Somewheres

[Peter Moylan]

El Sun, 01 Sep 2024 09:49:19 +1000, Peter Moylan

As a singer, I have been told to de-emphasise any final 's'. In
fact, most of the choir is asked to leave it silent.

That's how people speak here. "Los olivos" are "loh'holivoh".

Also here in el Norte (of New Mexico). People even say "ahina" for
"así", which people from other parts of the Spanish-speaking world
think is funny.

Does the dropping of the final S go back to Greek or Hebrew?

Crossposted to sci.lang, where people might know the answer.

Is there a natural tendency for languages to lose final syllables or
final consonants? This thread has provided examples in Spanish. French
lost a lot of final consonants (in speech, but not in writing) centuries
ago. Some southern Italian dialects have dropped a few final vowels, but
this does not extend to northern dialects or the mainstream version of
the language. Portuguese seems to drop all sorts of things.

Those are all examples in Romance languages. I can't think of any
examples in Germanic languages, and I don't know enough about other
language families.

The well-known example in English is the "dropped g", which reduces an
-ing ending to -@n. But that's not actually the dropping of a consonant,
it's the replacement of one consonant by another. The average English
speaker doesn't notice that, because we're not used to thinking of "ng"
as a single consonant.

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Post by Peter Moylan
Is there a natural tendency for languages to lose final syllables or
final consonants? This thread has provided examples in Spanish. French
lost a lot of final consonants (in speech, but not in writing) centuries
ago. Some southern Italian dialects have dropped a few final vowels, but
this does not extend to northern dialects or the mainstream version of
the language. Portuguese seems to drop all sorts of things.
Those are all examples in Romance languages. I can't think of any
examples in Germanic languages, and I don't know enough about other
language families.

Spoken Danish drops as much as possible. "Synes" => "sys", "trapperne"
=> "trappern", and there are many more examples.

In dk.kultur.sprog (language) we joked with pronouncing
"socialdemokratiet" with three syllables (it has 8).

[Adam Funk]

Post by Bertel Lund Hansen

Post by Peter Moylan
Is there a natural tendency for languages to lose final syllables or
final consonants? This thread has provided examples in Spanish. French
lost a lot of final consonants (in speech, but not in writing) centuries
ago. Some southern Italian dialects have dropped a few final vowels, but
this does not extend to northern dialects or the mainstream version of
the language. Portuguese seems to drop all sorts of things.
Those are all examples in Romance languages. I can't think of any
examples in Germanic languages, and I don't know enough about other
language families.

Spoken Danish drops as much as possible. "Synes" => "sys", "trapperne"
=> "trappern", and there are many more examples.
In dk.kultur.sprog (language) we joked with pronouncing
"socialdemokratiet" with three syllables (it has 8).

Isn't there a Scandinavian joke to the effect that Danish drops all
the consonants & one of the others drops all the vowels, so it evens
out?

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Post by Adam Funk

Post by Bertel Lund Hansen
Spoken Danish drops as much as possible. "Synes" => "sys", "trapperne"
=> "trappern", and there are many more examples.
In dk.kultur.sprog (language) we joked with pronouncing
"socialdemokratiet" with three syllables (it has 8).

Isn't there a Scandinavian joke to the effect that Danish drops all
the consonants & one of the others drops all the vowels, so it evens
out?

There may be, but it's wrong. Danes drops anything. Swedes and
Norwegians generally speak clearly.

[Adam Funk]

Post by Bertel Lund Hansen

Post by Adam Funk

Post by Bertel Lund Hansen
Spoken Danish drops as much as possible. "Synes" => "sys", "trapperne"
=> "trappern", and there are many more examples.
In dk.kultur.sprog (language) we joked with pronouncing
"socialdemokratiet" with three syllables (it has 8).

Isn't there a Scandinavian joke to the effect that Danish drops all
the consonants & one of the others drops all the vowels, so it evens
out?

There may be, but it's wrong. Danes drops anything. Swedes and
Norwegians generally speak clearly.

Heh, maybe Athel's version is right & it's Danish vs Portuguese.

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Post by Adam Funk

Post by Bertel Lund Hansen
There may be, but it's wrong. Danes drops anything. Swedes and
Norwegians generally speak clearly.

Heh, maybe Athel's version is right & it's Danish vs Portuguese.

It's still wrong. We also drop vowels. But the joke may exist.

[Adam Funk]

Post by Peter Moylan
Crossposted to sci.lang, where people might know the answer.
Is there a natural tendency for languages to lose final syllables or
final consonants? This thread has provided examples in Spanish. French
lost a lot of final consonants (in speech, but not in writing) centuries
ago. Some southern Italian dialects have dropped a few final vowels, but
this does not extend to northern dialects or the mainstream version of
the language. Portuguese seems to drop all sorts of things.
Those are all examples in Romance languages. I can't think of any
examples in Germanic languages, and I don't know enough about other
language families.
The well-known example in English is the "dropped g", which reduces an
it's the replacement of one consonant by another. The average English
speaker doesn't notice that, because we're not used to thinking of "ng"
as a single consonant.

The -ing suffix in Modern English is a fusion of two Old English
suffixes, one similar to German -ung & the other to German -end. I'm
not sure of the extent to which that encouraged the development of the
current -in'/-ing situation.

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Post by Adam Funk
The -ing suffix in Modern English is a fusion of two Old English
suffixes, one similar to German -ung & the other to German -end. I'm
not sure of the extent to which that encouraged the development of the
current -in'/-ing situation.

One might add that the -ung is a suffix that substantivates a verb,
while the -end makes the verbform present particip. There are parallels
in Danish where we have -(n)ing and -ende.

[Adam Funk]

Post by Bertel Lund Hansen

Post by Adam Funk
The -ing suffix in Modern English is a fusion of two Old English
suffixes, one similar to German -ung & the other to German -end. I'm
not sure of the extent to which that encouraged the development of the
current -in'/-ing situation.

One might add that the -ung is a suffix that substantivates a verb,
while the -end makes the verbform present particip. There are parallels
in Danish where we have -(n)ing and -ende.

I'm not surprised. I think (but am open to correction) that English is
the only Germanic language that has merged them.

[Christian Weisgerber]

Post by Peter Moylan
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.

Post by Peter Moylan
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.

Strikingly, Middle English lost final -e and, inconsistenly, -en,
which is intimately tied to the collapse of the declension system.

Post by Peter Moylan
and I don't know enough about other language families.

Proto-Slavic went through a stage where the language had only open
syllables, i.e., all syllables ended in a vowel. Getting there
clearly entailed the loss of some syllable- and word-final consonants.

Post by Peter Moylan
This thread has provided examples in Spanish.

Many Spanish words that end on a consonant have clearly lost a final
-e in the past, think este/ese/AQUEL vs. Portuguese este/esse/aquele.

The debuccalization of post-vocalic [s] > [h] isn't limited to final
position, though: mismo [mihmo].

Post by Peter Moylan
French lost a lot of final consonants (in speech, but not in
writing) centuries ago.

The sound shifts from Vulgar Latin to Old French were brutal. One
striking change is the loss of all vowels in the final syllable
other than a, which became e [ə]. In a nutshell, this is why you
have -o/-e/-a in Spanish and Italian, but -/-/-e in the corresponding
French forms. If you look at adjectives, the Old French masculine
would then end in a consonant, the feminine in [ə]. This stage is
still preserved in the spelling. Later, most final consonants would
drop, as well as final [ə], so in modern spoken French it's the
masculine forms that now end in a vowel and the feminine ones that
end in a consonant.


[1] If you know German, the nominative singular masculine ending
-er of determiners and strong adjectives is from PGmc *-az.
That Old High German conserved this but Old English didn't
might have been another subtle factor in the collapse of English
nominal declension. OHG also innovated a nom. sg. neuter ending
-eȥ (modern -es) by misanalyzing part of the stem of neuter
pronouns as an ending. That's two endings that could have
remained distinct during the fall of -e and -en in Middle English
if only Old English had had them in the first place. Details,
details.

[jerryfriedman]

Post by Christian Weisgerber

Post by Peter Moylan
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.

Post by Peter Moylan
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" 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".

Post by Christian Weisgerber
Strikingly, Middle English lost final -e and, inconsistenly, -en,
which is intimately tied to the collapse of the declension system.

And lots of the conjugation system?

Post by Christian Weisgerber

Post by Peter Moylan
and I don't know enough about other language families.

[Spanish]

Post by Christian Weisgerber
The debuccalization of post-vocalic [s] > [h] isn't limited to final
position, though: mismo [mihmo].

Mostly final position in the syllable, though. As I mentioned,
northern New Mexico is an exception, and there may be others I
don't know of.

--
Jerry Friedman

[jerryfriedman]

Post by jerryfriedman

Post by Christian Weisgerber

Post by Peter Moylan
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.

Post by Peter Moylan
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"

Post by jerryfriedman
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

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Also, endings can be lost in specific grammatical contexts while
persisting elsewhere. Since the reduction of vowels in final
syllables to [ə] between Old and Middle High German, there hasn't
been a general change affecting endings in German, I think. However,
people who studied German as a foreign language are probably very
aware of the masculine/neuter singular strong dative -e, e.g. "mit
dem Kind(e)".

I don't know if I *studied* German when learning it in school and later
reading in d.e.s.d, but until now I didn't know about that dative form.
I don't think that I have met it in songs either.

[Aidan Kehoe]

Post by Bertel Lund Hansen

Also, endings can be lost in specific grammatical contexts while
persisting elsewhere. Since the reduction of vowels in final
syllables to [ə] between Old and Middle High German, there hasn't
been a general change affecting endings in German, I think. However,
people who studied German as a foreign language are probably very
aware of the masculine/neuter singular strong dative -e, e.g. "mit
dem Kind(e)".

I don't know if I *studied* German when learning it in school and later
reading in d.e.s.d, but until now I didn't know about that dative form.
I don't think that I have met it in songs either.

Mark Twain comments on it so it may be that explicit mention of it is more
familiar to native English speakers. I was aware of it, but I did study German
fairly intensely as an adult.

[Helmut Richter]

Post by Bertel Lund Hansen

Also, endings can be lost in specific grammatical contexts while
persisting elsewhere. Since the reduction of vowels in final
syllables to [ə] between Old and Middle High German, there hasn't
been a general change affecting endings in German, I think. However,
people who studied German as a foreign language are probably very
aware of the masculine/neuter singular strong dative -e, e.g. "mit
dem Kind(e)".

I don't know if I *studied* German when learning it in school and later
reading in d.e.s.d, but until now I didn't know about that dative form.
I don't think that I have met it in songs either.

I cite from my summary of German declension: https://hhr-m.de/de-decl/
(not a scientific work, only a summary of Usenet discussions about German):

The usage of the optional -e ending for mn-D case and of the -es instead of
the -s ending for mn-G case normally occurs only with words of German
origin ending with a stressed root syllable. It is not possible with words
with a schwa ending, with a diminutive ending -chen or -lein, with an
unstressed foreign ending or with a full vowel other than a diphthong at
the word end. In the remaining cases (foreign words, other words with
unstressed last syllable, words ending with stressed diphthong at the word
end), it is very uncommon but occurs here and there.

When a final [s] sound in the uninflected noun would render the genitive -s
inaudible, that is, with words ending with -s, -ss, -ß, -z, -tz, -x, German
words and foreign words stressed on the last syllable mandatorily get an
-es ending (des Gases, des Rosses, des Kreuzes, des Schatzes, des
Hindernisses, des Kolosses, des Kompromisses) whereas words with unstressed
foreign ending get no genitive ending at all (des Status, des Mythos, des
Index) with exceptions only when the word is no longer perceived as foreign
(des Busses, des Atlasses, des Zirkusses or des Zirkus). For other words as
well, facilitation of pronunciation is an incentive of using the longer
form with -es; in particular with lax plosives after long vowel at the word
end (des Siebes, des Rades, des Tages). and with word-final consonant
clusters ending with -sch, -t, or -d (des Barsches, des Mastes, des
Hemdes). It is, however, neither mandatory for these words nor unusual for
other words (des Tals or des Tales, des Kinns or des Kinnes).

Where there is free choice between -s and -es genitive, usage of -es has a
slight poetic or archaic touch. The always optional -e dative ending,
however, is pronouncedly archaic; many speakers use it only in idioms,
e.g. bei Lichte besehen ([seen] in the cold light of day), im Grunde
(basically), zu Tage treten (outcrop), im rechtlichen Sinne (in the legal
sense), in diesem Sinne (in this spirit).

--
Helmut Richter

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Post by Helmut Richter
Where there is free choice between -s and -es genitive, usage of -es has a
slight poetic or archaic touch. The always optional -e dative ending,
however, is pronouncedly archaic; many speakers use it only in idioms,
e.g. bei Lichte besehen ([seen] in the cold light of day), im Grunde
(basically),

Ah, "In einem kühlen Grunde" - ich habe es gesehen, ... eh, I have seen
it, but I didn't think too much about it.

[Helmut Richter]

Post by Bertel Lund Hansen

Post by Helmut Richter
Where there is free choice between -s and -es genitive, usage of -es has a
slight poetic or archaic touch. The always optional -e dative ending,
however, is pronouncedly archaic; many speakers use it only in idioms,
e.g. bei Lichte besehen ([seen] in the cold light of day), im Grunde
(basically),

Ah, "In einem kühlen Grunde" - ich habe es gesehen, ... eh, I have seen
it, but I didn't think too much about it.

In einem kühlen Grunde,
da steht ein Mühlenrad.
Wie groß ist wohl der Umfang,
wenn man den Radius hat?

[Christian Weisgerber]

Post by jerryfriedman
Deletion of final consonants and vowels in a High German dialect

Standard German is notably conservative.

As a native Italian, I have to point out that this statement is utterly
ridiculous.

You ripped that out of its context, which I restored above. So:
... compared to German dialects.

Italians attending grammar schools read Dante in the last three years
before university (he died 1321, so he must have written the Divine
Comedy before that) and could understand most of it.

Excellent. With so much widespread exposure to early 14th century
Italian, maybe somebody can tell me which of these conspicuous
features of the Italian verbal system--not inherited from Latin and
notably absent from Spanish--were already in Dante's language and
which are subsequent innovations:

* replacement of the 1PL present indicative by the subjunctive form
* leveling of the same 1PL (-iamo) and 2PL (-iate) present subjunctive
endings across all three conjugations
* leveling of one ending across all persons in the singular of the
present subjunctive
* replacement of 1SG imperfect -ava/-eva/-iva by -avo/-evo/-ivo
(Wait, I think I read that this one happened only in the last 200
years.)

[Sergio Gatti]

Post by Christian Weisgerber

Post by jerryfriedman
Deletion of final consonants and vowels in a High German dialect

Standard German is notably conservative.

As a native Italian, I have to point out that this statement is utterly
ridiculous.

... compared to German dialects.

Italians attending grammar schools read Dante in the last three years
before university (he died 1321, so he must have written the Divine
Comedy before that) and could understand most of it.

Excellent. With so much widespread exposure to early 14th century
Italian, maybe somebody can tell me which of these conspicuous
features of the Italian verbal system--not inherited from Latin and
notably absent from Spanish--were already in Dante's language and
* replacement of the 1PL present indicative by the subjunctive form
* leveling of the same 1PL (-iamo) and 2PL (-iate) present subjunctive
endings across all three conjugations
* leveling of one ending across all persons in the singular of the
present subjunctive
* replacement of 1SG imperfect -ava/-eva/-iva by -avo/-evo/-ivo
(Wait, I think I read that this one happened only in the last 200
years.)

Actually, you'd better ask such questions in an Italian NG about the
Italian language, like it.cultura.linguistica.italiano. You'll find many
more native Italians there than here. However, we never had a look at
your questions. We just notice the differences between Dante and our own
usage (sanza/senza).

Anyway, a look at Luca Serianni, Italiano, Garzanti tells us (my
translation):

- In old Tuscan, like in many modern Italian dialects, the 1PL present
indicative was semo (example from Dante - please note that he chose
freely among the forms available at his time for euphony and rhythm
reasons); the form siamo - since the beginning attested as an indicative
- was used before that only as a subjunctive (following the vulgar Latin
*siamus instead of the classical simus) and was probably the model for
the the 1PL present indicative of all verbs, always ending in -iamo.

- I can't find anything there.

- Singular of the present subjunctive. Originally the 1st and 3rd
persons ended in -e (like the Latin endings); the unification to only -i
is very old and derives from the 2nd person.
Also: worth noting is the attraction of the 1st conjugation on all other
classes. Different forms are common in Leopardi's prose (benché tu vadi,
che tu non possi) (XIX century) and abbi can be found in Bacchelli (XX
century).

- The form amavo got widespread very soon in Florentine (end of the XIV
century) but it was hardly accepted for a long time in the literary
language; its success got a huge drive through Manzoni in The Betrothed
(XIX century).

[Christian Weisgerber]

Post by Sergio Gatti
Actually, you'd better ask such questions in an Italian NG about the
Italian language, like it.cultura.linguistica.italiano.

I need to read a book about the history of the Italian language.
Like, where are all those geminates from?

Post by Sergio Gatti

Post by Christian Weisgerber
* replacement of the 1PL present indicative by the subjunctive form

- In old Tuscan, like in many modern Italian dialects, the 1PL present
indicative was semo (example from Dante - please note that he chose
freely among the forms available at his time for euphony and rhythm
reasons); the form siamo - since the beginning attested as an indicative

I downloaded _La Divina Commedia_ from Project Gutenberg, and a
search for -emo indeed shows a number of 1PL present indicatives.
In fact, there's "avemo", a form still reflected in today's Italian
in the 1PL future ending -emo.

Post by Sergio Gatti

Post by Christian Weisgerber
* leveling of one ending across all persons in the singular of the
present subjunctive

- Singular of the present subjunctive. Originally the 1st and 3rd
persons ended in -e (like the Latin endings); the unification to only -i
is very old and derives from the 2nd person.

Alkire/Rosen, _Romance Languages: A Historical Introduction_, describe
this somewhat differently. The Old Italian forms were

indicative subjunctive
canto cante
cante canti
canta cante

parto parta
parti parte
parte parta

The subjunctive forms leveled to -i (-are) and -a (-ere, -ire),
because these forms were distincly subjunctive and not homonymous
with an indicative form. On the other hand, this introduced ambiguity
between first/second/third person.

The change of 2SG indicative -e > -i for the -are verbs is later
and in analogy to the -ere/-ire verbs.

Unfortunately, Alkire/Rosen don't give any dates for those changes,
so that's why I wondered which ones came before and after Dante.

Post by Sergio Gatti
Also: worth noting is the attraction of the 1st conjugation on all other
classes. Different forms are common in Leopardi's prose (benché tu vadi,
che tu non possi) (XIX century) and abbi can be found in Bacchelli (XX
century).

But also note the other classes pushing the 2SG indicative -i into
the first conjugation.

Post by Sergio Gatti

Post by Christian Weisgerber
* replacement of 1SG imperfect -ava/-eva/-iva by -avo/-evo/-ivo

- The form amavo got widespread very soon in Florentine (end of the XIV
century) but it was hardly accepted for a long time in the literary
language; its success got a huge drive through Manzoni in The Betrothed
(XIX century).

According to Alkire/Rosent the transparent reason for this change
was the disambiguation of 1SG and 3SG.

Overall, we're looking at a list of changes that remove some
ambiguities, but new ambiguities are also introduced.

I'm a bit sensitive to this because Italian and Spanish are pro-drop
languages, i.e., they omit the subject pronoun, except for emphasis
or disambiguation. Spanish in particular does not distinguish 1SG
and 3SG in the imperfect, conditional, present subjunctive, or
imperfect subjunctive, and Spanish speakers seem to feel little
need to inject pronouns for disambiguation, which can be disorienting
to language learners.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Sat, 14 Sep 2024 15:57:14 -0000 (UTC): Christian Weisgerber

Post by Christian Weisgerber
I'm a bit sensitive to this because Italian and Spanish are pro-drop
languages, i.e., they omit the subject pronoun, except for emphasis
or disambiguation. Spanish in particular does not distinguish 1SG
and 3SG in the imperfect, conditional, present subjunctive, or
imperfect subjunctive, and Spanish speakers seem to feel little
need to inject pronouns for disambiguation, which can be disorienting
to language learners.

Portuguese does, digo eu.

[Peter Moylan]

Post by Ruud Harmsen
Sat, 14 Sep 2024 15:57:14 -0000 (UTC): Christian Weisgerber

Post by Christian Weisgerber
I'm a bit sensitive to this because Italian and Spanish are
pro-drop languages, i.e., they omit the subject pronoun, except for
emphasis or disambiguation. Spanish in particular does not
distinguish 1SG and 3SG in the imperfect, conditional, present
subjunctive, or imperfect subjunctive, and Spanish speakers seem to
feel little need to inject pronouns for disambiguation, which can
be disorienting to language learners.

Portuguese does, digo eu.

Irish is intermediate in this respect. First person pronouns are rarely
needed, because the verb endings are distinctive. In second and third
person the verb endings don't help, so pronouns are essential.

I imagine there was a time long ago when it was a pro-drop language, but
then gradually the verb endings were eroded down into a simpler system.

In the Germanic languages, including English, the erosion has gone a lot
further.

[Ruud Harmsen]

Post by Peter Moylan

Post by Ruud Harmsen
Sat, 14 Sep 2024 15:57:14 -0000 (UTC): Christian Weisgerber

Post by Christian Weisgerber
I'm a bit sensitive to this because Italian and Spanish are
pro-drop languages, i.e., they omit the subject pronoun, except for
emphasis or disambiguation. Spanish in particular does not
distinguish 1SG and 3SG in the imperfect, conditional, present
subjunctive, or imperfect subjunctive, and Spanish speakers seem to
feel little need to inject pronouns for disambiguation, which can
be disorienting to language learners.

Portuguese does, digo eu.

Irish is intermediate in this respect. First person pronouns are rarely
needed, because the verb endings are distinctive. In second and third
person the verb endings don't help, so pronouns are essential.
I imagine there was a time long ago when it was a pro-drop language, but
then gradually the verb endings were eroded down into a simpler system.
In the Germanic languages, including English, the erosion has gone a lot
further.

Et le français aussi.

[Sergio Gatti]

Also, endings can be lost in specific grammatical contexts while
persisting elsewhere. Since the reduction of vowels in final
syllables to [ə] between Old and Middle High German, there hasn't
been a general change affecting endings in German, I think. However,
people who studied German as a foreign language are probably very
aware of the masculine/neuter singular strong dative -e, e.g. "mit
dem Kind(e)".

It depends very much on the question: when did foreigners like me learn
German as a foreign language? Which learning material did they use?

I guess that foreigners learning German _now_ will possibly never find
out that there was a masculine/neuter singular strong dative -e. I would
have found it out at a much later stage, if I had only had the language
course on Italian TV in the 60s and my learning experience at a school
for interpreters in the late 70s. But I also had a learning book in
Fraktur, written in the 1920s, where that dative was still pretty much
alive.

Standard German is notably conservative.

As a native Italian, I have to point out that this statement is utterly
ridiculous. I don't know the present situation, but 50 years ago
Italians attending grammar schools read Dante in the last three years
before university (he died 1321, so he must have written the Divine
Comedy before that) and could understand most of it. Can you read the
Nibelungenlied as it was written in the 13th century? Can English native
speakers read the Canterbury Tales (written well over 60 years after
Dante's death) as Chaucer wrote them?

[Christian Weisgerber]

Post by jerryfriedman
More recently, lots of final /r/s have been lost in some dialects
of English, except before a vowel in the next word--

That is a more general change. I took Peter's question to be about
word-final consonants. Also, it's not a straight loss. Take
"weird". That is [wɪəd] in conservative Received Pronunciation.
The r isn't lost, it is vocalized. There is a secondary change
where the resulting diphthong is smoothed, giving [wɪːd], which,
if isn't considered RP yet, will be soon. Equivalent changes are
documented for [ɛə] > [ɛː] and [ɔə] > [ɔː], which raises the question
whether this didn't happen for all vowels, e.g. "hard" [hɑrd] >
?[hɑəd] > [hɑːd]. Compare r vocalization in German and Danish.

Post by jerryfriedman
a similar pattern to what happened in French,

To me it doesn't look at all similar to the historic partial loss
of French final r, e.g. in the -er infinitives, nor the sometime
deletion of final [r] and [l] after obstruents, e.g. chambre >
chamb', table > tab'.

Post by jerryfriedman

Post by Christian Weisgerber
Strikingly, Middle English lost final -e and, inconsistenly, -en,
which is intimately tied to the collapse of the declension system.

And lots of the conjugation system?

Yes, I guess I meant to write "inflection" there. I don't think
the conjugation system shows any additional losses, though. If you
strike -e and -en from Middle English conjugation, you end up with
the system familiar from the King James Version: 2. singular -st,
3. singular present -th, nothing else. The 2SG ending was lost
along with its pronoun. The 3SG change -th > -s is poorly understood,
but didn't add or remove any ending.

[jerryfriedman]

Post by Christian Weisgerber

Post by jerryfriedman
More recently, lots of final /r/s have been lost in some dialects
of English, except before a vowel in the next word--

That is a more general change. I took Peter's question to be about
word-final consonants. Also, it's not a straight loss. Take
"weird". That is [wɪəd] in conservative Received Pronunciation.
The r isn't lost, it is vocalized. There is a secondary change
where the resulting diphthong is smoothed, giving [wɪːd], which,
if isn't considered RP yet, will be soon. Equivalent changes are
documented for [ɛə] > [ɛː] and [ɔə] > [ɔː], which raises the question
whether this didn't happen for all vowels, e.g. "hard" [hɑrd] >
?[hɑəd] > [hɑːd]. Compare r vocalization in German and Danish.

Post by jerryfriedman
a similar pattern to what happened in French,

To me it doesn't look at all similar to the historic partial loss
of French final r, e.g. in the -er infinitives, nor the sometime
deletion of final [r] and [l] after obstruents, e.g. chambre >
chamb', table > tab'.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant what happened to other
letters in French, notably <s>, <t>, and <z>. In fact, what
happened to French <s> has a lot of parallels to what's
happening to English <r> in non-rhotic dialects. The [r] is
lost, leaving a long vowel as you say, and then <r> is used to
write that vowel (still mostly non-standard, but there are
examples like "Burma" and "argo"). In the same way the
French [s] was lost, leaving long vowels, and then used
to write those vowels as in "resve". (Then it was removed
again and length was indicated by an accent mark.)

Of course there's a big difference, namely that lots of non-
rhotic speakers put an [r] in after those long vowels and
schwas even where there was originally no [r], and I don't
know of anything like that in French.

Post by Christian Weisgerber

Post by jerryfriedman

Post by Christian Weisgerber
Strikingly, Middle English lost final -e and, inconsistenly, -en,
which is intimately tied to the collapse of the declension system.

And lots of the conjugation system?

Yes, I guess I meant to write "inflection" there. I don't think
the conjugation system shows any additional losses, though. If you
strike -e and -en from Middle English conjugation, you end up with
the system familiar from the King James Version: 2. singular -st,
3. singular present -th, nothing else. The 2SG ending was lost
along with its pronoun. The 3SG change -th > -s is poorly understood,
but didn't add or remove any ending.

Thanks. I guess "lots" was an exaggeration.

[Christian Weisgerber]

Post by jerryfriedman
happened to French <s> has a lot of parallels to what's
happening to English <r> in non-rhotic dialects. The [r] is
lost, leaving a long vowel as you say, and then <r> is used to
write that vowel (still mostly non-standard, but there are
examples like "Burma" and "argo"). In the same way the
French [s] was lost, leaving long vowels, and then used
to write those vowels as in "resve".

That was a rather specific change of [s] between a vowel and another
consonant. Yes, it resulted in compensatory lengthening and a new
set of long vowel phonemes.

Closer to home, there's the loss in Middle English of [x]~[ç] after
vowels. (Consistent after front vowels, sometimes shifted to [f]
instead after back vowels.) That also included compensatory
lengthening of short vowels, e.g. <right> [rɪçt] > [riːt] > [raɪt].

[Christian Weisgerber]

Post by Peter Moylan
Some southern Italian dialects have dropped a few final vowels, but
this does not extend to northern dialects or the mainstream version of
the language.

Okay, this opportunity is as good as any to mention something I've
been burning to post ever since I re-read it in Akire/Rosen:

Have you ever wondered why the third person plural present tense
forms of Italian verbs are so strangely stressed, e.g., pàrlano
instead of *parlàno? And where is that -o from anyway? Spanish
doesn't have it and if you look at Latin (-ant), there's no source
for it.

Oh, you haven't wondered? ;-)

Apparently Old Italian had the expected ending -an, so what happened?
The blame goes to the 'to be' word. The Latin first singular "sum"
and third plural "sunt" both ended up regularly as "son" in Old
Italian. But that was the only first person form that didn't have
-o, so eventually it picked one up, producing "sono". Now, since
the first singular and third plural had already merged, "sono" also
became the third pural. And from there the -o spread to the third
plural of all other verbs, but as a latecomer it didn't move the
stress.

It's an intriguing explanation, especially since it includes two
developments that ran in opposite directions: First the addition
of -o from many forms to one, then the spread of -o from one form
to many. I would guess the strong overall tendency toward open
syllables in Italian had something to do with it.

[Silvano]

Post by Christian Weisgerber

Post by Peter Moylan
Some southern Italian dialects have dropped a few final vowels, but
this does not extend to northern dialects or the mainstream version of
the language.

Okay, this opportunity is as good as any to mention something I've
Have you ever wondered why the third person plural present tense
forms of Italian verbs are so strangely stressed, e.g., pàrlano
instead of *parlàno? And where is that -o from anyway? Spanish
doesn't have it and if you look at Latin (-ant), there's no source
for it.
Oh, you haven't wondered? ;-)
Apparently Old Italian had the expected ending -an, so what happened?
The blame goes to the 'to be' word. The Latin first singular "sum"
and third plural "sunt" both ended up regularly as "son" in Old
Italian. But that was the only first person form that didn't have
-o, so eventually it picked one up, producing "sono". Now, since
the first singular and third plural had already merged, "sono" also
became the third pural. And from there the -o spread to the third
plural of all other verbs, but as a latecomer it didn't move the
stress.

Please note, however, that the first singular and third plural present
forms merged only in "sono".

Post by Christian Weisgerber
It's an intriguing explanation, especially since it includes two
developments that ran in opposite directions: First the addition
of -o from many forms to one, then the spread of -o from one form
to many. I would guess the strong overall tendency toward open
syllables in Italian had something to do with it.

I would guess the strong overall tendency toward open syllables in
Italian was the main reason for this development.

[Snidely]

Christian Weisgerber suggested that ...

Post by Christian Weisgerber
Have you ever wondered why the third person plural present tense
forms of Italian verbs are so strangely stressed, e.g., pàrlano
instead of *parlàno? And where is that -o from anyway?

So that was an example where something was added at the end of
words. I don't intend this as an invalidation of the general
observation that there is a longtime trend of phonetic erosion, but
I want to show that actual language history is complex and circuitous.
Here's another one. From the King James Version, you may be familiar
with the second person singular indicative ending -(e)st (-t in
some verbs), "thou thinkest" etc. German also has -st across the
second person singular. Clearly, -st is an old 2SG marker...
... Except, Slavic has -š there. Latin, not a language to drop final
-t, has -s. Even Gothic has -s, and if you look at the variants
in early Old English and Old High German, the original 2SG ending
is also -s.
Where did the -t come from? There are two hypotheses. One, dismissed
by Ringe (and I'm skeptical as well), is from missegmentation when
the subject pronoun (tu ~ þu) followed the verb. The other involves
the appearance of -s-t due to sound changes in some preterite-present
verbs, reanalysis as -st, and spread to other verbs. Remarkably,
this appears to have happened independently in both English and
German.

I relate all this discussion to what Charlton Laird (sr, IIRC)
considered two fundamental principles of language change:

1) People are lazy, leading to simplification.
2) People are inventive, leading to new words and new constructions.


/dps

[Christian Weisgerber]

Post by Christian Weisgerber
Have you ever wondered why the third person plural present tense
forms of Italian verbs are so strangely stressed, e.g., pàrlano
instead of *parlàno? And where is that -o from anyway?

So that was an example where something was added at the end of
words. I don't intend this as an invalidation of the general
observation that there is a longtime trend of phonetic erosion, but
I want to show that actual language history is complex and circuitous.

Here's another one. From the King James Version, you may be familiar
with the second person singular indicative ending -(e)st (-t in
some verbs), "thou thinkest" etc. German also has -st across the
second person singular. Clearly, -st is an old 2SG marker...

... Except, Slavic has -š there. Latin, not a language to drop final
-t, has -s. Even Gothic has -s, and if you look at the variants
in early Old English and Old High German, the original 2SG ending
is also -s.

Where did the -t come from? There are two hypotheses. One, dismissed
by Ringe (and I'm skeptical as well), is from missegmentation when
the subject pronoun (tu ~ þu) followed the verb. The other involves
the appearance of -s-t due to sound changes in some preterite-present
verbs, reanalysis as -st, and spread to other verbs. Remarkably,
this appears to have happened independently in both English and
German.

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Post by Peter Moylan
Those are all examples in Romance languages. I can't think of any
examples in Germanic languages, and I don't know enough about other
language families.

I don't remember all the examples, but when the people in
de.etc.sprache.deutsch write spoken German, they write "ham" statt
"haben" - eh, in stead of, that is. They sometimes write something that
I can't understand at all, but that usually will be a dialect.

[Helmut Richter]

Post by Bertel Lund Hansen
I don't remember all the examples, but when the people in
de.etc.sprache.deutsch write spoken German, they write "ham" statt
"haben" - eh, in stead of, that is.

This is a very natural process which took place in many areas in Germany,
both in the S and in the E; I am not sure whether in the SW as well.

Step 1: replace -en by syllabic -n (still same number of syllables):

haben → habn, leben → lebn, kommen → kommn, schaffen → schaffn,
reden → redn, sagen → sagn, packen → packn, hängen → hängn [hɛŋn]

Step 2: assimilate this -n to become homorganic with the preceding sound:

habn → habm, lebn → lebm, kommn → kommm [kɔmː], schaffn → schaffm,
redn = redn, sagn → sagŋ, packn → packŋ, [hɛŋn] → [hɛŋː]

The long nasals allow to distinguish standard "kommen/hängen" from
standard "komm!/häng!".

Step 3: merge the two final consonants if the first one is a lax plosive:

habm → ham, lebm → leːm, redn → reːn, sagn → saːŋ

This explains "haben/leben" becoming "ham/leːm" which appear in
colloquial speech nearly all over Germany.

Especially Bavarian has another interesting feature: where step 3
makes no difference, the final nasal is often changed to [a], in
particular, long nasals must be removed.

Step 4 (Bavarian):

kommm [kɔmː] → kemma (mand.), packŋ → packa (opt.), [hɛŋː] → henga (mand.)

Of course, the extent to which these steps apply is very different across
Germany. If step 1 is omitted, the language sounds overly distinct, and step
2 as well sounds natural in colloquial speech. I would not hesitate to teach
foreigners to apply these two steps as normal pronunciation.

--
Helmut Richter

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Post by Helmut Richter
This is a very natural process which took place in many areas in Germany,
both in the S and in the E; I am not sure whether in the SW as well.

Your description could be about Danish, except of course for the German
words. We pronounce "gennem" as "ge?m", and that applies to the standard
pronunciation (rigsdansk). The m is actually just a grunt with closed
lips.

[J. J. Lodder]

Post by Bertel Lund Hansen

Post by Helmut Richter
This is a very natural process which took place in many areas in Germany,
both in the S and in the E; I am not sure whether in the SW as well.

Your description could be about Danish, except of course for the German
words. We pronounce "gennem" as "ge?m", and that applies to the standard
pronunciation (rigsdansk). The m is actually just a grunt with closed
lips.

Isn't all of Danish?

Jan

[Adam Funk]

Post by J. J. Lodder

Post by Bertel Lund Hansen
Your description could be about Danish, except of course for the German
words. We pronounce "gennem" as "ge?m", and that applies to the standard
pronunciation (rigsdansk). The m is actually just a grunt with closed
lips.

Isn't all of Danish?

You'll all have to switch to English to prevent the collapse of
society!

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Post by Adam Funk

http://youtu.be/ykj3Kpm3O0g

You'll all have to switch to English to prevent the collapse of
society!

We're a long way already.