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Re: sound change

From:Vasiliy Chernov <bc_@...>
Date:Friday, May 11, 2001, 9:43
On Tue, 8 May 2001 13:34:48 -0700, J Matthew Pearson
<pearson@...> wrote:

>Vasiliy Chernov wrote: >> Same with _who_, _whose_. >> >> Can be analyzed as regular change in late ME: [CwO:] > [Co:] (the other >> example being _two_; dunno any more examples, but counter-evidence seems >> to be lacking too). > >No, this was a general change, whereby /w/ was lost between a consonant and >a (back?) vowel.
It wasn't the loss of [w] that I meant primarily, but rather the vowel narrowing: _who_ and _two_ originally rhymed with _foe_ etc., later with _too_.
>Other remnants of this change include the orthographic "w"s >in "answer" [...]
Unstressed syllable; IMO hardly related to the other cases. Another unrelated example: swa: > sa: 'so' (occurring very early in OE).
>and "sword".
A really difficult word, with several very special sound changes, each with sophisticated dialectal distribution: erd > eord (universal, or nearly so, in OE); weo > wo (OE; as also e. g. dialectally in weorold > worold, similar to the change in widu > wiodu > wudu 'wood'); (potential) OE vowel lengthening before [rd]; wo(r) > wu(r) (as also in _word_, _world_, etc.; never reflected in spelling) - late OE; ME vowel lengthening before [rd]; vowel narrowing when Cw precedes (as in _who_, _two_) - ME; loss of [w] between (certain?) consonants and certain vowels - ME; (late ME and later) vowel shortening before clusters; (late ME to ModE) - various intricacies with o-like sounds before [r], involved e. g. in differentiation of the vowels of _poor_ and _door_ (resulting from mixing the forms of different dialects?) - it is not easy to figure out which of the above apply to the actual development of _sword_ and which don't.
>I think it took place (or at least began) in late >OE or early ME, though...
IMO, several similar changes differing in both dates and dialectal distribution.
> >Matt.
Basilius