Re: THEORY: derivation question

At 10:46 pm -0500 27/3/99, John Cowan wrote:
>Lars Henrik Mathiesen scripsit:
>
>> "pl. dwarfs, also dwarves."
>
>I think that "dwarves" simply didn't exist until JRRT coined it,
>half unconsciously as he says.
>
>> 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".
Yep - Dutch 'dwerg'; Old Norse 'dverg'; German 'Zwerg'.

Presumably the modern English form was taken from a dialect where the final
-g had become a fricative which then merged with the middle English
ach-laut (represented by Norman scribes as '-ugh'.  In some English
dialects this sound became /f/ and survivals of this occur in standard
English 'laugh', 'enough' etc.  But in most dialects the sound fell silent
so we have, e.g. 'daughter' /dO:t@(r)/ though /daft@r/ survived in some
English dialects till early this century.

One finds a similar changed in some place names, e.g. not far from me is
'Burpham' which developed from an earlier 'burh' + 'ham' i.e. *borough-ham.
And in my native Sussex there is  village called 'Slaugham' /sl&fm/   :)

Ray.