Re: isle > ile?

En réponse à John Cowan <jcowan@...>:

> Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>
> > épée <- Old French espee
> > <- Latin (ill)a spatha (with wrong cut)
>
> Actually, the first e in epee is not from the article, but
> is from the same principle that prefixes e to all initial s+stop in
> Spanish today.  This sound-law (status > estat > etat, e.g)
> is no longer live in French, which now has plenty of more
> recent words with s+stop initial.
>
Actually you're right, I just misread my Old French booklet. The vowel which
was prefixed was i-, but it opened into e- very early.

One particularity of Narbonósc is that it never had such a prosthesis sound-
law: initial s+stop stayed as they are. Thus the words stêre (< stare + esse):
to be, spirt /spir/ (< spiritus): spirit, speir /spE/ (< sperem?): hope.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr