Re: [tied] re: question re English grammar

On 05-02-18 12:36, daniel prohaska wrote:

> Thanks for the below. I have a question I’ve been pondering about for a
> while and I’ve heard and read conflicting opinions about, concerning the
> adjective and adverb suffixes /-li:c/ and /-li:ce/ in OE. I’d say the
> <c> was palatalised in the OE period and it regularly gives ME
> <-lich(e)> or <-lych(e)>.

Yes, or at any rate the palatal affricate was generalised (originally
there would have been conditioned alternation between [k] and [k^] (>
[c^]) depending on what followed. At the beginning of the ME period the
suffix was pronounced /-li:c^(&)/ in most dialects. However, the
comparative and superlative forms in -liker/-likest (< OE -li:cor,
-li:cost, with <c> followed by a back vowel) generally kept their /k/.
The forms -lier and -liest are later and of analogical origin.

> Yet ModE has <-ly>. Since OE /c/ regularly
> becomes /tS/ in ModE why is the final affricative dropped? The only
> other example where I can see a vaguely similar development is OE <ic>
> “I” in the Midlands.

Another one is everich > every.

> Or was the /-li:ce/ suffix replaced by Norse <-ligr> / <-liga>? What
> would you say?

Scandinavian influence may have played a role, but I think that it was
mostly a matter of irregular word-final weakening plus sandhi effects.
In _Ormulum_ (ca 1200) the suffix is spelt -lic when line-final or if
the next word begins with a vowel, but -li3 (with a yogh) before a
consonant, so it seems that the affricate was lenited first in
preconsonantal position.

Piotr