Re: tolkien?

Quoting Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>:

> At 15:44 16.12.2003, John Cowan wrote:
>
> >  I-affection is carried through
> >all the syllables, but the rules are different in final and non-final
> >syllables, as might be expected: the pl. of Golodh 'Noldo, a member of
> >the Second Kindred of the Elves' is Gelydh, not *Gylydh
>
> through an intermediate *gölydh* /g2lyD/ I hasten to add.
> I don't have the historical processes quite ready to mind
> or hand, but I think the final *o got raised to *u before
> umlaut, so that it was someting like
> *ngolodi: > golodi > goludi > g2lydi > g2lyD > gelyD
I'd rather think the raising was part of the umlaut; it does align the vowel
to /i/ in height as well as back/frontness.

If we discount /u/, which is as high as /i/ already, archaic Sindarin has in
syllables immediately before the umlaut factor /e a o/ > /i ei y/, and in
syllables further removed > /e e 2/, which looks patternish; both fronting and
raising in the immediately preceeding syllable, only fronting further away
(with /e/ immune to fronting). Later changes do 2>e across the board, and
ei>ai in final syllables (cf the simplex _erain_ "king" with the compound name
_Ereinion_ "Scion of Kings"), muddying the waters nicely.

This insight isn't mine, BTW; it was presented to me by the eminent
Sindarinist David Salo.

                                                             Andreas