*libbjan

Reconstruction

Ringe and Taylor reconstruct *libbjan for northern West Germanic, with the present indicative third singular *libōþ,^[1] and Wiktionary has *libbjan for Proto-West Germanic.^[2] The geminate *-bb- stands for an underlying */libjan/.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *libjaną (“to live”), which Ringe and Taylor write *libai- ~ *libja-,^[4][1] Kroonen *libēn- and Orel *liƀēnan.^[5][6]

Morphology

A weak verb of class III.^[7][8][9] Ringe and Taylor reconstruct for Proto-West Germanic a relic class of statives that kept the alternation of *-ja- and *-ē- (from *-ai-) in the present stem and had no vowel between root and suffix in the past; in the northern dialects it has three members, "have", "say" and "live".^[10] Old Saxon shows the type in libbian, third plural libbiat, past libdun and participle gilibd, and Old English in libban, past lifde, participle lifd.^[10] Endings of the class II weak verbs are especially common for "live" in both languages, and in Old Saxon the present third singular is attested only in such a form, leƀot.^[10] When class III *-ǣ- was remodelled as *-ǣ- ~ *-ǣja- in part of the northern dialect continuum, the very common verbs *habbjan, *saggjan and *libbjan were left out.^[3]

Evidence

The verb is attested in all the West Germanic languages: Old English libban, Old Frisian libba, Old Saxon libbian and Old High German lebēn,^[4] and Old Dutch libben in the Old Low Franconian psalms of the 9th century.^[11] Old High German has it from Alemannic glosses of the late 8th century.^[9] Relic forms of the same type occur in Old High German: the past libita in southern Old High German, and occasionally the present third singular libit; such relics of the class are not concentrated in the Frankish dialects next to the "Ingvaeonic" area.^[10] These relics presuppose a paradigm with a palatalised geminate in some forms, as do Old Saxon and Old Frisian libba.^[3]

Competing analyses

Anglian Old English has a stem lifġ- instead, as in Mercian lifġende, and libġendes in a Kentish charter of 832 is probably another example.^[3] These forms have often been taken for archaisms, but Ringe and Taylor stress that no other Germanic language has anything like them, and they explain them as an Anglian innovation: the class III suffix complex *-ǣja- was extended to the basic verb "live".^[3]

Meanings

1. to live, to be alive^[1][2]

Kroonen glosses the Proto-Germanic verb "to be left; to live", a stative to *līban- "to stick", and takes "to live" to have developed from "to remain".^[5] Orel compares Old Norse contexts in which the verb means "is left".^[6] Old English also used it for "to be",^[7] Old Frisian for "to behave",^[12] and Old High German for "to dwell", "to survive" and "to feed on".^[13]

Reflexes

• Old English: libban (“to live, to be”)^[14]
• Old Frisian: libba (“to live, to behave”)^[12]
• Old Saxon: libbian (“to live, to be alive”)^[15]
• Old Dutch: libben (“to live”)^[11]
• Old High German: lebēn (“to live, to exist, to dwell, to survive”)^[13]

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. 321
2. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. *libbjan
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. 365
4. ^ a b Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014), The Development of Old English, A Linguistic History of English II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 34
5. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 336
6. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 245
7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. libban
8. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altsächsisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. libbian
9. ^ a b 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. lebên
10. ^ 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. 93
11. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard, Altniederfränkisches Wörterbuch, online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. libben
12. ^ a b Hofmann, Dietrich; Popkema, Anne Tjerk (2008), Altfriesisches Handwörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. s.v. libba
13. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. lebēn
14. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. s.v. libban
15. ^ Berr, Samuel (1971), An Etymological Glossary to the Old Saxon Heliand, Berne / Frankfurt: Herbert Lang, p. 248