Rob wrote:
>>>>b) Breaking after 'c' is West Saxon, and breaking before
>>>>'l' is non-Anglian.
>>
>>>What do you mean by "breaking"?
>>
>>Here it's the diphthongization of earlier /æ/ to /æa/.
>
>
> I see. If /æa/ was indeed the phonetic value of <ea>, that is. I
> think it may rather have been /E/.
Actually, post-palatal breaking (as suggested by Richard) doesn't apply
here. It affected originally _back_ vowels preceded by /j/ (spelt <g>)
or /s^/ (<sc>), e.g.
*skurta- > *skort > sceort 'short'
*juka- > *jok > geoc 'yoke'
There's some controversy about the value of the <eo> spelling, which may
be either phonetic (representing a genuine diphthong) or diacritic
(indicating the palatal pronunciation of <sc> or <g>). What West Saxon
has in <cealf> is just the common-or-garden kind of OE front-vowel
breaking before a velarised liquid -- not applicable to the low vowel in
Anglian, but otherwise definitely Anglian as well as West Saxon.
Piotr