Re: [tied] Re: Laryngeals revisited

At 4:26:33 PM on Thursday, June 30, 2005, Rob wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> <BMScott@...> wrote:

>>> Yes it is. The postvocalic lateral prevented /a/ from
>>> becoming /&/.

>> (Careful: we use '&' for schwa, so you mean /æ/.) What,
>> precisely, do you claim is *preserved* here? The /l/
>> created a diphthong /AU/ which then followed the normal
>> course of that diphthong. Obviously I'm not saying that the
>> /l/ had no effect; I'm objecting to your description of that
>> effect.

> The /l/ created a diphthong?

Yes: /AU/, as in EME /tAU(l)k/; this occurred when ME /Al/
was followed by another consonant, with an exception noted
below. Much the same thing happened much earlier in French:
Late Latin /al/ followed by a consonant became /aw/ in later
Old French and /o/ in Middle French.

> I would say that it preserved the earlier quality of the
> a-vowel: /a/. Or it backed it to /A/, as seems to be the
> case with most English dialects today. One can see the
> same effect in 'tall', 'wall', all', 'palm', 'malt',
> 'bald', etc. I wonder why it didn't happen to 'half',
> though.

In fact <palm> also belongs with <half>: before /lf/, /lv/,
and /lm/ the diphthongization did not occur, and /A/ took
roughly its normal course. Thus, RP <palm> /pA:m/, but
<malt> /mO:lt/, <bald> /bO:ld/. The <all> words are another
category, since the /l/ isn't followed by another consonant.

Brian