Re: Droppin' D's Revisited

En réponse à andrew <hobbit@...>:

> >
> I think that -ais was the result of a naughty night out between Latin
> -ensis (VL -e:si(s)) and Frankish -isc.  Of course, both were consenting
> adults.
>
Sounds really interesting. According to the booklet I just bought, the <oi>
(pronounced /wE/ in Old French period) ultimately derives from a long /e:/ in
Latin. Than the labiovelar component disappeared, leaving only /E/ (written
<ai>). In "Roumant", it seems that this /e:/ was rounded and gave way to /o/
(Latin <habere> /habe:re/, French <avoir> /a'vwaR/, "Roumant" <avôre> /a'vor/).
But as in French the treatment of this /e:/ was not uniform (sometimes the /wE/
orthographied <oi> gave /wa/, still orthographied <oi>, while some other times
it gave /E/, orthographied <ai>), I could well do the same in "Roumant", keeping
the /o/ in some cases (like verbs), and for instance lowering it to /a/ in other
cases (I had already thought of an ending <-às> /a/ to make pendant with French
<-ais>. In this case it doesn't seem to unreasonable - if you think otherwise
just tell me, my knowledge of phonetic changes is quite sketchy, I'm not sure a
change /o/ -> /a/ is possible -. I could also cross it with Frankish -isc to
make <-asc> /as/, but then I would have to allow a little Frankish influence in
"Roumant". As I don't want to make it look more like French than it already
does, I'm not sure it's a good idea...).

Christophe.