Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2007

I have no expert knowledge; but only a few AUE readers take a passing
interest in Old English, so I take the liberty of replying. Try also
sci.lang; but I'm not sure there are many Anglists among its regulars.
(If you do, you might include the words in question in the body of your
message: people find it inconvenient when important matter is confined
to the subject line.) You could run a Ggl search: even Wikipedia may
have something. In case you haven't got it, the Bosworth-Toller
Dictionary is at
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/germanic/oe_bosworthtoller_about.html
Creative use of that URL will probably lead to other useful pages.

You'll need the current standard references here: best bet is to ask
your tutor, as my already scant knowledge is way out of date. Sweet's
A-S Primer has a couple of pages on sound changes, but I don't know if
that would be detailed or specific enough for your purposes. In any
case, I imagine that's been superseded since I was a student.

Is there some particular reason for your quoting genitive forms?

If it's any help, here are OED's skeletal accounts: you can make some
deductions from them.

"Wedge" [I'm pretty sure _wecg_ started as any mass of metal, not only
a tapered one.]
Forms: 1 waecg, wecg, wegge, (4 weeg), 4-7 wegge, (5 vegge, weegge,
wegghe), 5-6 weg(e, 5-7 wagge, 6 wadge, wegg, 7 wedg, 3- wedge. Pl. 6
wedgies, Sc. vagis, wagis. [Com. Teut. (not found in Gothic): OE. wcg
masc. corresponds to OS. weggi wedge (MLG. wegge, wigge, LG. wegge
wedge, wedge-shaped cake), MDu. wegge, wigge (mod.Du. wegge fem.,
wedge-shaped cake, wig fem., wedge), OHG. weggi, wecki, wedge (MHG.
wegge, wecke, wedge, wedge-shaped cake; mod.G. dial. weck, wecken
masc., wedge, wedge-shaped cake), ON. vegg-r wedge (Norw. vegg, Da.
v?gge, MSw. v?gge, vigge, Sw. vigg, vigge):OTeut. *wajo-z.
 The affinities of the word are somewhat uncertain. Some scholars
regard it as cognate with OHG. waganso (see wagense in Grimm D. Wb.),
ON., Norw. vangne, Gr.  (Hesychius) ploughshare, OPrussian wagni-s
coulter, Lith. v?gis pin, plug, f. Indogermanic root *woghw- (Teut.
*wa-); cf. Skr. vh- ? to force.
 The LG. and Du. form with i for e (whence perh. the Sw. form and the
Eng. WIG n.1, a kind of cake) is not easy to account for. It may be due
to a special sound-change in some local dialect; the hypothesis that it
represents an ablaut-variant (OTeut. *wejo-z) is inadmissible.]

"Fee" [Livestock and other property, then restricted to money.]
Forms: 1 fioh, f?o, 13 feoh, 3-4 feo, 3 south. veo, 2-3 feh, 2 Orm.
fehh, 2-6 fe, (3 f?i, feih), 5-7 fie, (6 Sc. fye), 3-7 fee. [Common
Teut. and Aryan: OE. feoh, fioh, f?o, str. neut., corresp. to OFris.
fia, OS. fehu cattle, property (Du. vee cattle), OHG. fihu, fehu
cattle, property, money (MHG. vihe, vehe, and mod.Ger. vieh has only
the sense cattle), ON. f? cattle, property, money (Da. f? cattle,
beast, Sw. f? beast), Goth. faihu property, money:OTeut. *fehu:OAryan
*p?ku-, whence also Skr. pa?u masc., L. pec neut. cattle (cf. L.
pecnia money).]

"Tar" [Or pitch.]
Forms: . 1 teru, teoru (-o), (-tearo); 3-5 (6- Sc.) ter, 4 (Sc. 4-)
terr, 4-6 terre, 4-5 teer, (5 tere). . 4-7 tarre, 4-8 tarr, 5 taar, 6-
tar. . 1 tyrwe, 2 tirwe. [OE. teru (gen. terw-es), teoru (-o):*terwo-
neut. = MLG. ter. tere, LG. and (thence) mod.Ger. teer, Du. teer; also
ON. tjara fem. (Norw. tj?ra, Sw. tj?ra, Da. tj?re). OE. had also the
deriv. form *tierwe, tyrwe:*terwjn. Generally considered to be a deriv.
of OTeut. *trewo-, Goth. triu, OE. treow tree (Indo-Eur. derw-: dorw-:
dru-): cf. Lith. darv? pine-wood, Lett. darwa tar, ON. tyr-vir
pine-wood. Thus terwo may have meant orig. 'the product (pitch) of
certain kinds of trees'.]

Sorry I can't offer more.

Hello!!
I have the same problem with these words, do you have any answer ot
them. Please, if you have it, give me the answers please. I'm desperate
 Thank you