Re: YAEPT: apparently bizarre 'A's (was Re: YEAPT: f/T (was Re: Other Vulgar Lat
| From: | Tristan Alexander McLeay <conlang@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, February 22, 2006, 8:11 |
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On 22/02/06, John Vertical <johnvertical@...> wrote:
> I thought that "hearth" was /h3rT/? If it has /Ar/ instead, I guess that
> makes "heart" a little more regular then. (Maybe there was a minor shift of
> */E:/ > */a/ between h and r+coronal...)
Nup, "hearth" definitely isn't /h3rT/... I know there was at one stage
a change of /Er/ -> /ar/; most words which experienced it were respelt
(e.g. star < ME sterre < OE steorra says dictionary.com) but "clerk"
and "university" (whence "varsity"), at least, weren't. I assumed this
was the same change (with the /E:/ > /E/ earlier), which would help
explain why "heard" is /h3:d/, if it shortened after the change.
--
Tristan.
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