Reconstruction talk:Proto-Germanic/burdą

@Mellohi!, Mahagaja, Victar Hey, I noticed a bit of back-and-forth here after Mellohi! moved the page to *burzdą. Since Kroonen, who is usually a reliable source (and certainly a better source than no source at all), has this form as well, I changed all links to *burdą to link to *burzdą instead, edits which have since been reverted by Victar. I'll honestly say that I can't really judge very well how strong Kroonen's arguments are and what the arguments against them would be so I won't edit war about it, but for your consideration I've here copied what he says about the matter in his 2013 dictionary:

   *burzda- n. 'board' - Go.fotu-baurd n. 'footstool', ON bora n. 'board, plank, table', Far. bora n. 'id.', OE bord n. 'board, table', OFri. bord m./n.? 'id.', Du. bord n. 'plate, plank' => *bhrzdh-o- (WEUR).
   Related to *brezda- and *brazda- (q.v.). There is no trace of the PGm. *z because it was assimilated by the preceding r in Gothic as well as in NWGm.
   (after the rhotacism). It was preserved, however, in the secondary zero-grade form *bruzda-, cf. ON broddr m. 'tip, edge, shoot', OHG brort m.
   'point, margin'. Apparently, the original zero grade was remodeled on the basis of the closely related full-grade forms in this formation (cf. Kroonen 2011a: 149ff). 

And here's the page and a half in 'Kroonen 2011a' (a study of his on n-stems) which he's referring to (pp 149-151):

   *brezdo, *burzdeni 'edge, board'
   • *brezda(n)-\ Far. breddi m. 'edge, side' 161 , OSw. brxdder m. 'id.', Nw. bredd, dial, bredde m. 'id.'
   • *bruzda(n)-\ ON broddr m. 'tip, edge, shoot' 162 , Nw. brodd m. 'tip, shoot, sting, elk hair', Nw. brodde m. 'tip', OE brord m. 'tip, shoot, blad', OHG brort m. 'corona, labium, prora', MHG brort m. 'id.' 163
   • *burzda-\ ON bord n. 'edge, table, (ship]board' 164 , OE bord n. 'board, plank', OHG bort 'sculptorium', MHG bort mn. 'edge, board' 165 , OS bord 'board, shield'
   => *burzdan-, -on-: ON bordi m. 'tapestry' 166 , OHG borto 'auriphrygium, ligatura, limbus', MLG borde, OE borda m. 'seam, embroidery', borde f. 'tab'
   • *brazda-\ Icel. bradd n. 'edge' 167 , Nw. dial, bradd mf. 'shore, side', OHG brart 'labium, prora', MHG brart m. 'edge, board', OE brerd, breard, breord m. 'brim, margin, border'
   • *barzda-\ ON, Icel. bard n. 'edge, prow', Nw. bard m. 'side, edge' 

   Forms such as Far. breddi < *brezdan- and ON bord < *burzda- are in clear ablaut relation to each other. 168 It further follows from the leveling of the Schwebeablaut, which gave rise to contamination forms such as ON broddr, OE brord, OHG brort < *bruzda-, that the two ablaut variants must have been in close contact with each other. It seems justified, for these reasons, to consider the reconstruction of a paradigm *brezdo, *burzdeni < *bhresdh-on, *bhrsdh-en-i.

   As in many other cases, an o-grade root is found in some closely related thematic formations, viz. Icel. bradd n. 'edge' 170 , OHG brart 'id' < *brazda- and ON, Icel. bard n. 'edge, prow' < *barzda-. The first formation is strikingly similar to Olr. brot 'prickle' < *b h rozd h -o-, and can therefore be old. The latter formation, *barzda-, seems to have been adapted to the vowel slot of the zero-grade root *burzd-. This could mean that the formation split off from the n-stem at a late stage, i.e. after the leveling of the Schwebeablaut. It cannot be excluded, however, that the o-grades were created to a lost strong verb *brezdan-. 

   An important question is whether the formations under discussion are related to the Germanic word for 'beard', cf. ON bard, OE beard, OFri. berd, OHG bart m. 'beard'. This is not at all implausible in view of the relatively small semantic difference between the original meaning 'prickle' (cf. Olr. brot) and 'beard'. Admittedly, the reconstruction of the word as *barzda- has rather great consequences. It implies, for instance, that Lith. barzda and OCS brada 'beard', which apparently reflect *bhorzdh-eh2-, are loanwords from Germanic, the vowel slot of *barzd- being a purely Germanic innovation. The same can be said about Lat. barba, which cannot be derived from *bhorzdh-eh2- anyway, because the outcome would have been **forba. It is therefore not improbable that the Latin word indeed is a loanword. However, it is unclear how and why the Germanic word should have spread to Balto-Slavic and Italic at such an early stage.

   Etymologically, the element *brezd- can be an extension of the PIE root *bhrs- as found in Skt. bhrstf- f. 'tip, edge' and cognates, but this word is usually reconstructed as *bhrk-ti-. Within Germanic, Kluge and Mitzka (1967: 99] give G Brett < PGm. *breda- 'board' as "eine ablautende Nebenform zu Bord". Holthausen (1934: 33], on the other hand, considered this formation to be related to *braida- 'broad', cf. OHG breta 'palma', OE hand-brede f. 'palm of the hand' < *bridon- (cf. OHG brit 'tabula, laterculus'). It seems more probable, then, that it is a dissimilatory form that came about in the plural *Brerter < *brezd-izo.

Not sure what to do with it, and not sure it's strong enough to be the main lemma or not. But the fact that an otherwise reliable source says this has got to count for something, surely? — Mnemosientje (t · c) 22:10, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

The problem seems to be that Kroonen's reconstruction with the (z) depends on the very assumption that the root is related to brezd- in the first place. I understand that it may be too much of a semantic stretch, and won't edit war the Z back into the page title. mellohi! (僕の乖離) 23:08, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree, Kroonen is making far too many assumptions which seem semantically implausible. I think his reconstruction is best left as an alternative. --Victar (talk) 04:25, 1 June 2018 (UTC)