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Reconstruction talk:Proto-West Germanic/wīpōn

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Latest comment: 2 years ago by Soap in topic whip = wipe?

whip = wipe?

[edit]

I wonder if this is two unrelated roots that just happened to be homophonous, and if so, that the 2nd definition is actually the ancestor of whip,. not wipe. Understandable especially if sound symbolism was at play. Either that, or it was one root all along, with an interesting semantic range, possibly again due to sound symbolism, which developed regularly into wipe but then also into whip perhaps with help from Kluge's law and the resultant gemination. (Although strictly speaking it might actually be degemination on the part of wipe.) Soap 16:21, 15 October 2022 (UTC)Reply