Re: Negation

On 2008-12-07 05:50, Andrew Jarrette wrote:

> What's your opinion on the idea that it may come from *a:/*æ: plus
> *byre "time, opportunity, occurrence", i.e. "a lifetime of
> occurrences" or some such (idea mentioned in OED). Is this less
> believable than or equally believable to the idea of <a: in feore> or
> <æ: feore>?

It's <(ge)byre> 'occasion' (no need to asterisk it). The frequent use of
<to: feore> as a reinforcement after various adverbs of duration (<a:,
a:wa, æ:fre, lange, siþþan>) makes it a better candidate; <byre> was not
used like that. <to: wi:dan feore> may also mean 'for ever' by itself.

> Also, how does a comparative of *a:w explain the <f>? When does OE *w
> ever become /v/ (I know we have <laverock> beside <lark> from OE
> <læ:werce>, but OE also has <la:ferce> whose <f> I think may be
> etymological <f> (i.e. from a variant formation, not from a regular
> phonetic development of /w/))? I think OED says that some English
> dialects pronounce or used to pronounce <wr-> with a /v/, was that a
> general feature which would explain the /v/ in <æ:fre> appearing in
> all dialects and to the present day, when <wr-> in initial position
> does not have /vr/ in almost all if not all modern dialects?

Liberman's point is that <æ:fre> is a very late word in OE, and that is
possibly originated in literary Late West Saxon. And, yes, the suggested
development is [w] > [v] <f>.

Piotr