Re: YAEPT after all: English diphthongs

"Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...> wrote: Apologies to everyone for the YAEPT. I really
somehow thought I could
skirt the topic without getting into one. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha.
Ha.

But I thought the PRICE vowel was historically a monophthong,
specifically [i:]. If not, why did it get spelled that way?


  Wishful thinking regarding the YAEPT!

 But to return to the question in point, the monophthong > diphthong change is
down to the GVS, pure and simple, no?

 Orthographically, the silent <e> persists because it keeps the first syllable
open, and thus 'long' (originally > modern diphthong). cf <pric(k)>: closed
syllable, short vowel.

 Or, as my infant school wife teaches, "magic e makes the letter say its name"
(i.e. silent <e> turns the preceeding 'ih' to 'eye'). For some reason, 7 year
olds seem to understand 'magic e' better than a description of open and closed
syllables...


  P.

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