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

John Vertical wrote:
>>>> 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?)
Yes - it simply dates back to the time when U and V were the same
letter. If _u_ came before a vowel, then it was /v/, but if it came
before a consonant then it was a vowel (with one of the possible
pronunciations of |u|).

When the two letters were differentiated, those final Es could'v been
dropped, but most people continued, and still continue, the write them.
It is just habit.

However, from time to time some people have indeed dropped the darn
things. I am actually slightly surprised that our Merkan cousins havn't
indeed done just that.


>and MOST words ending in "-ove" will really have something else
> than the expected /ouv/.
Blame those pesky Normans. Their handwriting was so bad that inorder to
make out where the vowel was when next to |m|, |n| or |u| (= v), the
wrote |o| instead of |u| !

> I however almost merge /V/ and /Q/ anyway, so this dusn't buther me as
> much as it cud.
So I see. In most (all?) varieties of English the vowels in _does_ and
_bother_ are different. And AFAIK the words _does_ and _could_ only
share the vowels in parts of north England.

--
Ray
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