Re: Optional Soundlaws (was: IE *aidh- > *aus-tr- 'hot, warm (wind)'

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <bm.brian@...> wrote:

>
> At 3:26:46 PM on Monday, November 1, 2010, dgkilday57 wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
> > <richard.wordingham@> wrote:
>
> >> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57"
> >> <dgkilday57@> wrote:
>
> >>> I would have to be a phonological hippie to buy into the
> >>> notion of "optional soundlaws". No rocket science is
> >>> required to see that any word in any language could be
> >>> derived from any word in the same or any other language,
> >>> merely by tailoring the "optional soundlaws" to achieve
> >>> the desired result. Philology would collapse into
> >>> anarchy.
>
> >> While acknowledging an optional sound law is an admission
> >> of defeat, and any explanation that depends on one is
> >> thereby weakened, they do appear to be real. Good
> >> examples of optional sound laws include:
>
> >> 1) The Modern English 3-way split of the reflex of OE o:,
> >> e.g. Modern English _blood_, _good_ and _mood_.
>
> > This trifurcation in reflexes of OE -o:d can be explained
> > through back-formations and analogical processes without
> > recourse to hippie phonology. MnE <good>, <hood>, <stood>
> > have the regular nuclear reflex of the OE monosyllables.
> > The nucleus of MnE <blood> and <flood> evidently reflects
> > extraction from dissyllabic compounds inherited from OE.
> > Note OE <Bo:cland>, MnE <Buckland>; OE *bo:cmaest, ME
> > <bukmast>, MnE <buckmast>. Early ME <blodles> 1225,
> > <blodwurt> 1250 unfortunately do not show what the vowel
> > was doing, but they do render it plausible that
> > <bloodless> and <bloodwort> show the REGULAR pronunciation
> > of inherited compounds. With <flood>, possibly extraction
> > occurred from <floodgate> (or its ME equivalent, since we
> > have <flud> c1425), but I can find no old attestations of
> > the compound.
>
> From the MED s.n. <flo:d-ya:te>:
>
> (a) One of the movable barriers controlling the flow of
> water in a millrace, a floodgate; a similar barrier in a
> navigable stream; also fig.; (b) in personal names.
>
> (a) c1230(?a1200) *Ancr.(Corp-C 402) 18b: Hwen 3e nede
> moten [speak], a lute wiht lowsið up ower muðes
> flod3eten, as me deð ed mulne, & leoteð adun sone.
>
> (a1240) Deed Norris in LCRS 93 98: [Grantee will
> build] flodiates.
>
> (1330) RParl. 2.33a: Le curs de l'ewe de Wytham est..per
> Estanks, Gorcez, et Flodeyates.
>
> (1334-5) Acc.R.Dur.in Sur.Soc.100 525: In 2 flodyates de
> novo factis..3s. 9d.
>
> (1376) in Löfvenberg Contrib.Lex. 87: [The said mill and
> the] flodegates.
>
> (1403) in Löfvenberg Contrib.Lex. 87: Flodegates [of the
> ancient] cornemelne.
>
> (1423) Acc.Hollingbourne in Archaeol.Cant.13 562: Item,
> to a laborer for castyng off the mylpond a bowte the
> flodgate.
>
> a1425(c1395) WBible(2) (Roy 1.C.8) Job 36.27:
> Which..schedith out reynes at the licnesse of flood3ates
> [L gurgitum; WB(1): swolewis].
>
> (1440) PParv.(Hrl 221) 167: Flodegate [Win: ffludgate]
> of a mylle: Sinoglocitorium.
>
> c1450(?a1400) Wars Alex.(Ashm 44) 1856: Þan fondis furth
> dame Fortoun to þe flode3atis, Dra3es vp þe damme-borde
> & drenchis vs euire.
>
> c1450 Treat.Fish.(Yale 171) 19: Yn falles of watur and
> weeres, flode gates, and mylle pittes.
>
> (1471-2) Acc.R.Dur.in Sur.Soc.99 93: Operanti super unum
> Flotyate in le Westorcherd.
>
> (1472-5) RParl. 6.159a: In lettyng of the passages of
> Shippes..Milles, Milledammes, Mille pooles,
> Lokkes..Hekkes, Flodeyates, and dyvers other
> ympedymentes dayly been made.
>
> ?c1475 *Cath.Angl.(Add 15562) 49a: A ffluydgate [Monson:
> Flude3ate]: Cinoglociatorium.
>
> (b) (1262) Close R.Hen.III 116: Johannes Flodgat.
>
> (1327) Sub.R.Som.in Som.RS 3 274: Walterus atte
> Flodgate.
>
> <http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/m/mec/med-idx?type=id&id=MED16373&egs=all&egdisplay=open>

Excellent. Thanks for these examples.

> > With <rood>, we have a weak noun in OFris, OS, ON, and
> > early ME (<rode> 1225, pl. <roden> c1290), so the vocalism
> > is just as regular as it is in <food> (OE <fo:da>, ME
> > <uode>, <fode>).
>
> We also find later ME instances of both words that suggest
> short vowels (e.g., <fudde>).

For later ME <rudde> etc. I suspect that the OE st. fem. <ro:d> had some compounds such as <ro:dbe:am> inherited into early ME as *rodbeam, later *rudbeem etc. (regularly), leading to extraction of <rud>, <rudde> with the low central nucleus /V/ (as in my explanation of <blood>, <flood>). (Chaucer on the other hand has the simplex <rode> from the wk. fem. *ro:de, and a newly formed cpd. <roode-beem>.) For <fudde> one could postulate an OE st. masc. *fo:d as a by-form of <fo:da>, and extraction from cpds. of *fo:d, but I need to do more research to see whether this is plausible.

> > With <mood>, very likely we have back-formation from
> > <moody> (OE <mo:dig>, ME <modi> c1205).
>
> OE <mo:d> remained in continuous use, so it can't be a true
> back-formation; at most the adjective might have influenced
> the pronunciation.

Yes, it should be labeled a back-pronunciation, rather than a true back-formation like <pea> from <pease>. The same goes for the presumed extraction of new simplex-pronunciations from compounds.

> What about /ho:p/ 'hoop', attested at least by the early
> 12th century? OE <flo:c>, ME /flo:k/ 'fluke'? OE <co:l>
> 'cool', <po:l> 'pool', and <to:l> 'tool'? OE <go:s>
> 'goose'? I suppose that for 'hoop', 'pool', and <spo:n>
> 'spoon' you could argue for influence from the labial.

No, I believe that the modern /uw/ in <cool>, <pool>, <tool>, <goose>, <sooth>, <tooth>, <doom>, <spoon>, <do> (OE 1sg. pres. ind. & 2sg. impv. <do:>), <too>, and stressed <to> is regular. It is the final consonant (or lack of one) that matters. With <hoof> and <roof> in which /uw/ and /U/ oscillate (even in my speech), I suspect that /U/ is regular from OE <ho:f> and <hro:f>, while /uw/ comes from the nom./acc. pl. <ho:fas> and dat. sg. <hro:fe> (retained in locative phrases). That is, /hUf/ and /huwvz/ are regular, but the forms crossed. Chaucer has nom./acc. <roof> and dat. <rove>.

I also suspect that <door>, <floor>, and <swore> are regular with /ow/, and that /muwr/ for <moor> came from Western dialects to displace expected */mowr/. In surnames <-more> is more common, and R.D. Blackmore, who takes pains to represent local speech in his romance of Exmoor, _Lorna Doone_, puts <Hexmoor> into the mouth of native John Fry. And I suspect that <hove>, st. pret. of <heave> with /ow/, is dialectal (Northern?). One would expect regularly */hUf/ from OE <ho:f>, but this would very likely be displaced by */huwv/ extracted from the pret. pl. <ho:fon>, and we have neither.

Apparently the MnE nucleus /U/ is regular with OE monosyllables containing /o:/ and a final stop. Thus in addition to <good>, <hood>, and <stood>, we can cite <book>, <foot>, etc. as regular. Probably <moot> with /uw/ (OE <mo:t>) is to be explained like <brood>, i.e. <feed>:<food>::<meet>:<moot>.

Webster's International, Century, WNWD, and AHD give /huwp/ as the first pronunciation of <hoop>, /hUp/ as the second (reversed, apparently by error, perhaps following <hoof>, in M-W's 7th Collegiate). The only other /Up/-auslaut words cited in M-W's rhyming dictionary are <coop> and <whoop>, for which /kuwp/ and /h(w)uwp/ are cited first, /kUp/ and /h(w)Up/ second. No OE form is given for <whoop>, so we cannot use it here. But since hoops are used in making barrels, and thus a cooper is a hooper, it seems plausible that the MLG trade-words <ku:pe> 'cask, barrel', <ku:per> 'barrelwright' (ME <cupe>, <couper>, <cowper>) influenced the vocalism of ME <hoop>, <hopere> in most dialects, with the opposite influence in a few others. Thus rather than expected /hUp/ and /kuwp/ we find mostly /huwp/ and /kuwp/, sometimes /hUp/ and /kUp/. Similarly, obsolete MnE <boot> 'remedy, profit, benefit' (fossilized in the phrase <to boot> 'in addition, besides') presents a problem against OE <bo:t>. Probably the vowel of ME <bote>, <boote> was influenced by folk-etymological association with MLG <bu:te> 'exchange, plunder, booty'.

More challenging is <fluke>, which of course one expects to rhyme with <book>, <cook>, and <took>. As a long-stemmed OE neuter, the nom./acc. pl. is identical to the sg. <flo:c>. Thus it sticks out like a sore thumb in the enumeration of sea-fish (in the acc. pl.) caught by the fisherman in Aelfric's Colloquium. The only other long nt. pl. in the list is <mereswi:n> (MS. -swyn) 'porpoises', a transparent cpd. of 'swine', recognized then and now as a collective. This morphological FLUKE could have engendered a wk. masc. *flo:ca as a substitute for the st. nt. <flo:c> in popular speech. If <fluke> indeed continues *flo:ca, its vocalism is as regular as <food> from <fo:da> and <rood> from *ro:de. (I am aware that this explanation looks forced, but it is the only one that I could devise.)

And <bough> remains problematic. I will have to examine reflexes of OE -o:h and -o:g later; there are several complications.

DGK