*hwār

Reconstruction

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

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *hwar (“where”),^[3][4] with a short vowel, as Gothic and Old Norse show.^[3] An apparently irregular Proto-West Germanic change lengthened the vowel of this adverb and of *þār "there".^[1] Ringe and Taylor suggest heavy deictic stress, or that learners took the short forms for quick-speech forms of long ones, after the long vowel of "here".^[1] Wiktionary too names the possible influence of the word for "here".^[2]

Morphology

An adverb.^[5][6] Kroonen takes the Proto-Germanic word for a formation with a locative suffix *-r, like *þar "there".^[4]

Evidence

In Old High German and Old Saxon the lengthened vowel is ā, as expected: Old High German wār, Old Saxon hwār.^[3] The northern West Germanic languages have long front vowels instead: Old English has West Saxon hwǣr and Anglian hwēr, and Old Frisian has hwēr; in each Old English dialect the outcome is the same as that of Proto-Germanic *ē.^[3] After Stiles, Ringe and Taylor conclude that the back vowel of *hwar was fronted in the north, and they accept the majority view of the order of changes: Proto-Germanic *ē became *ā throughout Northwest Germanic, *hwar was lengthened to *hwār throughout West Germanic, and the low vowels that were not nasalised were then fronted in northern West Germanic.^[7]

Competing analyses

Kortlandt holds that the lengthening could have happened at any time before the Anglo-Frisian monophthongisation of *ai to ā, because early West Germanic had no other long vowel than *ē¹ to match short *a; the rise of *hwǣr came before breaking and i-mutation.^[8] He sees no reason to assume a general retraction of *ē¹ to ā in Northwest Germanic, and finds that Stiles pays too little attention to the structure of the vowel system.^[9] He also reports Hill's view that the long vowel of *þār and *hwār goes back to a Proto-Germanic lengthening of monosyllables, which Hill himself grants is contradicted by Old Norse hvar.^[10]

Meanings

1. where^[3][2]

Old English also used the adverb for "anywhere",^[5] Old Frisian and Old Saxon for "whither",^[11][6] and Old High German also for "whence" and "when".^[12]

Reflexes

• Old English: hwǣr (“where, anywhere”)^[5]
• Old Frisian: hwēr (“where, whither”)^[11]
• Old Saxon: hwār (“where, whither”)^[6]
• Old High German: wār (“where, whence, whither, when”)^[12]

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. 65
2. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. *hwār
3. ^ a b c d e Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014), The Development of Old English, A Linguistic History of English II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 13
4. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 263
5. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. hwǣr
6. ^ a b c Tiefenbach, Heinrich (2010), Altsächsisches Handwörterbuch / A Concise Old Saxon Dictionary, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter, p. s.v. hwār
7. ^ Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014), The Development of Old English, A Linguistic History of English II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 13–14
8. ^ Kortlandt, Frederik (2018), Anglo-Frisian 'here', 'there', 'where', Us Wurk 67, 97–103, p. 100
9. ^ Kortlandt, Frederik (2018), Anglo-Frisian 'here', 'there', 'where', Us Wurk 67, 97–103, p. 101
10. ^ Kortlandt, Frederik (2018), Anglo-Frisian 'here', 'there', 'where', Us Wurk 67, 97–103, p. 102
11. ^ a b Hofmann, Dietrich; Popkema, Anne Tjerk (2008), Altfriesisches Handwörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. s.v. hwēr
12. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. wār