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> > I had written:
> > > Anyhow, one point of possible interest is that some nouns and
adjectives
> > > change quality of the stressed vowel in the plural. Examples:
> > > --- la flur, las flors;
> > > --- l tor, lus tars;
> >
> Anton Sherwood replied:
> > Is this the outcome of a sequence of regular shifts, or did you just
think it was
> > cool? ;)
> > I haven't come up with a plausible sequence that results in both
flore>flur and
> > torres>tars; the raising and lowering forces tend to undo each
other.
I probably should have given more information, i.e. /tars/ < {tauros}.
{Torres} would give /torr@s/, I think. Oh, and where I have /s/ it
should probably be /z/ in each case.
>
Padraic replied:
> I would suggest he look into how umlaut and ablaut work in IE
languages.
>
> la flors, les fleur
> lo vos, les veu
> le sens, les sen
> la nups, les nyb
> l' etats, les etet
> le serfs, les soerv
> le bels, les boel
> le vir, les ver
> l' estella, les estul
> il tors, les tur
Interesting examples. What language are they in? (I probably should
know, but ....)
I'm already familiar with umlaut and ablaut in some respects, but
certainly not all. Did you have something specific in mind? The experts
don't seem to agree about the origin of IE gradation.
>
and Steg replied:
> The double consonant vs. single consonant following the vowel could
possibly > affect it.
That's correct. The vowel is lowered before coda /r/, but in final
syllables another consonant is needed to effect this change. It's a
relatively recent development in the language superimposed on earlier
changes, for instance, raising /o/ to /u/.
Jeff Jones