Koch, John (2004) “brow”, in English–Proto-Celtic Word-list with attested comparanda[1], University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies, page 49
- ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959) Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch [Indo-European Etymological Dictionary] (in German), volume 2, Bern, München: Francke Verlag, page 721
- ^ de Bernardo Stempel, Patrizia (1999) Nominale Wortbildung des älteren Irischen: Stammbildung und Derivation [Noun Formation in Old Irish: Stem-formation and derivation] (Buchreihe der Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie) (in German), volume 15, Tübingen: Niemeyer, →ISBN, page 184