Reconstruction talk:Proto-Germanic/blējaną

Related terms

I think the word blather might be related, from Old Norse blaðra (“to blather, talk nonsense”), blaðr (“nonsense”), possibly from "crying" > "noise" > "nonsense". I'm unsure about the PGmc form however, whether the vowel was shortened, or what the voicing of the dental was: *blē(þ/d)rōną/*bla(þ/d)rōną, *blē(þ/d)rą/*bla(þ/d)rą < PreGmc *bl(e)h₁trom/*bʰl(e)h₁dʰrom. On the other hand, it might also have come from *blēaną (“to blow”), in the sense of "to be filled with air; talk nonsense". Anglom (talk) 17:29, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Proto-Germanic generally did not allow -j- to occur between vowels. According to Ringe, it was lost between vowels in late Proto-Germanic times, except when the preceding vowel was -i-. So that immediately makes this form suspicious. On the other hand, I have wondered what would happen in cases like this where a class 1 weak verb was formed to a vowel-final stem. Going purely by the regular phonological developments, the result would be *blēaną or possibly even *blēną. But there would remain an alternation between lost -j- and retained -i-, which would make such verbs still partially recognisable as class 1 weak verbs. In particular the entire past tense would be unchanged by the loss. So it's quite likely that the lost -j- would be restored again at some later point. —CodeCat 19:12, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Should we note this in the page then do you think? Anglom (talk) 19:25, 22 October 2014 (UTC)