Neri Sergio. Wetter: Etymologie und Lautgesetz

Perugia: Università degli Studi di Perugia, 2017. — (Collana Culture Territori Linguaggi). — ISBN: 9788894269758.This book deals with the etymology of Proto-Germanic *weđran ‘weather’ and the sound change usually referred to as “weather-rule“. This sound
change has not been extensively studied until now. It was originally proposed by Jochem Schindler, who understood it as a prehistoric laryngeal
reduction before muta cum liquida without compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel, i.e. VHTR/U̯V > VTR/U̯V (loss of a post-vocalic laryngeal before stop + non-syllabic resonant or semivowel + vowel). Due to its many exceptions, the sound change has not reached the status of a regular sound law yet. The assumption of a Proto-Indo-European “weather-rule“ is shown to be compelling based on the semantic analysis of the historical cognates of the Proto-Germanic word and of its etymology (PGerm. *weđran ‘air in motion; condition of the air’ < *h2u̯eh1-tró- ‘the blowing’) as well as through the exclusion of alternative phonological and morphological explanations for the unexpected short vowel in the root. The analysis of old and new examples allowed narrowing the phonotactical environment of the “weather-rule“ as follows: the laryngeal loss regularly occurred (as an exceptionless sound law) only after unstressed vowel or unstressed syllabic resonant and before any cluster formed by at least an obstruent + non-syllabic resonant or semivowel (VHK_nR/U̯V́ > VK_nR/U̯V́, R̥HK_nR/U̯V́ > R̥K_nR/U̯V́ oder R_eKnR/U̯V́). The sound change happened at a chronological stage in which both the “Schwundablaut“ and the coloring of a short e had already occurred, but before the general loss of the inherited laryngeal consonants, which occurred along with the compensatory lengthening of a preceding sonorant segment at a monoglottic stage. The „weather rule“ has therefore to be considered a Proto-Indo-European sound law.