At 3:09:03 PM on Sunday, November 2, 2008, Rick McCallister
wrote:
[...]
> dialect yate < gate < Norse gata
If by <yate> you mean the dialect word for 'gate', it's from
OE <geat> 'gate, door, opening', cognate with ON <gat> 'a
hole, an opening'; ON <gata> 'road, way' is a different
word. The 'gate' word is a neuter a-stem: *Gata- > *Gæt- >
/jæt-/ <geat>. (Or a further step to /jæ&t/, if you prefer
to interpret <geat> as showing palatal diphthongization
rather than palatal digraphy.)
Brian