--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
>
> Liberman's point is that <æ:fre> is a very late word in OE, and that is
> possibly originated in literary Late West Saxon. And, yes, the
suggested
> development is [w] > [v] <f>.
>
> Piotr
>
Thanks for Liberman's point, but _my_ point is that I've never heard
of /w/ becoming /v/ anywhere in Old English (the OED mention of <wr->
being pronounced /vr-/ refers to a more recent and isolated
phenomenon, I think). What other words show evidence of /w/>/v/? The
"laverock" example is not convincing to me, as it's such an infrequent
word and may show evidence of another formation (or if it's borrowed
from Ibero-Romance *laverca, as Rick suggests, it may have the /v/ of
this dialect). For this reason I don't find the idea of a comparative
of *a:w convincing.
Andrew