Re: [tied] Re: The personal pronouns of PIE (and other families) ar

On 2006-01-16 23:39, Rob wrote:

>>>>The 3pl. personal pronoun, OE NA. <hi:e>, <he:o>, G.
>>>><heora>, D. <he:om> regularly gives ME N. <hi>, <hy>, G.
>>>><heore>, <here>, <hire>, <hore>, <hure>, <hare>, DA. <heom>,
>>>><hem>, <hom>, <ham> in the South.
>>>
>>>Where did all of those different vowel qualities come from?
>>
>>Different spellings/pronunciations in different
>>manuscripts/dialects.
>
>
> I knew that already. What I meant was, have any sound-laws been
> devised to explain the different vowel qualities?

Yes. For example, the diphthong spelt <ie> occurs only in early West
Saxon OE. In late ("classical") WS the nom./acc. is always spelt <hy> or
<hi>, showing the regular phonetic development of the diphthong. ME
spellings with <o> or <u> may indicate a front rounded vowel as a
dialectal (West Midland) reflex of OE <eo>. Forms with <a> are probably
analogical (due to the influence of the OE demonstrative pronouns).
Actually the range of variation is even greater than shown above (and
includes <h>-less variants), but then ME orthography was rather messy.

Piotr