From: tgpedersen
Message: 63449
Date: 2009-02-26
> > I can't offer anything complete.I mean predicative form, of course. My bad.
> > There is a rule in Dutch whereby a few short vowel nouns get a
> > long vowel in the pl., which is hidden by the orthography,eg.
> > glas /Glas/ "glass", glazen /Gla:z&/
> > could there have been something similar in ME, eg.
> > /tox/, /to:G-/
> > /rux/, /ru:G-/ ?
> > If so, the rule could be restated in terms of vowel length only
> > (adjectives would generalize to their attributive form, which
> > would always be short-vowel
>
>
> Wouldn't this be the long-vowel form (the inflected form, with open
> syllables), while predicate forms, if they were uninflected in OE
> (of which I know not), would be the short-vowel forms (with closed
> syllables)?