Between Strong Verbs and Derived Causatives
In PIE, causative verbs (meaning "to cause to") were derived from verb roots with a suffix *-éye-, and the root vowel was changed to the o-grade. Verbs with this suffix eventually became part of the first weak class (*-jan verbs). This suffix always bore the accent, and the verb root never did, while in regular strong verbs the verb root was accented in the present tense. This caused Verner alternation between the original verbs and the causative verbs derived from them.
Examples are numerous in the older languages, but are less frequent today because some levelling has occurred, and in some cases one verb or the other was lost.
Original /*p/ (no examples)
Original /*t/
- Modern German: leiden ("to suffer, to undergo", originally "to go", from *līþanan) – leiten ("to lead", from *laidijanan)
Original /*k/
- Icelandic: hlæja ("to laugh", from *hlahjanan) – hlægja ("to make laugh", from *hlōgijanan)
Original /*kʷ/ No attested examples within a single language, but compare:
- Gothic þreihan ("to press", from *þrinhwanan) – German drängen ("to push", from *þrangwijanan)
Original /*s/
- English rise (from *rīsanan) – rear (from *raizijanan)
- German genesen ("to heal", from *ganesanan) – nähren ("to feed", from *nazjanan)
Read more about this topic: Grammatischer Wechsel
Famous quotes containing the words strong, verbs and/or derived:
“Jesus our brother, strong and good,
Was humbly born in a stable rude,
And the friendly beasts around Him stood,
Jesus our brother, strong and good.
“I”, said the donkey, shaggy and brown”
—Unknown. The Friendly Beasts (l. 1–5)
“He crafted his writing and loved listening to those tiny explosions when the active brutality of verbs in revolution raced into sweet established nouns to send marching across the page a newly commissioned army of words-on-maneuvers, all decorated in loops, frets, and arrowlike flourishes.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)
“Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. From that divine tear and from that human smile is derived the grace of present civilization.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)