Re: homo(phones/graphs/nyms)

iwantlambert_at_yahoo.com
Date: 11/19/04 

Date: 18 Nov 2004 17:07:24 -0800

"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message news:<419C2034.5B08@worldnet.att.net>...
> iwantlambert@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> > > > > There are other quite irregular spellings in English, e.g. the words
> > > > > containing "ough".
> > > >
> > > > They are not irregular; their backgrounds are complicated.
> >
> > Ah, it's like saying a criminal isn't a criminal when he had a
> > "difficult childhood". It may be a reason, but not an excuse.
> > >
> > > Are they regular in one or more other Germanic languages?
> >
> > Well, they have difficult backgrounds, but their cognates are as
> > regular as the spelling of other words in those languages (i.e. quite
> > regular in Dutch and the scandinavian languages, slightly less so in
> > German (but still more regular compared to English)). The "gh" as a
> > spelling convention stems from Middle-English, where it's used for
> > [x].
> > In the following examples (...) means that it's akin to, but not the
> > same word as ... and - means that i couldn't find anything related. I
> > think the Dutch and German list of cognates are more or less complete,
> > the scandinavian examples are a quick scan of the dictionary.
> >
> > ought, bough, bought, borough, brought, cough, dough, drought, enough,
> > fought, nought, plough, rough, sough, sought, tough, though, thought,
> > through, wrought.
> >
> > Dutch: (eigen), -, -, burg/(burcht), bracht, kuchen, deeg, droogte,
> > genoeg, vocht, (niet), ploeg, ruw/ruig/rauw, zwoegen(?), taai,
> > doch/toch, gedachte/dacht, door, gewrocht/wrocht/werkte. All of these
> > are regular, although "kuchen" most speakers nowadays wouldn't
> > pronounce any different from (non-existent) "kuggen".
> >
> > German: (eigen), Bug, -, Burg, bracht, -, Teig, (trocken), genug,
> > focht, (nicht), Pflug, rauh/roh, -, suchte, zäh, jedoch, dacht, durch,
> > werkte. All of these regular.
> >
> > Scandinavian (O=Old-Norse, N=Norwegian, D=Danish,
> > E=English-of-old-norse-origin): áttaO/(eieN/egenD), -, -, borgOND,
> > braktaN/bragteD, -, -, -, nokND, -, -, -, -, -, sóttiO/søgteD, -,
> > thóO/dogND/thoughE, (thóttiO)/(tenkteN), -, -.
> > Old-Norse spelling is more or less regular (though not standardized at
> > the time ofcourse); Norwegian and Danish are not quite as regularly
> > spelled, but in this listing only Danish "egen" [aj?n] is irregular
> > (but there are more examples of <eg> for [aj], e.g. "jeg" [jaj]).
> >
> > i hope this answers your questions somewhat, greetings, erik
>
> It would have been helpful if you'd separated the English words into
> groups pronounced alike, and ranged the cognates in columns alongside.
> then Ranjit (and everyone else) could see at a glance whether there are
> regular correspondences.

You want to do the whole etymology-part for yourself? I have some
faith in work done by others. There are no regular correspondences,
that's the whole point. I.e. there are regular correspondences, but
not for all of -ough as a whole. This is clear even when you look at
the Old-English origins. But even clearer if you look at the cognates
in the other languages. It's got nothing to do with spelling.
I just gave a list of cognates so you can check for yourselves if they
are spelled irregularly. If you don't trust the etymology that's your
problem.
But i might have been a bit optimistic on spelling as well: nok vs dog
bothers me a bit, any scandinavians following this discussion?

The thing is, the germanic languages had already grown apart in
separate languages (or dialects iof you like) before the introduction
of writing. Even the oldest extant runic inscriptions show clear
differences between languages and/or dialects, so whether or not a
word is cognate to a word in another language has little to do with
spelling.

I agree columns would have been more useful if there would have been
something to compare. OK here's two columns then:

Dutch English
acht eight
bracht brought
dacht thought
dracht* (draw) means "way of dressing, costume"
gracht* (grave) means "canal"
jacht* - English yacht stems from Dutch or
Low-German
klacht* - means "complaint"
kracht - means "power, strength"
lacht* laughs
macht* might (as a noun)
nacht night
pacht* - means "rent paid for a building or piece of
land"
placht* - means "used to"
pracht - means "splendour, magnificence, beauty"
schacht* shaft
slacht* (slaughter)
smacht - means "longs for"
tracht - means "tries"
vacht - means "fleece, fur"
vracht freight
wacht - means either "waits" or as a noun "watch,
guard"
zacht* soft

The Dutch words marked with an * are either part of a regular paradigm
(e.g. "lacht" is 3d person singular present tense (-t) of the verb
"lachen", excluding verbs where t is part of the stem) or the
combination -acht is due to processes that belong to the independent
history of Dutch (or continental west-germanic) such as:
Vft > Vxt , hence Dutch gracht, schacht, zacht
klacht and jacht are verbal nouns to klagen (complain) and jagen
(chase, hunt)

All of these Dutch words are rhyming as are words on -agt (a much
smaller category, and mostly consisting of 3d singular verb forms to
verbs like plaggen or raggen, which regularly add a g in an open
syllable).

Looking for all words on -ough and their cognates is of little use in
a discussion concerning spelling, that's all i wanted to make clear.

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