Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 09:31:04 -0500
From: Wayne Glowka wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAIL.GAC.PEACHNET.EDU
Subject: Re: Sulking Over Silky Milk & Other Words of That Ilk
From: NAME: David Bergdahl
FUNC: English
TEL: (614) 593-2783 BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]A1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LANCE
To: MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu"[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MRGATE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX
Am I wrong to take exception to the inclusion of words like talk in the
discussion of the loss of /l/? Is my historical linguistics outdated or didn't
Elizabethan English fill the "slot" left by the raising of "long open o" to /o/
by converting {AL} and {AU/W} words like talk , daughter , law ?
Margaret Schlauch. The English Language in Modern Times, p. 45: "au in Germanic
words, derived from a+w, remained a diphthong for a time, as in law and
saw ;
simplification occurred later to [long open o] by way of [open o diphthongized
to U]."
Thomas Pyles, Origins & Development, 2nd ed., p. 189: "The l of Middle
English
preconsonantal al was lost after first becoming a vowel: thus Middle English
al and au fell together as au , ultimately becoming [long open o](as in
talk , walk ) except befere f , v , and m , where it became [long low
front
digraph] in such words as half , salve , and psalm ."
So aren't we REALLY talking about the re-introduction of an /l/ from the
spelling analogous to disyllabic forehead ?
Basically, yes, but I wonder if it really ever disappeared in some
dialects. How did Pyles and Schlauch arrive at these conclusions? One of
the most disturbing classes I took at the Univ. of Texas was a Middle
English dialects class. Every day we discovered that the dialect
descriptions in our HEL class were very convenient (hell, and elaborate)
fictions.
I have a similar problem every day as I listen to people around me.
Southerners all sounded the same to me until I lived around them. What
they say and how they say it is a function of way too many variables--age,
sex, class, experiences, education, race, etc. I think Henry Higgins was
an out-and-out liar about his abilities to place a person within two
streets of some place in London by speech alone. I defy him to do the same
in Milledgeville.
*********************************
So the list above ( half , salve , and psalm ) strikes me as very
interesting. I get few students who put up much of an argument that half
has an /l/, a word that has also fallen together with the path and
grass group in British English. I've never tried having anyone
transcribe salve , but I rarely hear anyone under sixty use the word.
However, I wonder if anyone who uses it and does not pronounce the l also
has no /l/ in salvation . Further, I never actually hear anyone say
psalm (like Sam [s[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]m]), but I do hear [sam] and [salm], the latter with
a clearly pronounced /l/. In fact, I say [salm]. I hear /l/ in balmy a
lot, but never hear balm pronounced one way or the other at all since
lotion and creme/cream seem to be the preferred terms. If someone said
[bami] I would not immediately know what that person was saying. Is it in
_South Pacific_ in which there is a song that rhymes army and balmy ?
When I first heard this rhyme, I thought it was a far-fetched joke since
I'm neither r-less or l-less in these words.
**********************************
Rhymes (discounting stress assignments) for me:
psalm balm calm napalm (with /al/)
Sal salvation salmonella (with /[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]l/)
Sam salmon (/[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]/ with no /l/)
halve salve calve (/[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]/ with no /l/)
half calf (/[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]/ with no /l/)
walk talk baulk/balk caulk chalk (open-o with no /l/ but with an off-glide)
milk silk ilk (with /l/)
I have /l/ in wolf , elm , and film , but have heard the l-less
varieties many, many times.
This post is too long for me,
Wayne Glowka
Professor of English
Director of Research and Graduate Student Services
Georgia College
Milledgeville, GA 31061
912-453-4222
wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mail.gac.peachnet.edu