Re: Umlaut

Quoting Balazs Sudar <conlang@...>:

> Vowel E:
> When in final position, change: e > i, long e > ei. When not,
> then both short and long remain the same.
>
> Vowel A:
> When in final position, it changes a > ai, long a > ae.
> Anywhere else: a > e, long a > long e
This is a good start, but umlauting is usually taken to mean that
an /i/ in one part of the word causes not diphthongization, but
an actual change in some phonological feature of a neighboring
vowel.  So, in Proto-English, "foot" was /fo:t/, and an -i was the
plural ending. This -i shifted the preceding /o:/ forward to
become a front vowel [9:], a vowel at the same height and frontness
of /e:/ but *it kept its roundedness*.  Likewise, i-umlaut shifts
/a/ to /&/, a front low unrounded vowel.

(The rules you posit above of course are also possible, but then
one does not usually call them umlaut.)

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Thomas Wier
Dept. of Linguistics  "Nihil magis praestandum est quam ne pecorum ritu
University of Chicago sequamur antecedentium gregem, pergentes non qua
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