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

From:Joe <joe@...>
Date:Saturday, November 6, 2004, 13:40
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?

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Joe <joe@...>