Re: [tied] Final -r in Old Norse.

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Piotr Gasiorowski"
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Lisa" <eris@...> wrote:
>
> > Sorry to come back to this, but so I'm clear:
> >
> > - In ON the -r was your garden-variety, alveolar trill, correct?
>
> In my opinion (which I will justify in an article I'm writing right
> now), the pronunciation of Northwest Germanic /r/ has always been as
> variable as it is in Modern English or in the modern Scandinavian
> languages -- a trill here, a tap there, and an approximant or
> fricative perhaps in most places. The notion of the apical trill as
> the "standard" variety of /r/ in all old languages and of other
> variants as modern corruptions is a myth.

Interesting...

(I mainly ask because I have read elsewhere from someone who claims
to know Old Norse that the final -r was not pronounced at all, merely
written.)

> > - Was it syllabic, or some vowel + alveolar trill?
>
> In the beginning (I mean, after the period of unstressed vowel
> dropping) it was asyllabic, just like the final /-r/ in my first

name

> (asyllabic in Polish).

And here I assumed the r in your name was more or less syllabic
(along with the t, I mean). ;)

So I'm clear, would an example be 'Alfr' = /'alfr/ (just using the
trill for an example)?

>Syllabicity and vowel epenthesis (as in Modern
> Icelandic: -r > -ur) was a later development.

Thank you very much once again, Piotr. I look forward to reading all
your upcoming articles!

- Lisa