Re: open/closed syllables

On Fri, 9 Mar 2001, Nik Taylor wrote:

> Patrick Dunn wrote:
> > I've already decided that we wouldn't have hands, we'd have honds, and I
> > wouldn't be a man, I'd be a mon.  But figuring out the vowel changes
> > without the Shift, or with a very different Shift, is a litle beyond me
> > right now.
>
> Hey, mon!  ;-)
>
> So, would this conlang keep more of the strong verbs and the old nominal
> inflections?  Also, why wouldn't there be a Shift?  Is that just to make
> it more distinct?
I can see the dative inflections surviving, which would make
accusative/nominative, genitive, dative.  There probably would be a shift,
but a different one, I suspect.  As far as strong/weak verbs, I suspect
pretty much the same proportions.  Old English was already making past
tense verbs with the dental suffix.

I suspect the way to go would be to look at the sound changes in other
Germanic languages between, say, 500 and 1000.

--Pat


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