Re: English: Thou

At 01:07 21.6.2000 -0400, Robert Hailman wrote:
> >
> > Or /D@/, which I believe is used in some English dialects.  Of course,
> > /Du/ was the Old/Middle English pronunciation, before the Great Vowel
> > Shift diphthongized it.
> >
>
>That's what I thought originally, but then wouldn't "you" become /jau/
>at the same time? Unless originally it was pronounced /jo/, or "thou"
>was stressed and "you" was unstressed. But before the Great Vowel Shift,
>English spelling of vowels was much more regular then it is now, no?
Probably /ju/ is from an unstressed form [jU].  Which proves that by GVS
time there was no unstressed form of thou anymore.

BTW: what about using You /jau/ (note Capitalization) as a (representation
of) an honorific?



/BP

  B.Philip Jonsson  mailto:melroch@mail.com
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