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On 12 Aug 2009, at 13:01, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
So what happened seems clear, but *how* did it happen? What phonetic factors caused and permitted final _-Vs_, and only final _-Vs_ to change to _-Vi_?
I have wondered about this myself. I think the first thing that must be happening is loss of final -s, with perhaps a result of -s > -h (perhaps via -S?) or similar. Something very much like this is currently happening in some Latin American Spanish dialects, particular in the Caribbean, and of course Insular Celtic saw a widespread loss of syllable-initial and intervocalic /s/, typically with a result (at least for a while) like -h-. What I'm not quite sure about is how this would have then diphthongized the final vowel. I mean, I could propose something like -as > (-aS >) -ah > - ai, but that final step is a little unclear to me. I might expect a lengthening of the final vowel (and the LatAm Spanish s-deletion seems to be heading this way, at least so far), but, mmmm .... the fricative becomes glide ....
Cheers, Carl -- Carl Edlund Anderson http://www.carlaz.com/