Re: Somewheres

On Mon, 2 Sep 2024 20:12:52 +0000, jerryfriedman wrote:

On Mon, 2 Sep 2024 19:26:42 +0000, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>

On 2024-09-02, Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> wrote:
>

Is there a natural tendency for languages to lose final syllables or
final consonants?

>
If you take the big picture view, the answer is certainly yes, but
the details vary wildly.
>

I can't think of any examples in Germanic languages,

>
Take PGmc *hringaz > OE hring > PDE ring.
>
Proto-Germanic *-az was the counterpart to the ubiquitous Latin
ending -us, Greek -os, but it was mostly lost in West Germanic.[1]
Much later, along the way from Old English [hrɪŋɡ] to Present Day
English [rɪŋ], final [g] after [ŋ] was lost.

>
More recently, lots of final /r/s have been lost in some dialects
of English, except before a vowel in the next word--a similar pattern
to what happened in French, but it may not continue the same way.
Loss of the final consonant in "of"

and "and"

is much more widespread, and
I'm not going to claim I always pronounce the first [t] in "first step"
or the [d] in "second-best".

..
While my finger was clicking on "Send", my brain realized that the
final consonant of "an" has disappeared when not followed by a
vowel, and the final consonant of the determiner "mine" first
disappeared when not followed by a vowel, then completely.
"Thine" went through a similar process while it was mostly
disappearing".). And "I" used to have a final consonant.
Deletion of final consonants and vowels in a High German dialect
in this folk song as Brahms set it.
Da unten im Tale
Läuft's Wasser so trüb
Und i kann dir's nit sagen
I hab' di so lieb.
Sprichst allweil von Lieb'
Sprichst allweil von Treu'
Und a bissele Falschheit
Is au wohl dabei!
--
Jerry Friedman