Reconstruction talk:Proto-West Germanic/krīg
Add topicAppearance
Latest comment: 9 years ago by JohnC5 in topic Doubtful if this ever existed
Doubtful if this ever existed
[edit]1. Grimm's Law pretty much rules out initial K in Proto-Germanic. Most if not all cases of initial K are either borrowings from other languages, or later transformations within Germanic languages. 108.48.94.155 22:10, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
- So a word like PGmc *kaldaz (“cold”) would not be possible? It has an initial K Leasnam (talk) 22:19, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
2. All the examples here are west Germanic. 108.48.94.155 22:10, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
- So PIE *g and *ǵ become *k in PGem. You are right that PIE *k mostly becomes PGem *h (expect for, say, w:Verner's law), but to say that all *k initial PGem words are borrowed is utterly false (see here). As for it only having descendants in West Germanic, that is not much of a problem. —JohnC5 00:13, 17 November 2015 (UTC)