Re: [tied] Re: Dream and rève

At 2:29:35 AM on Wednesday, May 17, 2006, Anthony Appleyard
wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "squilluncus" <grvs@...>
> wrote:

>> It's rêve avec circonflexe, which suggests derivation
>> from 'resve'. Etymology seems to be an enigma: ...

> French circumflex formerly meant "long vowel". Sometimes
> that long vowel came from vowel + [s], but not always:
> e,g, [a^ge] = "age" came via Old French [eage] from Latin
> [aetaticum]].

In fact I gather from Pope (From Latin to Modern French)
that its use to indicate a long vowel from the contraction
of two vowels or the levelling of a diphthong is actually
slightly earlier than its use to indicate a vowel
compensatorily lengthened after loss of pre-consonantal /s/.

Brian