Re: [tied] Stative/Perfect; Indo-European /r/

On 05-03-02 10:43, tgpedersen wrote:

> We've had this discussion a long time ago on cybalist. My take on it
> is that the replacement of apical /r/ with uvular /R/ and of /w/
> with /v/ is recent and caused by French influence. The reason why it
> didn't take place in English is the early stalemate between French
> and native influence in England which meant /v/ ~/w/ became a kind
> of shibboleth, a marker for French/non-Frenchness. That didn't
> happen elsewhere.

I don't understand. What early stalemate? Anglo-Norman French had both
/w/ and /v/, the former in such words as <warrant>, <wage>, <wicket> and
<war>. It was English that had no /v/ phoneme at the outset and
developed it at least partly due to French influence (heavy borrowing of
words like <very>, <vile> and <vow>). Had the English been so
anti-French, they would have borrowed <very> as "fery" or "wery". After
all, late Latin (or early Romance) versu- was borrowed as OE fers.

Piotr