From: tgpedersen
Message: 48600
Date: 2007-05-15
>I thought we were discussing x > f ?
> On 2007-05-15 20:56, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> >> This time the change can be dated very precisely using
> >> phonological evidence (it's relative chronology with respect to
> >> other changes) combined with the direct testimony of 17th-c.
> >> grammarians.
> >
> > They report a change?
>
> They report new contrasts and new pronunciations unknown to their
> predecessors. For example, early grammarians compare the vowel of
> <love> to French <ou> and German short <u>. According to Butler
> (1633) <sun> and <soon> still have "the same" vowel. However, Wallis
> (1653) already says that <cut, but, dull, come, couple, love> as
> well as <burst, burn, turn> etc. are pronounced with a vowel like
> French <eu> and almost identical with French fem. <-e>, presumably a
> kind of (rounded?) schwa. In the 18th century Portuguese authors
> identify the vowel of <love> with Portuguese "dull" <a>.
>
> Note that the lowering _must_ be dated after the Great Vowel Shift,
> because words like <blood> and <flood> (as well as <stud, month,
> glove, rudder> and others whose orthography has changed), originally
> with long /o:/ (raised to /u:/ by the GVS and _subsequently_
> shortened to /U/), underwent the change.
>
> The lowering is older than the shortening of /u:/ in <good> and
> <foot>, though some words like these used to vary between /u:/ and
> /U/ at the time of the lowering, hence later hesitation between /u:/
> (also with new shortening producing /U/) and lowered /V/, e.g.
> <soot> /sUt ~ su:t ~ sVt/ in various accents.