uton

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uton

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Borrowed from Latin autumnus (“autumn, fall”), of uncertain etymology. The Latin etymon is directly continued by Romanian toamnă, Aromanian toamnã (unless these reflect the variant in a-), Italian autono (Northern Italy, 15th c.), Romansch utuon (Engadine), Spanish otoño (→ Logudorese Sardinian atónzu, Campidanese atógniu), Portuguese outono, and via Vulgar Latin *atumnus by Friulian atum (“october”), Romansch atun (Sursilvan), aton (Surmiran). Provençal autoun (“autumn harvest”) could be Latin-influenced; French autonne is likely, and Catalan autumne certain to be a borrowing from Latin.

uton m (plural utons)

1. (Fascian) autumn, fall

• autonn (Gherdëina)
• altonn (Badiot)

• (seasons) sajons; ansciuda,‎ instà,‎ autonn,‎ inviern ^{(Category: lld:Seasons)}

• wutum, wutun, wuton

Usually said to originate from a form of witan (“to know”). Ringe explains it as an allegro form of PWGmc 1pl. *(ga)wītum (“we're going, we'll go”) which escaped the North Sea Germanic displacement of 1pl. endings because speakers reinterpreted it as a separate word.^[1]

• IPA^(key): /ˈu.ton/

uton

1. let's
   • late 9th century, translation of Bede's Ecclesiastical History

     Uton ealle bīeġan ūru cneowu.

     Let's all bend our knees.

Uton is often described as a defective verb with only a sort of first-person plural imperative inflection remaining. However, there are several striking ways it does not behave like a verb:^[2][3]

• It rarely pushes the following infinitive to the end of the sentence. Instead the infinitive usually comes directly after, except a weakly stressed word like an adverb or object pronoun often goes sandwiched in between: Uton nū brūcan þisses undernmetes (“Now let's enjoy this breakfast”).

• Finite verb endings are frequently replaced with -e when they directly precede wē, ġē, wit, or ġit. But though the phrase uton wē occurs, *ute wē does not. Even Ælfric, who uses the reduced endings almost 95% of the time, never writes *ute wē, while uton wē appears in his works ten times.

• Uton has a fixed place within the sentence, being usually clause-initial and never clause-final. Even imperatives are occasionally final, especially in a conjunct clause, but uton never is.

• In the phrase "let's not," ne goes directly before the infinitive: Uton ne forlǣtan ġīet þās bōc (“Let's not leave this book yet”). Ne only does this when there is no finite verb to negate; otherwise it always goes before the finite verb, yet there are no instances of *ne uton.