Reconstruction talk:Proto-Germanic/kannijaną

Two verbs?

Is there another verb here meaning "to beget"? Anglom (talk) 00:50, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

No, the use of to know (German erkennen) in the sense of "to have sexual intercourse with" originates from the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament), where in Hebrew, the same verb is used for both meanings. See w:Carnal knowledge. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:46, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Or might you perhaps be thinking of the Proto-Indo-European verbal root *ǵenh₁-? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:52, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Aye. There definitely seems to be a second verb *kan(ni)janą (“to bring forth; to beget”) in Old English, though usually treated as an extension of this particular verb in dictionaries. I'm not sure that the form is recoverable from Old English alone though, since the two verbs might no longer have been felt as distinct and merged as one. Based on Sanskrit जनयति (janayati, “to beget, produce”), I would probably go with *kanjaną, which is also as Kroonen reconstructs it. Anglom (talk) 03:37, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Good point. Kroonen has *kanjan- "to bring forth" besides *kannjan- "to make known". At least *kanjan- definitely cannot have an i in between n and j because this would prevent the West Germanic gemination seen in cennan, so Kroonen's reconstruction should be followed. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:30, 3 October 2015 (UTC)