Abstract
Abstract The Germanic verb hlaþanan, usually glossed ‘to load’, has been wrongly evaluated because of a failure to examine the material in sufficient depth as regards both phonology and semantics. The Old High German evidence indicating a regular Verner’s Law alternation in the paradigm is supplemented not only by the Gothic past participle -hlaþans* with analogical voiceless spirant but also by modern East and North Frisian data. This points to a pre-Germanic proto-form with root-final *-t (Part 1). As emerges from a study of the situation in North Germanic, a core meaning for the Germanic verb appears to have been ‘to lay something down (flat)’, from which development to ‘to stack’ and ‘to load’ is straightforward (Part 2). Potential cognates exist in Balto-Slavic, but the exact formal relationships are unclear (Part 3).
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