Reconstruction talk:Old English/pund

Old English *pund

Hi Skiulinamo ! I reverted everything before realising that the descendants under pundfald were helpful, so I restored them - thank you ! But yes you caught it, wæterpund is from pund (“pound, weight”) and is therefore neuter. :) As such, I don't think we have enough grounds for a *pundu reconstruction, even though I strongly suspect the term existed based on the Old English descendants alone, but we are encouraged to exercise conservativism where reconstructions are concerned. What say you ? Leasnam (talk) 17:27, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

@Leasnam: Thanks for creating all the OE reconstruction entries. If OFrs bipenda didn't exist, I'd be also inclined to just keep this as an OE entry, but because of it, we can have WG *pundijan, which strongly implies the existence of *pundu. -- Skiulinamo (talk) 00:28, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

I also created Reconstruction:Proto-West Germanic/pinnā, which I would guess is the root of all of these entries. -- Skiulinamo (talk) 01:33, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Just curious why you created *pinnā as a weak feminine a-stem (?). The Old Saxon and Old High German have strong masculine a-stem. Leasnam (talk) 02:40, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

After checking, I think the weak feminine is ok. But there is possibly a strong feminine as well, and definitely a strong masculine. I'll create the masculine.
OHG pinna is giving me some hesitance, as it doesn't show the expected shift from p- to pf- as seen in pfin, phin. I believe this pinna is a borrowing from the Latin, itself a borrowing from Germanic for the sense of "peg, nail". Leasnam (talk) 02:51, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm okay to keep *pundu, but I think it should be moved to *pund- with a note about the unknown gender and declension. Leasnam (talk) 02:54, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

@Leasnam having both *pinnā and *pinn is overkill, with duplicate information. WG *pinn should just be an alternative of entry, it it exists as all. The word is certainly a borrowing, as are all *#pV terms in Germanic, which presumes an original *pinnā from the Latin. OHG pinna is probably a readjustment.

(edit conflict) I created is as a u-stem because it tooks to be derived with a *-þu suffix. -- Skiulinamo (talk) 03:30, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't agree that it's overkill. Both Old Saxon and Old High German inflected pinn and pfin as both a-stem and i-stem. That would be HIGHLY unusual for a borrowed term. Leasnam (talk) 03:34, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

You don't think having duplicate information is overkill? If you look how I laid out the descendants section in *pinnā, it's quite a common way we do it in P(W)G entries. Can you show me usages that point to the OHG being "both a-stem and i-stem"? Köbler seems to just say he's unsure. --Skiulinamo (talk) 03:44, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

For the a-/i- declension I am relying on Koebler, so I'd have to look further on that and get back to you. And I do not think it's overkill any more than having an entry for *pundu is overkill. Besides, if we do put them on one page, it would be better served at *pinn, because that is the one that has the earliest sure attestations, *pinnā lists all Old-stage language forms as reconstructions, and I've expressed what I believe about OHG pinna being shown as an inherited form from *pinnā. But we can agree to disagree, that's okay and nothing wrong with it :) Leasnam (talk) 03:55, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

@Leasnam: And yet the Middle West Germanic forms are all feminine, indicating that they are continuations of the Old West Germanic feminine forms. --Skiulinamo (talk) 04:05, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

I think that the presence of Latin pinna during the late Middle Ages term could be responsible for and account for this fact easily without the need for it being a continuation. Leasnam (talk) 04:12, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

@Skiulinamo <<And yet the Middle West Germanic forms are all feminine>> - actually this is not so - Middle Dutch and Middle Low German are both masculine and femimine. Modern Saterland Frisian is both masc and fem as well. Leasnam (talk) 04:15, 30 January 2023 (UTC)