Re: Odp: -l > -w

From: Marc Verhaegen
Message: 827
Date: 2000-01-10

 
The transition -l>-w is not uncommon. Germanic -old/-ald/-olt/-alt >-oud/-out is typical for Dutch (only before -d and -t). It also appeared (at the same time? cf. bilinguism in the Franconian kingdom?) in old French in a wider context, eg, her(w)ald>héraut, cheval/chevaux, al>au, del>du, etc.  Portugese also shows a weakening or loss of -l.  Portugese & French are the Romance langages with the largest stress, and both languages show nasalisation. I wonder whether these phenomena might be related?        --Marc
Yes, they ARE related. Nasalisation results from the vocalisation of syllable-final nasals. Liquid/nasal vocalisation is a special case of the more general tendency to weaken syllable codas (the coda is the final, consonantal constituent of a syllable). In most dialects of British English the same tendency is responsible for the loss of postvocalic R (as in pork, here or earth. At the end of Middle English postvocalic velar fricatives (spelt gh) were lost in the same way. In French, a few centuries ago, most stops underwent deletion word-finally (as in mont, chaud, blanc). In Proto-Slavic vowel nasalisation cooccurred with the loss of syllable-final obstruents (the result was the so-called "law of open syllables", e.g. *sup-nos 'sleep, dream' > *su-nu). The tendency is in fact universal (coda consonants are "naturally" weaker than syllable-initial ones), and a favourable combination of phonological factors may trigger it off in any language. Strong stress IS favourable to it because it amplifies the initial part (first "mora") of a stressed syllable at the expense of the final part.    --Piotr
 
You mention French chaud. Dutch kald>koud (Engl.cold) changed in parallel with French cald->caud- (later >chaud). Both words have a common origin, I believe, but opposite meaning.
 
Thanks for your "explanation", Piotr. A further question is: why did Portugese & esp. French have the strongest stress, stronger than in other Romance languages? French could have got its strong stress from the Franconian invaders, but what about Portugese? Visigoths??
 
--Marc