Re: [tied] Re: *kap-

Grzegorz Jagodzinski wrote:

> 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.

What about seofon '7', heofon 'heaven', hræfen 'raven', de:ofol 'devil',
etc.? For some of these items there was vacillation in ME (and cf. Scots
deil), but all of them have kept their /v/'s.

Piotr