--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Roger Mills <romilly@E...> wrote:
> Estel Telcontar wrote:
>
> > --- David Peterson wrote:
> > > vs. /-Eg/,
> >
> > Not a minimal pair, I know, but what about "egg" [Eg] or [Ejg] vs
> > "vague" [vejg]. Definitely a different vowel for me, though
at the
> > moment I can't think of other words like "vague".
>
> I strongly suspect that all examples of _tense_ vowel before /-g/
will be
> loans, especially those spelled -gue, as they probably all are.
>
> intrigue, fatigue, already mentioned. vague, vogue, rogue, plague.
>
> Perhaps one reason there are so few -Vg word in Engl. is that in
many cases
> the *g shifted (via a [G] stage?) to "y" [j] in several
environments. If
> that was the _native_ development, it leads to the question, where
_do_
> written-final-g words like bog, bag, sag, lug etc., come from?
(I'm too lazy
> to go to the dictionary just now....)
According to Onions:
bog - Gaelic
bag - Old Norse _baggi_ - but similar Romance forms.
sag - West Scandinavian (?)
lug - Scandinavian (prob.)
There's also an 'affective' hard -cg- in Old English (hardnessed
only attested by later English) - *stacga 'stag', docga (attested
once), *picga 'pig', _wicga_ 'beetle' (survives in 'earwig').
Richard.