Reconstruction talk:Proto-Germanic/teraną

German

Surely zerren is the direct descendant, rather than zehren (which seems to come from a causative *terjaną)? BigDom 22:14, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

It seems more like the other way around. rj is generally exempt from the West Germanic gemination, but in OHG it does seem to occur pretty regularly, though perhaps by analogy. The modern -rr- is thus more easily explained from Germanic -rj- than from -r-. —CodeCat 22:17, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the explanation. I didn't know that about OHG and gemination. Cheers, BigDom 23:00, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

zehren and zerren are both from *tarjaną (Old High German zeren and zerren, respectively; the descendant of *teraną is zeran). The same alternation is found in Middle Dutch terren alongside tēren and Middle Low German (idem). The -rr- is probable intensive, although I don't know if the Middle Dutch and Middle Low German verbs had the same semantic distinction as the High German ones.