PATH

Abstract

SUMMARYPath is, by origin, an Iranian word which was borrowed into Germanic, thence into Finnish. Besides its familiar meaning, it has also the meaning “valley”. This latter meaning is attested in Anglo‐Saxon (§1). in later Northern English and Scottish (§2), in East Swedish dialects (§3), and, possibly, in early Dutch place‐names (§4). In Finnish, though “path” is found in its familar sense, it is more generally used in a variety of idioms (§5). Morphologically, the Germanic forms of “path” are diverse (§6); the form with final ‐[d] (pad, etc.) found in English dialects, is, where it is not a Dutch loan‐word, due to the operation of Verner's Law (§7); there is the possibility of s‐flexion (§8); finally, a number of Germanic morphological types emerge (§9). The type papi‐ is attested in High German (§10), and English, and there it does not represent a borrowing from Scandinavian (§11). The possibility of original s‐flexion still remains (§12). The borrowing from Iranian lies within the period 300 B.C.‐A.D. 300 (§13). Two Iranian roots paθ‐seem to be relevant in the present discussion; as its basic meaning the first—which stands in ancient morphological alternation with pant—has “path, road” (§§14‐16), the second has “extended” (§17). The word‐groups (a) Ir paθ‐ “arow”, and (b) E find, etc., deserve mention here (§18). These last two items, as well as paθ‐ “extended”, may all be subsumed under one and the same Indoeuropean root (§19). Postulation of original s‐flexion for the Germanic word (of. §§8,11) is finally rejected and the correlation of the Iranian and Germanic types follows without difficulty (§20).