[tied] Re: English Young (was: Indo-Iranian Vowel Collapse)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
wrote:

> Actually, post-palatal breaking (as suggested by Richard) doesn't
> apply here. It affected originally _back_ vowels preceded by /j/
> (spelt <g>) or /s^/ (<sc>), e.g.
>
> *skurta- > *skort > sceort 'short'
> *juka- > *jok > geoc 'yoke'

But if all /sk/ > /S/, why would the <e> be needed?

> There's some controversy about the value of the <eo> spelling,
> which may be either phonetic (representing a genuine diphthong) or
> diacritic (indicating the palatal pronunciation of <sc> or <g>).
> What West Saxon has in <cealf> is just the common-or-garden kind of
> OE front-vowel breaking before a velarised liquid -- not applicable
> to the low vowel in Anglian, but otherwise definitely Anglian as
> well as West Saxon.

On the other hand, perhaps <cealf> also implies a diacritic, whereby
the pronunciation would have been /c^ælf/.

- Rob