Re: Strangeness of U (was Re: CHAT behove etc (was: Natlag: Middle English imper

On Sun, 12 Mar 2006 18:30:48 -0500, Joe <joe@...> wrote:

> John Vertical wrote:
>
>>> R A Brown wrote:
>>>
>>>> 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.
>>>
>>
>> I see. Final vocalic <ue> as in argue, true, blue etc. is presumably a
>> later innovation?
>>
> I don't know.  Those are all following consonant clusters, where 've'
> would be an impossible interpretation.
I missed the beginning of this thread, but I've been checking in from time
to time, and I could not keep my big mouth shut any longer. Forgive me if
this has been covered...

There was another purpose of "silent" E other than marking |u| -> /v/; it
also marks Umlaut. Mack /mak/ vs make /mEjk/ (or at least those related
classes of sounds) were, as far as I can tell, distinct even before the
Great Vowel Shift(s). My gut says /mAk/ vs /mEk@/ in a fairly Germanoid
way, but the gist is the same regardless of the exact mouth noises:
etymologically, a following E caused a qualitative change in vowels, which
needs to be marked even after the Umlaut itself stops being productive,
for as long as that change manifests, and plausibly for longer to
distinguish homophones etymologically. We could have gone with the umlaut
diacritic (as indeed one of my spelling reforms did), but I suppose the
English "we don't need none of that frilly stuff on *our* letters"
attitude won out again, regardless of the fact that the silent E does the
work of a diacritic these days.



Paul

Replies