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Article: Metathetic and non-metathetic form selection in Middle English.(Critical Essay)
- Article from:
- Studia Anglica Posnaniensia: international review of English Studies
- Article date:
- August 6, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Adam Mickiewicz University. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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ABSTRACT
Metathesis, a specific phonological development consisting in an alteration within the sequence of sounds in a word was usually materialised in the development of English as a shift of a prevocalic consonant to a postvocalic position or vice versa. The change affected various classes of words: nouns (OE brid> bird), adjectives (OE beorht > brigt 'bright', or verbs (OE irnan > rinnan 'run', etc.) This type of change, especially frequent in Northumbrian Old English, soon spread to other areas of England, showing a pattern typical of lexical diffusion. The paper concentrates on the metathesis of the liquid [r] and the adjacent vowel in the early periods of ...