Re: sound change

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