Re: USAGE: Language revival

John Cowan wrote:
>
> Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:
>
> > Speech communities will sometimes abandon a sound change when it has
> > only been applied to some parts of the lexicon.
>
> And some sound changes are plain unpredictable in their
> application.  In Modern French, why francais, but danois?
> No apparent reason (OF had -ois for both).
>
        At one point, oi was pronounced [wE]. The change to [E] or to [wa] has
certainly been conditioned by some phonological factors and maybe
grammatical ones (which would explain that the change to [E] has
happened only to endings of some nouns-adjectives, and of the endings of
the imperfect, and not to simple nouns like roi /rwa/). The ending -ois
is rare for nationalities (danois excepted). It's more used for people
living in towns (that's why we have alge'rois: inhabitant of Alger vs.
alge'rien: inhabitant of Algeria). Maybe that's a reason why the sound
change wasn't the same...

--
        Christophe Grandsire

        Philips Research Laboratories --  Building WB 145
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