From: Richard Wordingham
Message: 47578
Date: 2007-02-24
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
Torsten:
> > > *dh- > *þ- > *f- is commonly accepted for Italic,
> > > and many of its
> > > speakers were grown-ups. I can't remember if it's
> > > Kuhn or Vennemann
> > > who posits an Italic-like *dh > þ, d > *d, *t > *t
> > > for some dialect on
> > > the Rhine, from where it might have been picked up.
Sean Whalen:
> > I don't know exactly what you're implying.
> > In Germanic th>f is not regular, therefore the
> > alternation in this root needs some specific
> > explanation.
Torsten:
> These languages appear as substrates in Germanic, therefore they don't
> have to be analyzed as Germanic.
So? We're not looking at a loan from one of these languages. You
seem to be suggesting that a substrate was undergoing þ > f as the
speakers were Germanicised, and that the change took this word with
it. You might as well accept it as a failed sound change within
Germanic (or anticipation of English Cockney, if you prefer), and
compare it to Modern English _pottage_ > _porridge_ or rustic Latin ae
> e:.
Richard.