Re: USAGE: OE pt was Re: USAGE:Yet another few questions about Welsh.

Ray Brown wrote:

> On Saturday, July 10, 2004, at 10:50 , David Barrow wrote:
>
>> Even though 'Alfred' is a compound: Ælf- ræd?  Was this voicing a
>> regular feature of OE? Did it happen to /s/ and /T/ as well?
>
>
> Yes to both questions. As far we know, the fricatives were voiced between
> voiced sounds,
>
>> David Barrow
>>
>> Ray Brown wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Now, when the Normans took over and reformed (or deformed) our
>>> spelling,
>>> you do find names like Alfred being written as Alvred (yes, the |f| was
>>> voiced here in OE). The only trouble is that it wasn't till centuries
>>> later that 'u' and 'v' were distinguished as separate letters. So the
>>> poor old Alfred was likely to get his name misread as 'Alured'.
>>
> ===============================================================
> On Sunday, July 11, 2004, at 02:26 , David Barrow wrote:
>
>> Joe wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>>> Well, it still happens to /T/.  But, yes, /s/ too.
>>
>>
>> It happens with plurals after 'th'  baths, mouths, paths (though not in
>> everybody's accent), with verbs.
>
>
> That's because these forms have come down to us from OE via Middle
> English.
>
>> But in 'paTHless', 'paTHmark',
>> ruTHless, claSSroom, staFFroom?
>
>
> These are modern compounds. The difference is important. In OE the voiced
> & unvoiced fricatives were allophones conditioned by their
> environment. In
> modern English /f/ and /v/ are separate phonemes, likewise /T/ and /D/,
> and /s/ and /z/. Except in the traditional, now irregular, forms (i.e.
> plurals and verbs) we no longer have these environmentally conditioned
> allophones, so when we add the two morphemes /paT/ + /lEs/ there is no in
> modern English to trigger the voicing of /pat/.
I know the modern distinction. I used the examples as a way of
clarifying my question to Joe. But thanks for clarifying that it doesn't
apply to the old distinction.

>
> BTW I wrote /paT/ because its the normal pronunciation in much of Britain
> and seems a suitable compromise between the /pAT/ of RP of south-east
> England and /p&T/ of America   :)
>
>>  My question is about voicing of /f/,
>> /s/ /T/ in OE when there's  compounding:  'forþbrengan', 'eorþbyrig',
>> 'lufrædan' and whether it was regular.
>
>
> It was, and the voicing would be regular for the reasons I've given.
>
> Ray
Would the voicing have happened automatically ie as soon as they coined
a new compound or would it have evolved over time?

David Barrow

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