Re: [tied] Re: *kap-

Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:

> Richard Wordingham wrote:
>
>> Isn't the loss of 'v' in the inflected forms of English _have_
>> historically regular? (Conversely, I think the corresponding loss
>> of 'v' in Scots _hae_ 'have' is irregular.)
>
> Not entirely regular: OE hæfst, hæfþ, at least, should have kept the
> /f/. The preterite plural hæfde/on might have ended up as something
> like "haft" (cf. læ:fde > left), but in the latter case the
> semiregular alternative outcome for voiced internal /f/ ([-v-]) was
> deletion, as in OE he:af(o)d- > head; læ:fdige > EME lhevedi, lafdi >
> LME lady; OE hafoc
>> hawk. Scots <hae> and <gie> 'give'

And gimme < give me

> are like old <se(n)night> for
> "seven-night" 'week'. Of course the high frequency of "have" and
> "give" would have favoured the loss, even though it wasn't restricted
> to very frequent words.
>
> Piotr
>

The Zipf's law says that long words must be shortened (irregularily) if they
are used with enough frequency. So, they needn't be very frequent but enough
frequent. OE he:afod or hafoc were _relatively_ too long (or too frequent,
this is the same) - so they had to be shortened. The same about the standard
[fA.rid] <forehead> which was not _very_ frequent - but too frequent when
compared to its length.

Grzegorz J.



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