The palatal sham :) (Re: [tied] Re: Albanian (1))

>
> American English only has /A/ in "father" and before -r(C),

otherwise it

> has /æ/, but this is more than compensated by the unrounding

of /A"/ (the

> vowel of "rod" etc.) > /A/ (in some American varieties also /O/

("law") >

> /A/).

Sounds like some dialects of IE ;-)

BTW Danish has colloquial <far> /fA(R)/, but solemn <fader> /fæ:D&R/.
19th cent. Low Copenhagen had the transitional <fa'er> /fæ&R/. I
think you mentioned Dutch had a similar 'register' alternation. Is
there a 'forgotten alternation' in English?

Torsten