8 posts tagged “gradation”
*k(w)ert- is glossed in LIV as 'binden'. It is only found in Ved. cṛtáti 'he binds'.
*gʰerdʰ- is glossed 'umschließen, umgürten'. It is found in ON as gyrða 'to gird'. Also often found denominaly like in Dutch gordel 'girdle' from *gʰrdʰ-lo-. Also related is Skt. gṛha- 'house' and OCS gradъ 'city, garden'.
Both roots are mainly found in Ø-grade. But in gothic we find gairda 'girdle' which actually points to an *e-grade.
*skreit- is glossed as 'im Kreis gehen' (?) in LIV with the (?) marking the uncertainty of the meaning.
In OEn. We find scrīðan 'to walk, to step' which we still find in Dutch schrijden 'id.'. In Lith. we find skríečiu, skríesti 'to go in a circle', which is where the LIV meaning comes from. But if this root is to be connected with *gʰreidʰ- then the meaning of going in a cirkel rather than 'to walk' is probably secondary.
*gʰreidʰ- is glossed in LIV as 'schreiten'. It is attested in OIr. in:greinn, in:grennat 'to follow', OCS. grędǫ, gręsti 'to go, to come'. Which both point towards a nasal present *gʰri-né-dʰ-.
The root *skreit- is exclusively found in e-grade, o-grade and Ø-grade, since it's a strong verb in Germanic all three reflexes are automatically attested. Lithuanian only points to an e-grade.
The root *gʰreidʰ obviously only points to an n-infixed root.
*(s)kerp- is attested in Lat. carpō 'to pluck, to gather'. The a is somewhat problematic. De Vaan in EDL explains it by a zero-grade before another consonant possibly from the ppp. *krp-to-.
Hitt. karp(ii̯e/a)-zi 'to take (away), lift, pluck'.
In Old English we fins sceorfan 'to bite' which goes back to an e-grade of the root together with the s-mobile. Lith. has kir̃pti 'to shear off'. And Gk. has καρπός 'fruit'.
This root is only found in the Ø-grade and e-grade.
*gʰrebʰ- is found in several languages. It is glossed in LIV as 'graben'. Got. graban 'to grab'. Latv. grebju, grebt
to scrape, to make hollow' and OCS. grebǫ, greti 'to row, to grab'.
One might argue that some of the words attested in the root *gʰrebh₂- might be unified witht his root. For example the Skt. root gṛbh- 'to grab' could be unified with this root. It's present formation is is gṛbhnā́ti which could be derived from an n-infix between the *b and the *h₂ but then we would have a double representation of the *h₂ (both in form of the long a and the aspirate bh). Nevertheless the root gṛbh- is a seṭ root which would normally point to a laryngeal.
This root is attested in e-grade and o-grade, and if Sanskrit applies also in the Ø-grade.
If this pair is indeed a consonant gradation pair, one should note that we actually have an occurrence of schwebeablaut here.
*terp- is glossed as 'erstarren' in LIV and *(s)dʰerbʰ- is glossed as 'fest/starr werden'.
*terp- is found in Lat. torpeō 'to be numb, paralysed. Also found in Lith. tir͂pti 'to coagulate, grow stiff'; OCS. trƅpĕti 'to suffer'; In germanic this root is also found OHG derb/p, OE þeorf, OIc. þjarfr 'unleavened' < PGm. þerba- 'stiff' < *trep-ó-.
As seen, this root is attested with o-grade, e-grade and Ø-grade.
*(s)dʰerbʰ- is found in OHG sterban 'to die', with an s-mobile that devoices the initial consonant. OE has deorfan 'to perish'.
CS strƅbi 'to make ripe', And OCS u-strabljǫ, -strabiti 'to make healthy', which is a *-eie/o-causative derivation with o-grade in te root.
Also in this root o-grade, e-grade and Ø-grade is attested.
Both *treup- and *dʰreubʰ- are glossed in LIV as 'zerbröckeln'.
The root *treup- is exclusively found in Balto-Slavic. Lith. trupù trupė́ti 'to crumble'; rus. trupljú trupít 'id.'. A nasalpresent formation is also found in Lithuanian as trumpù truptí 'to crumble'. The root always displays Ø-grade.
*dʰreubʰ- is almost only found in Gr. θρύπτω 'to crumble' besides a aor. ptc. διατρύφην. People have tried to connect OSax. drūvōn 'to be sad', which is semantically a bit of a stretch. Also this root is only found with Ø-grade.
This root is too badly attested to be used as proof for consonant gradation. But if consonant gradation can be proven in some through other roots, we might be able to connect these two as gradation pairs.
*trep- is glossed in LIV as 'wenden' and *strebʰ- is glossed as 'drehen, wenden'.
*trep- is a well attested root in several Indo-European languages. First there's Hitt. terepp-zi 'to plough'; Gr. τρέπω 'to turn' Lat. trepō 'id.' Skt. trapate 'to be ashamed' with a semantic shift of 'to turn away' → 'to turn away in shame' → 'to be ashamed'.
All these attestations unambiguously point towards *trep- which was athematic in the Hittite stage, and later became thematic.
If *strebʰ- is to be paired with the root *trep-, then the *s must be an s-mobile. This root is only attested in Greek though, as στρέφω. One might wonder whether it is a PIE root; The root structure itself would seem to indicate so, finding another explanation for this root would be difficult.
It should be noted that the *t in *strebʰ- might have been a *dʰ which was devoiced by the initial *s. Both roots unambiguously display full grade in the root, only Hittite shows an e/Ø ablaut which we might expect from an athematic verb. If the Greek word στρέφω indeed has an Indo-European origin, than these two words may be gradation-pairs.
Boot these roots are like the previous pair glossed as 'schlagen'.
The root *pleh₂g- is found in Lat. plangō 'to beat, to strike; mourn, bewail' as an old *n-infix present. Go. faiflokun 'to hit, to flog'. Gr. πλάζω 'to hit, to drive off course, aor. ἐπλήγην, passive πλάγθη 'was beaten'. Lastly it is found in OSax. as flōkan 'to curse'. The last form is also still found in Dutch as vloeken with the exact same meaning as Old Saxon.
Latin solely shows the Ø-grade of the root, while Greek shows both Ø-grade and full-grade. Germanic exclusively has the full grade.
*bʰleh₂g- is attested in Lat. flāgrum 'whip', with the instrumental suffix *-ro-. Also found in several OIc. Words: blaka, blakra 'to hit back and forth', blak 'a blow', blekkja 'to hit'. Lastly the root is found with a *-ske/o- suffix in Lith. blokšti, blaškiù 'to swing back and forth'.
OIc. represents the root in the Ø-grade *bʰlh₂g-, while Latin points towards a full grade *bʰleh₂g-. Finally Lithuanian shows ablaut of both full- and Ø-grade.
If the alternation is true, then this allows us to give a more specific meaning to this root. *bʰleh₂g- quite clearly means 'to flay with a whip'. While Gothic seems to indicate the same meaning in the root *pleh₂g-.
The root *pieh₂- is glossed as 'schlagen' in LIV. The present is said to have a *-u- stemextension. Gr. πταίω 'to bump oneself', Lat. paviō 'to thump, to pound, to strike'. Which point to *pih₂-u-ie/o-.
Baltic provides evidence for this root in both lith. piáuju(piáuti) 'to cut' and latv. pļaũju (pļaũt) 'to mow, to harvest'. This points to *pih₂-u-ie/o- as well.
TochB. has the one form pyakar 'strike (downwards), batter'. which due to the absence of the *-u- element is considered a retention of the aorist. This would reflect *pieh₂- with the *h₂ > *k shift. Shift proposed. The evidence of this word is the weakest. The *h₂ > *k is controversial and TochB. p could also be from PIE *b or *bʰ.
An *eie/o-causative form is found in Gr. πτοᾶν 'to strike down' which goes back to *pioh₂-eie/o-.
The root bʰeiH- is attested in olat. perfines 'to break', OIr. -benaid, -ben 'to strike'. This points to *bʰi-ne/n-H.
One also finds OCS. biti 'to beat' which seems to point to *bʰiH-ie/o-.
There is no conclusive evidence for the value of the laryngeal in *bʰeiH- but if these roots are indeed gradation pairs, *bʰeih₂- should be reconstructed.
One should also note that all the forms with the *bʰ are only found with Ø-grade. Technically speaking the root could be *bʰieH- and thus show no schwebeablaut that it seems to have at first sight
