From: Arnaud Fournet
Message: 60075
Date: 2008-09-16
----- Original Message -----
From: "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
>> =============
>>
>> ok, there is a handful of examples where e and a interchange.
>> but the claim that "e and a tend to interchange in OFr generally" does
>> not
>> seem to work.
>> Be it from Germanic or Latin CerC and CarC are most often kept separated.
>>
>> Arnaud
>
> We also have <parsley, warble, parlous, Jervaulx/Jervois, marvel,
> arbour> (all from French) plus numerous words that used to have variants
> with /a/ such as <'varsity, varmint, sarvant, sartin [= certain],
> vartue, vargis [= verjuice]>, etc. Even <German> was once pronounced
> "Jarman". In native words the change was never carried out with absolute
> consistency, but by the late 15th c. a clear majority of the inherited
> ME -erC/# words had become -arC/#, as in <carve, starve, fart, heart,
> star, far, marsh, hearth, clerk, dark, darling, war, smart, farthing,
> barn, barley, Hertford, Berkshire, Dartmouth> and plenty of others. The
> lowering of /e/ was rarer before intervocalic /r/, but by no means
> unknown, cf. <Harry, quarrel, barrow>.
>
> Piotr
>
===========
Dear M Gasiorowski,
I'm not sure I understand your point.
Do these words owe their /a/ to Old French or to a Middle English
development ?
It seems the latter option is the right one !?
Arnaud
===========