*dag

Reconstruction

Ringe and Taylor reconstruct *dag for Proto-West Germanic,^[1] and Wiktionary has the same form.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *dagaz (“day”),^[3][4] which Kroonen cites by its stem *daga- and Orel as *đaʒaz.^[4][5] Ringe and Taylor derive Proto-West Germanic *dag, *dagas, *dagē from the Proto-Germanic nominative, genitive and dative *dagaz, *dagas, *dagai.^[6] The loss of word-final *-z in polysyllables and of word-final short low vowels left the nominative singular without an ending.^[1]

Morphology

A masculine a-stem.^[7][8] Ringe and Taylor's Proto-West Germanic paradigm has the singular *dag (nominative and accusative), *dagas (genitive), *dagē (dative) and *dagu (instrumental), and the plural *dagō and *dagą̄ (nominative and accusative, both marked as uncertain), *dagō (genitive) and *dagum (dative-instrumental).^[1] The *-s of the Old English and Old Saxon nominative plural, dagas and dagos, might be later than Proto-West Germanic; both languages gave the accusative plural the form of the nominative, while Old High German taga did the reverse.^[9] In Old English the fronted vowel was retracted to a in all and only the forms of the plural, because of the shapes of their endings.^[9]

Evidence

The word is found in all the West Germanic languages: Old Saxon dag and Old High German tag keep the vowel, while Old English dæġ and Old Frisian dei show the fronting of short *a in the northern dialects.^[3] De Vaan derives Old Frisian dei from *dæg, with the palatalization of the final consonant.^[10] Old Dutch has dag, as ⟨dach⟩ in Williram's commentary of about 1100 and ⟨dage⟩ in the Middle Franconian Rhyme Bible.^[11] Klingenberg read a single d-rune at the end of a line of the Schretzheim II inscription as a concept rune for pre-Old High German *d(ag), taken as a man's name;^[12] Düwel, Nedoma and Oehrl call this a mere conjecture.^[12]

Competing analyses

De Vaan counts the fronting of West Germanic *a to æ among the Anglo-Frisian characteristics, and since Proto-Frisian merged *æ with *e before 700 CE, Proto-Frisian had *dej where Proto-Franconian had *dag.^[13] On that basis several authors have taken western Dutch forms with e for traces of an Ingvaeonic stage of coastal Dutch.^[13] Stiles puts the fronting of *dag to *dæg early in the relative chronology of the Anglo-Frisian sound changes, before the palatalization of velars.^[14] Ringe and Taylor treat the fronting as a change of the northern West Germanic dialects.^[3]

Meanings

1. day^[3][2]

Old English also used the word for "weekday",^[7] Old Frisian also for "lifetime", "appointed day" and "assembly",^[15] and Old High German also for "time".^[16]

Derivatives

• *dagēn "to dawn", which Wiktionary reconstructs;^[17] Ringe and Taylor reconstruct *dagē- behind Old High German tagēn, remade in Old English as the class II verb dagian.^[18]
• The weekday names *Sunnōn dag "Sunday" and *Wōdanas dag "Wednesday", which Wiktionary reconstructs as calques of the Latin names;^[19][20] de Vaan finds the name of Wodan's day both as *Wōdanas *dag and as *Wōdinas *dag, without and with i-mutation.^[21]

Reflexes

• Old English: dæġ (“day, weekday”)^[7]
• Old Frisian: dei (“day; lifetime; appointed day; assembly”)^[15]
• Old Saxon: dag (“day”)^[8]
• Old Dutch: dag (“day”)^[11]
• Old High German: tag (“day, time, time of day”)^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014), The Development of Old English, A Linguistic History of English II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 114
2. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. *dag
3. ^ a b c d Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014), The Development of Old English, A Linguistic History of English II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 147
4. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 86
5. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 66
6. ^ Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014), The Development of Old English, A Linguistic History of English II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 212
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. dæg
8. ^ a b Tiefenbach, Heinrich (2010), Altsächsisches Handwörterbuch / A Concise Old Saxon Dictionary, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter, p. s.v. dag
9. ^ a b Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014), The Development of Old English, A Linguistic History of English II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 193
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2017), The Dawn of Dutch: Language Contact in the Western Low Countries before 1200, NOWELE Supplement Series 30, Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins, p. 92
11. ^ a b Oudnederlands Woordenboek (2009–), Instituut voor de Nederlandse Taal, Leiden; gtb.ivdnt.org, p. s.v. dag
12. ^ a b Düwel, Klaus; Nedoma, Robert; Oehrl, Sigmund (2020), Die südgermanischen Runeninschriften, 2 vols, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 119, Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. SG-105
13. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2017), The Dawn of Dutch: Language Contact in the Western Low Countries before 1200, NOWELE Supplement Series 30, Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins, p. 203
14. ^ Stiles, Patrick V. (1995), Remarks on the 'Anglo-Frisian' thesis, in: Volkert F. Faltings, Alastair G. H. Walker, Ommo Wilts (eds), Friesische Studien II, NOWELE Supplement 12, Odense: Odense University Press, 177–220
15. ^ a b Hofmann, Dietrich; Popkema, Anne Tjerk (2008), Altfriesisches Handwörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. s.v. dei
16. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. tag
17. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. *dagēn
18. ^ Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014), The Development of Old English, A Linguistic History of English II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 191
19. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. *Sunnōn dag
20. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. *Wōdanas dag
21. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2017), The Dawn of Dutch: Language Contact in the Western Low Countries before 1200, NOWELE Supplement Series 30, Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins, p. 447