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I thought you might want to know I just saw in von Kienle's
"Historische Laut- und Formenlehre des Deutschen." that what
is usually given in textbooks as
- *ê > OHG ê, ea, ia, ie
is really
- OHG ê > ea > ia > ie
i.e. it is really an historical progression observable
over the centuries within OHG! Of course io of
whatever source (a-umlauted *eu, ew, eww) also ends
up as ie, e.g.
- *knewa > *knew > kneo > knio > knie 'knee'
Which goes to show I was right in setting up
- VL *a: > *&: > ea > ia
in Rhodrese based on the progression
- &: > &@ > E@ > e@ > I@
which Labov describes for American English (in _bad, mad_
and other words). I.e. Rhodrese has _ia_ in most cases where
French has /E/ corresponding to VL A. I didn't posit ia > ie
in Rhodrese since I didn't want ia < VL *a: and ie < VL *E:
to merge at any rate in the standard language, though I
think in the dialects ie > ia occurs parallel to VL e: >
ORdr ei > ai, which happens unconditioned in the standard
language too. VL O: o: develop in parallel of course, and
there are lots of 'extra' _au_ from VL /B/ / V_{C, #} e.g.
CAPITEM > caud, orthographically distinguished from CALDU >
caod[^1]. There are of course other sources of ai too, like
MAGISTRU > maistre, MAIOR > mair (but MAIOREM > mayaur). BTW
there is no monophthongization in modern Rhodrese, so these
are phonetically [caU)d maI)stRe maI)r/maI)R
majaU)r/majaU)R]
[^1]: I think the normal word for 'head' is _teste_
[tEstI] anyway, while a chef is a _cauday de cucine_
[caU)'daI) dI kU'sinI]. FWIW _cauday/-daine_ might well
be an adjective too.
/BP