Re: [tied] Kerl, ceorl

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 41480
Date: 2005-10-19

Miguel Carrasquer wrote:

> Is there a reason that the Low German/Anglo-Saxon form is
> reconstructed as e-grade *kerlaz and not jo-stem *karliaz?

The absence of umlaut, I suppose. E.g. *karl-ja- would have yielded WS
*cierl ~ *cyrl rather than <ceorl> (we do find <cyrlisc, -ie-, -io-,
-i-> as varians of <ceorlisc>, but here the suffix is the source of umlaut).

Piotr