On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 14:53:15 +0000, tgpedersen <
tgpedersen@...>
wrote:
>>
>> American English only has /A/ in "father" and before -r(C),
>otherwise it
>> has /æ/, but this is more than compensated by the unrounding
>of /A"/ (the
>> vowel of "rod" etc.) > /A/ (in some American varieties also /O/
>("law") >
>> /A/).
>
>Sounds like some dialects of IE ;-)
>
>BTW Danish has colloquial <far> /fA(R)/, but solemn <fader> /fæ:D&R/.
>19th cent. Low Copenhagen had the transitional <fa'er> /fæ&R/. I
>think you mentioned Dutch had a similar 'register' alternation.
Intervocalic -d- is normally deleted in Dutch, except in high register
forms. The forms <vaar> en <moer> are obsolete, because of the homophone
clashes and because other "low register" forms are available (pa, ma,
etc.). Broer is the normal form of "brother" (broeder is restricted to
religious, medical and metaphorical use).
>Is there a 'forgotten alternation' in English?
It's probably a case of alternation, but not forgotten or to do with
register. 'Father' alternated between /fað&r/ and /fa:ð&r/ in Middle
English. One theory is that /fæ:ð&r/ > /fA:ð&r/ is the contamination
product of 17th. century /fæð&r/ < /fað&r/ and /fE:ð&r/ < /fa:ð&r/.
Another theory is that the environment (rounding labial /f-/ and
lengthening /ð/ followed by /r/) contributed to the special development of
this word, as in "rather" (r- -ther) [RP /rA:ð&/, but AE /ræð&r/], but not
in "gather" [/gæð&(r)/] with unrounded/non-labial initial g-. One
orthopoeist (Jones, 1701) says that father was pronounced as <fauther>
(with /O:/), so perhaps there was contamination between regular /fæð&r/ and
rounded /fO:ð&r/. ME /fa:ð&r/ apparently survives in dialectal British
(presumably as /fE:ð&(r)/, /feIð&(r)/).
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...