Re: a-umlaut (was Re: Epicene words)

Hallo!

On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 02:20:42 +0100,
Henrik Theiling <theiling@...> wrote:

> Hi!
>
> Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...> writes:
> > Hallo!
> >
> > On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 00:54:11 +0100,
> > Henrik Theiling <theiling@...> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi!
> > >
> > > Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...> writes:
> > > >...
> > > > _halera_ (< *hal-ir-a) `healer'
> > >
> > > Is this a-umlaut?  I mean the *-ir-a > -era part of that?
> >
> > It is.
>
> It's nice! :-)
Thank you!

> > There is also i-umlaut (as demonstrated by the two
> > non-epicene forms _heliro_ and _helire_ in the first syllable)
>
> Yes, I noticed that, too.  Nothing strange about that, but a-umlaut is
> really a nice spice.
That's what I thought, too.  Originally, I had only i- and u-umlaut,
but then I decided to add a-umlaut, such that all the three "extreme"
vowels cause umlaut.

> > and u-umlaut (e.g. dual _halyru_ < *hal-ir-u).
>
> You couldn't get enough? :-)
No ;-)  I resisted putting in e-umlaut, o-umlaut, etc.; that would
have reduced my nice vowel system to a stew of /2/s ;-)

> I suppose this does rounding?  Anything else?  I only know the
> Westnordic u-umlaut which manifests (from the productive ancient
> u-umlaut) in modern Icelandic most significantly as a > ö shifts in
> the a-stem declension (köttur, with stem katt-).  What does it do in
> Albic?
Rounding, nothing else: /a/ -> /o/, /e/ -> /2/, /i/ -> /y/.

> There is an occasional two-syllable u-umlaut in Icelandic, as in
> altari (nom.sg.) > ölturum (dat.pl.), which I find interesting, too.
> So it could well be *hölyru in Old Albic. :-)))
Well, it isn't, but sometimes alternations in preceding syllables result
when "extreme" vowels (/a/, /i/, /u/) are umlauted - umlaut takes
precedence from right to left, which means that the vowel preceding
the umlauted vowel is no longer umlauted.

Greetings,

Jörg.

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