Re: And how's about "periphony"? (was: Apophony?)

"Raymond A. Brown" wrote:

> At 2:30 am -0500 29/4/99, Tom Wier wrote:
> >"Raymond A. Brown" wrote:
> >
> >> But if the German word is being discarded for an 'internationally'
> >> Greek-formed calque, has the same happened to that other vowel modification
> >> 'umlaut'?
> >> The Greek prefix which is closest in meaning to German um- is 'peri'.  So
> >> has the good ol' familiar 'umlaut' also become "periphony"?
> >
> >Well, I've never even heard of either...
>
> ..and I've discovered why - the Greek term this time is not an exact calque
> of the German, but uses a rather more meaningful prefix.  I've been told by
> a privare email that it's "metaphony".
>
> That IMO is a sensible term since not only does meta- imply change but it
> is derived from the ancient Greek 'meta' = "after".  And umlaut, of course,
> is a change of vowel caused by a (usually) lost vowel that came in the
> syllable _after_ the affected vowel.
Right, but then, that's just because that's by a process of anticipatory
assimilation (via vowel harmony), which though the more common form
of assimilation does not mean that all umlauting is anticipatory -- it could
be regressive, too (and therefore "around" IMO works fine too).

So, perhaps both terms are good, yours just being a more specific term.

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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

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