Borrowed fromGermanSchwebeablaut(“floatingablaut”), fromschweben(“float, hover”).
schwebeablaut (uncountable)
- (Indo-European studies) The phenomenon or process ofmetathesis in aProto-Indo-European root between thevowel and a neighbouringsonorant, which led to both possiblefull grades existing, e.g. *grebʰ- and *gerbʰ-.
schwebeablaut (third-person singular simple presentschwebeablauts,present participleschwebeablauting,simple past and past participleschwebeablauted)
- (Indo-European studies) To undergo the above process.
1969,University of California Publications in Linguistics:The number given with the root tells the number of subgroups where itschwebeablauts, and the number after the subgroup name indicates the amount of roots/words thatschwebeablaut in some other subgroup as well[…]
2013,Sievers' Law and the History of Semivowel Syllabicity,→ISBN, page287:But, in any event, Beekes' reconstruction seems less than ideal, given that it effectively relies on aschwebeablauting root[.]
