Reconstruction talk:Proto-West Germanic/kākabain

Linking vowel

@Victar It's unlikely that the linking vowel was -ā-. It doesn't show up in any of the descendants, which is especially striking when it does show up in the isolated word. Gothic has -a- in an- and ōn-stem compounds,[1] which could be original, but it's hard to tell as it's not possible to know its length. —Rua (mew) 19:38, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

@Rua: Yeah, I wasn't at all sure what I novel PWG compound with an ōn-stem in the first element would look like. It could also be that this was innovated independently or calqued into either. Do we have any comparables in PWG? --{{victar|talk}} 08:13, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I suppose until we discover more, we can leave it like this. Or perhaps use a short -a-, since that fits the descendants at least. I think compounds with a short-stemmed first element might be useful here, as they might preserve the linking vowel. —Rua (mew) 08:27, 28 April 2020 (UTC)