Re: CHAT behove etc (was: Natlag: Middle English impersonal verbs)

>>>And on both sides of the Pond we continue to write 'dove', 'love' &
>>>'shove', despite the absurdity of the spelling.
>
>And "above." But cove, dove, rove.
This is really a part of a wider phenomenon where /V/ - or sumwhat less
offen, /U/ or /u/ - is spelled as <o> in sum words. Add the utterly
irrational fear of final "v" (can anyone explain wtf is the deal with that?)
and MOST words ending in "-ove" will really have something else than the
expected /ouv/.
I however almost merge /V/ and /Q/ anyway, so this dusn't buther me as much
as it cud.


>And then there is great, steak, but meat, beat, seat.  And Donne has tear
>rhyming with bear.  And Shakespeare punned on reason and raisin.  You
>wonder why some words changed their pronunciation and others not.
>Sally
*/E:/ seems to have decayed pretty irregularily. I notice a pattern that
<ea> = /E/ (or <ear> = /3r/) occurs primarily before /d T/ or in clusters
with them, but then there are the three appearences of /ei/ (your examples +
"break"), a handful of /Ar/'s, plus words where <ea> should be taken as two
different vowels and not a digraf.

At least */O:/ went down better - the only irregularily I can think of is
the mysteriously intact "broad".

John Vertical

Reply