Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic/dakrū
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This Proto-Celtic entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence. |
Proto-Celtic
editEtymology
editFrom Proto-Indo-European *dáḱru (“tear”).
Noun
edit*dakrū n
Inflection
editThis entry needs an inflection-table template.
Reconstruction notes
editThe reconstruction of this noun's declension is difficult, since Old Irish and Brittonic clearly show independent secondary developments that obscure the old Proto-Celtic situation. See Hamp (1971) for more details.[1]
- The GPC, followed by Jackson, reconstruct a singular *dakrū, plural *dakrowes, but there is no regular way to derive such a paradigm on an Indo-European basis.
- In Old Irish, the word became a neuter o-stem, which Hamp believes must have happened after general apocope that made u-stems homophones to o-stems outside the genitive singular.
- Brittonic has Welsh with i-affection and Breton without i-affection. Hamp explains this via a very archaic plural form *dakrū (< *dáḱruh₂), which would yield Middle Welsh deigyr via regular i-affection; the Breton singular form either could have been formed by reverting the i-affection, or Breton simply inherited a singular *dakru.
- Thurneysen (and implicitly Matasović, by copying Thurneysen's reconstruction[2]) suppose this word switched to the o-stems, meaning that Middle Welsh deigyr must instead be explained as a secondarily masculine i-affected plural.