Reconstruction talk:Proto-Germanic/-anē

Gothic?

Gothic -ana is unexpected; PGmc *ē yields Gothic ē and there are other adverbs in ē too iirc, so what's going on here? — Mnemosientje (t · c) 13:11, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

The expected outcome of PGmc *ē is normally a/ā, compare PGmc *branhtē > GO brāhta. Its outcome when protected from absolutely final position is ē/e, again compare PGmc *brahtēz > GO brāhtēs. The Gothic adverbs are also assumed to have developed from an "overlong" vowel /ɛːː/, although I don't really follow the quantitative theory of 'Auslautgesetze'.

Anyway, there were a few endings that could have been reconstructed to this suffix, at the time *-ē just made sense and could explain all the reflexes. Since, I have recognized that it might be better to reconstruct it as *-anō to better match the same contrast as found in 𐌷𐌹𐌳𐍂𐌴 "to this place", as against 𐌸𐌰𐌸𐍂𐍉 "from that place". However, the ending in *-ē is usually the one that appears in dictionaries, ie. Orel's Handbook. Burgundaz (talk) 18:30, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Interesting, I had only noticed that in the middle of a word the long ē was preserved in Gothic, guess it makes sense word-final position could influence how it ends up. The overlong vs long vowel thing always confuses me. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 22:18, 6 January 2021 (UTC)