XPost: alt.usage.english   
   From: naddy@mips.inka.de   
      
   On 2024-09-02, Peter Moylan  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.   
      
   Strikingly, Middle English lost final -e and, inconsistenly, -en,   
   which is intimately tied to the collapse of the declension system.   
      
   > 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.   
      
   > 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].   
      
   > 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.   
   --   
   Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy@mips.inka.de   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)