*fimf

Reconstruction

Wiktionary reconstructs *fimf for Proto-West Germanic.^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *fimf (“five”),^[2][3] which Kroonen writes *fimfe and Köbler *femf, *femfe.^[4][5] EWA derives the form *fimf from Proto-Germanic *femf(e).^[6] In the northern West Germanic dialects the nasal was lost before the fricative, with lengthening and nasalization of the vowel, so that *fimf became *fį̄f.^[7]

Morphology

A cardinal numeral.^[8][6] In Old High German the numerals from four to twelve take i-stem endings when they stand after a noun or are used as nouns, as in Otfrid, and the other West Germanic languages do the same, as in the Heliand and in Northumbrian Old English, while in North Germanic and Gothic the word is not inflected.^[6]

Evidence

Old High German fimf keeps the nasal,^[2][6] while Old English fīf, Old Frisian fīf and Old Saxon fīf have lost it.^[2] Ringe and Taylor call this loss the most obvious sound change of the northern dialects, and one fully shared by Old Saxon; they put the occasional Old Saxon forms with a nasal down to Old High German influence.^[9][10] Krogh finds the loss in English, Frisian, Dutch and Saxon, most complete in Old English and Old Frisian, while Old Dutch and Old Saxon have many forms with the nasal kept or restored.^[11] Middle Dutch vijf shows that Dutch lost it before f too.^[11] In Old Dutch, ONW records uinf in the Middle Franconian Rhyme Bible.^[12] De Vaan finds "five hundred" glossed ⟨fit mihachunna⟩, ⟨vueth chunna⟩ and ⟨fitme chunna⟩ in the Lex Salica.^[13] He suggests that ⟨fit miha-⟩ and ⟨fitme⟩ may stand for *fimf, while ⟨vueth⟩ could go back to a form with /fiːf/.^[13]

Competing analyses

Ringe and Taylor treat the loss of the nasal as an innovation of the northern dialects, sometimes called Ingvaeonic, and hold that Proto-West Germanic, though for some generations clearly a single language, was probably never quite uniform.^[9] Stiles counts the loss of the nasal before fricatives among the Ingvaeonic features; on the traditional view these are innovations after Proto-West Germanic, with High German keeping the older state, and the uniform plural of the verb is generally thought to depend on this loss.^[14] In his remarks on the Anglo-Frisian thesis he lists the Old English and Old Frisian form of "five", without the nasal, against Old High German fimf among the features typically adduced for that group, and puts the change in the earliest stage of a chronology shared by English and Frisian.^[15]

Nielsen reports that Holthausen in 1921 counted the loss of nasals before f, s and þ, as in Old Saxon fif, among the main agreements of Old Saxon, Old Frisian and Old English, and that Wrede in 1919 set up an Ingvaeonic branch of Old English, Frisian and Old Saxon on this and other features, contrasting the northern forms with German fünf.^[16] In 1924 Wrede connected the loss of the nasal in Alemannic with the northern one, as relics of a once unbroken area, and the dialect map of nasal-less forms of "five" seems to support him; but his critics showed that Alemannic lost the nasal much later than northern Germany, so that the two changes were unconnected.^[17][18]

De Vaan thinks that the loss probably began in the Anglo-Frisian part of West Germanic and spread further south before *f than before *s and *þ.^[19] For Dutch vijf he prefers a dialect division already present in the West Germanic continuum at the time of the migrations, the dialects that settled in the central and western Low Countries sharing isoglosses with Anglo-Frisian.^[20] He finds attractive, with reservations, van den Berg's view that the nasal was lost only when it stood in the same syllable as the preceding vowel, as in *fimf.^[21]

Meanings

1. five^[2][1]

Derivatives

• *fimftō "fifth", *fimftehun "fifteen" and *fimf tigiwi "fifty", which Wiktionary reconstructs;^[1] Old English and Old Frisian have such derivatives of the numeral.^[22][23]

Reflexes

• Old English: fīf (“five”)^[8]
• Old Frisian: fīf (“five”)^[24]
• Old Saxon: fīf (“five”)^[25]
• Old Dutch: uinf (“five”)^[12]
• Old High German: fimf (“five”)^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. *fimf
2. ^ 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. 140
3. ^ Ringe, Don (2017), From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 114
4. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 140
5. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. *femf
6. ^ a b c d e Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. s.v. fimf
7. ^ Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014), The Development of Old English, A Linguistic History of English II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 139–140
8. ^ a b Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. s.v. fīf
9. ^ a b Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014), The Development of Old English, A Linguistic History of English II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 139
10. ^ Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014), The Development of Old English, A Linguistic History of English II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 141
11. ^ a b Krogh, Steffen (1996), Die Stellung des Altsächsischen im Rahmen der germanischen Sprachen, Studien zum Althochdeutschen 29, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
12. ^ a b Oudnederlands Woordenboek (2009–), Instituut voor de Nederlandse Taal, Leiden; gtb.ivdnt.org, p. s.v. fīf
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. 97
14. ^ Stiles, Patrick V. (2013), The Pan-West Germanic isoglosses and the subrelationships of West Germanic to other branches, NOWELE 66/1, 5–38, p. 18–19
15. ^ 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, p. §1.2, §8.1, §8.5
16. ^ Nielsen, Hans Frede (1981), Old English and the Continental Germanic Languages: A Survey of Morphological and Phonological Interrelations, Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 33, Innsbruck, p. 50–51
17. ^ Nielsen, Hans Frede (1981), Old English and the Continental Germanic Languages: A Survey of Morphological and Phonological Interrelations, Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 33, Innsbruck, p. 51
18. ^ Nielsen, Hans Frede (1981), Old English and the Continental Germanic Languages: A Survey of Morphological and Phonological Interrelations, Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 33, Innsbruck, p. 87–88
19. ^ 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. 231
20. ^ 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. 83
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. 238
22. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. fīf
23. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altfriesisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. fīf
24. ^ Hofmann, Dietrich; Popkema, Anne Tjerk (2008), Altfriesisches Handwörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. s.v. fīf
25. ^ Berr, Samuel (1971), An Etymological Glossary to the Old Saxon Heliand, Berne / Frankfurt: Herbert Lang, p. 124