Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:
> 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.
Methinks, all these can be compared with today's Southern German
(Oberdeutsch) and Middle German (Mitteldeutsch) dialectal occurrences:
-lich: High German ≈ [liç], Middle G. [liS] (Saar, Pfalz, Hessen,
Thüringen, Sachsen), Suebian, Bavarian [lix], farther South to Tirol,
Voralberg, Switzerland there are [x] types rather similar to Dutch
and Arabic ones. :) In Bavarian, -lich tends to be abbreviated > [li]
in some cases (sometimes sounding rather [le]): <freili>/<freile>,
instead of <freilich>. But also cf. HG <Zürich> - Swiss
(i.e. Alemanian) <Züri>. (In the SouthGerman dialect of Yiddish,
in various nouns/names the diminutival suffix -le (which is also
typical of Suebian and Franconian, and as -l of Bavarian) is mixed up
with the adj/adv -lich, so that it gets a superfluous [x] attached to
it: [lax] or [l&x].
George
PS: the adverbial -e is also alive 'n' kickin': "Ich habe schon lange
gewartet". (Dialectally, esp. in the South, rather <lang> without
-e: "ich hab(e) lang gewartet" (or: i hob sch'long wortn mi&ssn. :-))