LL-L "Phonology" 2006.01.14 (02) [E]

Sat Jan 14 22:00:47 UTC 2006

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   L O W L A N D S - L * 14 January 2006 * Volume 02
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From: Dan Prohaska danielprohaska at bluewin.ch
Subject: LL-L "Phonology"

From: Ben J. Bloomgren

"fox VS. Vixen"

Paul and all,

Could it be that some varieties had an umlauted u like Dutch fux for fox?

This may explain the i sound in vixen.

Ben

***

Ben,

No, not really. For this we have to look back to pre-historic Old English, 
or rather Germanic which didn't have a short /o/ sound. The /o/ developed 
later by a-umlaut of old /u/. I'm working from memory and I haven't got my 
clever books with me, but I would guess that the original Germanic form for 
"fox" was something like *fuhsaz (?) where the -az ending is cognate to 
Latin -us and Greek -os. This /a/ in the ending caused the /u/ of the 
preceding syllable to change to /o/. The ending was dropped before OE was 
recorded in writing.

The feminine form with the suffix (I'm guessing again) *-innô (?) didn't 
cause change to /o/, but later the /i/ was responsible for the OE i-umlaut 
(and we find a parallel development in German) changing Germanic *fuhsinnô 
(?) to OE <fyxen>.

The modern English form <vixen> is from a south-western form identifiable 
through the voicing of the initial fricative. Kenitish also shows this, but 
in Middle Kentish the reflex of OE <y> is <e> and it would have given 
*vexen.

My reconstructions may not be entirely accurate as I'm working from memory 
only.

Dan

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From: Heather Rendall <HeatherRendall at compuserve.com>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2006.01.13 (02) [E]

Message text written by INTERNET:lowlands-l at LOWLANDS-L.NET
> Does the voicing affect /T/ > /D/? I've never seen this
mentioned (because they're not distinguished orthographically? or
because it doesn't happen?)<

My first reaction was ... No, I've never heard/seen that but then I thought
I'd better check!

All I have is William Barnes' "Poems of rural life in the Dorset dialect"
but that's near enough to Somerset!

and there it was on the first page I looked at

" Did stir my heart the whole year drough."

so Yes it does happen.

"When I did rove with litty veet,
Drough deäisy-beds so white's a sheet,
But still avore I us'd to meet
the blushèn cheäks that bloom'd vor me! "

Even better this delightful verse from Bob the Fiddler

" Aye, let en tuck a crowd below
His chin, an' gi've his vist a bow,
He'll dreve his elbow to an' fro
An' play what you do please.
At Maypolèn or feäist or feäir,
His eärm wull zet off twenty peäir
An' meäke em dance the groun' dirt-beäre
An hop about lik' vlees! "

dreve = drive

Heather

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Phonology

Thanks, Heather.  This is really interesting.

Note that (as I observed years ago already) Dorset dialects tend to voice 
only fricatives (/f/ -> [v], /s/ -> [z]):

fist -> vist
flies = vlees
set = set

If the shift /T/ (/θ/) -> [d] is a consistent one, I would think that it, 
probably like the other shifts, is historical (>) rather than 
speaker-generated (->), thus:

fýst > fyst > /vist/ -> vist (= fist)
fléa(h)s > flees > /vliiz/ -> vlees (= flees)
set- > set- > /zet/ -> zet (= set)

þorh ~ þurh ~ ðurh > thurgh ~ dorth ~ dorgh > /dru/ -> drough (= through)

So in the case of "drough" we need to know if this descended directly from 
Middle English dialectical /d/ or if we are dealing with a consistent shift.

The reason why I think we are dealing with historical shifts is that there 
are the apparent exceptions "feäist" and "feäir" (not *"veäist" and 
*"veäir").  I assume they are exempt by virtue of being Latinate loans.

Vexing, though, is the case of "to an' fro", where I would have expected 
*"to an' vro".  Why is this one exempt?  Is it because of /fr/ (in spite of 
/fl/ > /vl)?

I suppose this calls for a larger sample.

And wouldn't it be great to get a couple of Southwestern translations of the 
Wren story with sound files?  Can anyone organize that?

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2006.01.13 (08) [E]

  From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder
  Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2006.01.13 (06) [E]

  Paul, Paul didn't mean the voicing of <t> to <d> but <th> to <dh>......

  Ingmar

Ingmar and Paul,
As far as I can recall (not having any Southwesterners immediately to hand 
to check), voiced and unvoiced dental fricatives in SW English are pretty 
much as Standard English. The stronger SW accents seem to be on the wane 
anyway; I was listening on the radio today to a caller from North Devon, 
"born and raised" as she put it.  Identifiable as a Southwesterner, but very 
much Standard English.  Probably the main feature they retain is a sounded 
retroflex <r> in medial positions, very much like Americans; "pa<r>k" for 
example rat! her than the "pa:k" of most English people.

Paul 

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