Re: what does -il- do?

Quoting Rodlox <Rodlox@...>:

>  I was thinking again (no no, don't run YET)....and became curious as to
> what matter of modifier (if that's the right word) -il- is.
>
>  For example...
> "The wood is heavy."
> "The forest is heavily wooded."
>
>  one does not (that I know of) say "the forest is heavy-wooded" or "the wood
> is heavily"...so I thought to ask: what is the -il- that so affects some
> words?  *curious*
There's no actual -il- infix present; what we're seen is an orthographic
convention whereby final -y when preceded by a consonant turns to -i- when an
ending beginning in a consonant is added. Thus we get _heavily_ for what would
be **_heavyly_, which in turn, of course, is simply the adjective _heavy_ plus
the regular adverb-former _-ly_.

                                                             Andreas

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