At 6:03:18 PM on Friday, February 1, 2008, Patrick Ryan
wrote:
> smelt is transitive: cause to melt
> melt is properly intransitive
PDE <melt> is a conflation of two OE verbs: (1) a strong
Class III intransitive <meltan> 'to become disintegrated,
liquefied, or softened, esp. by the action of moisture; to
dissolve' (< *meltan); and (2) a weak verb <meltan, miltan,
myltan>, originally the causative of (1) and hence
transitive (< *maltjan). They appear already to have been
conflated in OE.
Brian