Re: OT: Latin subject-verb agreement

On Dec 13, 2007 4:24 PM, T. A. McLeay <conlang@...> wrote:

> Likewise, it's worth noting that "aren't" could develop from "amn't" by
> purely phonetic processes in non-rhotic dialects---the orthography, as
> ever, misleads---and then be generalised to rhotic ones, much as
> Americans put an /r/ in Burma and Myanmar that was never there before.

We simply put an /r/ where you put an <r>.  Hardly our fault. :)

But I find it more likely that the "aren't" in "aren't I" is the same
morpheme as the one in "they aren't", rather than a morphed version of
"amn't", which at least in Rhoticia became "ain't" AFAIK.

--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>