NODE / 0867boundaryBeyond secure reconstruction
UNKNOWN
No securely promoted direct ancestor is currently known beyond Old English wīf.
- DATE
- before the reviewed Old English wīf horizon
- SENSE
- wife deep boundary
- FAMILY
- unclassified
- CANONICAL KEY
- boundary:149:4
A probable Tocharian B comparison remains a side branch, not a direct parent.
01ANCESTRAL EDGES
ROOT OF THIS ROOT
*THE TRAIL ENDS HERE.No reviewed parent edge extends beyond this canonical node.
02DIRECT DESCENDANT EDGES
THE NEXT HISTORICAL STEP
DESCENDANTknowledge boundaryboundary
Old English · Old English · woman wife nounwīf
woman; wife
- SOUND
- No direct parent is promoted beyond Old English wīf.
- MEANING
- The trail stops while a probable Tocharian comparison remains explicitly non-parental.
- SCHOLAR
- SET-U editorial boundary
- CONFIDENCE
- boundary — The reviewed sources do not supply a secure direct ancestor.
03TRANSITIVE DESCENDANT CLOSURE
EVERY REVIEWED BRANCH FROM HERE
This is the complete downstream closure currently supported by the canonical graph. Every displayed step is a real reviewed edge with its own sound claim, meaning claim, scholar, confidence, and citations.
- UNIQUE DESCENDANT NODES
- 6
- REVIEWED EDGES
- 6
- DEEPEST PATH
- 4
- MODERN DOSSIERS REACHED
- 2
HISTORICAL STEP 011 EDGE
STEP 01knowledge boundaryboundary
- SOUND
- No direct parent is promoted beyond Old English wīf.
- MEANING
- The trail stops while a probable Tocharian comparison remains explicitly non-parental.
HISTORICAL STEP 022 EDGES
STEP 02compound componentestablished
- SOUND
- Old English wīfman contains wīf as its first lexical component.
- MEANING
- Woman or wife combines with the separately modeled human-person component mann.
Merriam-Webster Editors · American Heritage Dictionary Editors2 CITATIONSEDGE 806 ↗ STEP 02continuationestablished
- SOUND
- Middle English wif continues Old English wīf.
- MEANING
- Woman and wife senses continue through medieval English.
Merriam-Webster Editors · American Heritage Dictionary Editors2 CITATIONSEDGE 867 ↗ HISTORICAL STEP 032 EDGES
STEP 03continuationestablished
- SOUND
- Old English wīfman contracts and assimilates into Middle English womman.
- MEANING
- The compound remains a woman noun while its internal morphology becomes opaque.
Merriam-Webster Editors · American Heritage Dictionary Editors2 CITATIONSEDGE 805 ↗ STEP 03continuationestablished
- SOUND
- Middle English wif develops into modern wife with the Great Vowel Shift and final silent-e spelling.
- MEANING
- The older woman-or-wife field narrows toward the spouse sense.
Merriam-Webster Editors · American Heritage Dictionary Editors2 CITATIONSEDGE 866 ↗ HISTORICAL STEP 041 EDGE
STEP 04continuationestablished
- SOUND
- Middle English womman develops to modern woman with reduction of the unstressed final syllable and modern spelling.
- MEANING
- The female-person compound remains the ordinary adult-female noun.
Merriam-Webster Editors · American Heritage Dictionary Editors2 CITATIONSEDGE 804 ↗ “Every” means every descendant in the reviewed SET-U graph. It does not convert missing scholarship or missing ingestion into a claim of historical completeness. The coverage ledger remains the honest denominator.
04RECORDED EVIDENCE
ATTESTATIONS / FIRST KNOWN USE
NO RECORDED WITNESS ATTACHED.The reviewed graph does not yet attach a source-reported or directly inspected witness to this canonical form.
05EDITORIAL REUSE
WORD DOSSIERS USING THIS NODE