Re: [tied] Re: Greek and Sanskrit neuter plural and related questio

At 9:18:26 PM on Thursday, October 19, 2006, tgpedersen
wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
> <richard@...> wrote:

>> In French, the formerly long unstressed vowels were also
>> lost. It seems to be a matter of quality - only the
>> lowest of the unstressed vowels survived. (It's a bit
>> more complicated than simply losing the unstressed
>> vowels, but that;s the simples way of summmarising what
>> happened.)

> It's an areal thing. In auslaut -a became schwa, the other
> vowels were lost in French (langue d'oil), Dutch,
> English(?), German and Danish at approximately the same
> time.

Not English: OE <sunu>, ME <sune>; OE <belle>, ME <belle>;
as well as OE <oxa>, ME <oxe>.

Brian