Re: THEORY: Th- words (was: RE: THEORY: Question: Bound Morphemes)
| From: | John Cowan <cowan@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, July 4, 1999, 3:56 |
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Lars Henrik Mathiesen scripsit:
> Phrase it like this: Some function words occured unstressed so often
> that they got initial /D/ instead of /T/ when the phonemes 'split'.
But it's strange that initial /D/ occurs *only* in this group.
Actually, /D/ has extremely low functional load: it occurs
intervocalically (as it did in OE), and now also finally
where final /@/ has been lost, as in "breath" [brET] vs.
"breathe" [briD]; this is marked by a "long" vowel just before
the /D/.
My revised English orthography continues to use "th" for both.
--
John Cowan cowan@ccil.org
I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin