Re: Need some help with terms: was "rhotic miscellany"

Andreas Johansson wrote:

>Quoting "J. 'Mach' Wust" <j_mach_wust@...>:
>
>
>
>>(I had exceeded my yesterday's message number, so this is already partly
>>answered.)
>>
>>On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 12:14:53 -0500, Sally Caves <scaves@...>
>>wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>From: "Ray Brown" <ray.brown@...>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>>Like our
>>>>>"lie/lay" confusion that is fast becoming standard, alas, in the US.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>The confusion is quite an old one in the UK. I think if prescriptivists
>>>>had not insisted on _lie_ (intrans.) ~ lay (trans.), _lay_ would have
>>>>become the norm for both long ago. My parents used only _lay_, reserving
>>>>_lie_ exclusively for "telling a falsehood". This seems to be common to
>>>>colloquial dialect over much of Britain.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>It's an old confusion.  In early ME, or in the transition from OE to ME, I
>>>believe, "lay" and "set" were established as transitive alternatives to the
>>>intransitives "lie" and "sit."
>>>
>>>
>>No, these ablaut changes must be much older. They also occur in German:
>>"liegen" (from older "ligen") vs. "legen" and "sitzen" vs. "setzen",
>>
>>
>
>I s'pose it's Common Germanic; Swedish has _ligga_ vs _lägga_, _sitta_ vs
>_sätta_.
>
>
Looks like an i-mutation (umlaut) to me.

'legjan' vs. 'leggan', and 'setjan' vs 'settan', perhaps?

Reply