Re: THEORY: derivation question

Tom Wier <artabanos@...> wrote:
> John Cowan wrote:
>
> > > Anyway, the point stands that if analogical pressures hadn't applied,
> > > all of these would have had plurals in -ves only.
> >
> > Actually, "dwarves" is analogical too, according to JRRT:
> > the true etymological plural is "dwarrows" or "dwerrows".
> > In fact, I'm a little puzzled where the final "-f" comes from,
> > I would have expected "dwarg".
>
> Close.  ME "dwerf, dwergh", OE "dweorg, dweorh".
>
> D'you think it has to do with the same phenomenon that resulted
> in the /f/ in "enough"?
What happened with "gh" in English? It's always puzzled me
to have a digraph that is silent sometimes and a fricative
some other times. After such patterns as seek > sought,
think > tought, I'd say that (besides Ablaut) a final /kt/
became /xt/ (<ght>) and then /x/ lengthened the previous
vowel and disappeared, maybe becoming /h/ at some point.
This could explain the long vowel in light, might, etc.
But where does the /f/ come from? Is it that final /xt/
becomes /:t/, but /x.t/ (in different syllables as in laughter)
becomes /f.t/, with /x/ shifting from velar to labiodental?

(I see this a totally wild hypothesis, but am I right anywhere? :)


--Pablo Flores

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