Table 3 . 1 lists a number of diachronic phonological rules that apply to Later North-West Germanic words of about 400 A. D. to derive corresponding Old
Frisian words of about 1 200 A.D. The rule numbering used by Voyles92 is retained. The numbering in the table may not be sequential as only the rules that are actually used in the example have been given. Each rule label is followed by the corresponding rule's number, its name as given by Voyles92, and then the statement of the actual rule. In the occasional event when no
rule in Voyles92 was found to account for a change that was found necessary, a tentative one was created as a stop-gap measure. Such rules are designated with lower-case labels (a, b, c, etc.). The table is only intended as a rough guide. See Volyes92 for a more comprehensive discussion of each.
Label No. Name Rule
A 7. 1 . 1 d t o d d -+ d
D 7. 1 .4 a to 6 [ii +str] -+ o
E 7. 1 .5 z-dele z -+ 0 /_##
G 7. 1 . 7 a to e [a +str] -+ e /closed syllable
H1 7 . 1 . 8 ai/ au change ai ,au -t�,O /open syllable
H2 7. 1 . 8 ai/au change re,o � .ii.; a � e /_Ci(: ) . ji closed syllable
H3 7. 1 .8 ai/ au change ai --+ �/closed syllable
H4 7. 1 . 8 ai/ au change Z-+ a I _x,p,b,m or w H5 7. 1 . 8 ai/ au change £ -+ e
I1 7. 1 . 9 i/j umlaut [V +str+low] -+ [-bk,-low] /_Ci(:) ,j
12 7. 1 . 9 i/j umlaut [V +str] -+ [-bk, -low] / _Ci( : }, j
13 7. 1 . 9 i/j umlaut a(:},o(: } ,u(:) -+ e (<}, e (<}, i(: ) / _Ci(: } , j
14 7. 1 . 9 i/j umlaut a( : ) , o(l),u(: ) -+ e, E /_Ci(:} ,j
J 7. 1 . 10 Palatalization k -+ c, g -+ j /##_[V,-bk]
L 7. 1 . 12 U nstr.short . V dele [V -long -str -nasal] -+ 0 /C L_-high]## N 7. 1 . 14 Unstr.V short [V +long -str -nasal] -+ [-long] / _##
R
7. 1 . 18 Obstr. Voi/Devoi [C + obs +cant] -+ [-voi] /_[-voi or ##] y 7. 1 .25 n-dele opt. n -+ 0 /[V -str)_##z 7 . 1 .26 r-metathesis r [V +str] -+ [V +str) r /C _[C +coronal or xCJ a - (ad hoc - 1 ) [ a +str) -+ e /open syllable
b - (ad hoc - 2) 0 -+ ii /_##
c - (ad hoc - 3) i>-+ f
d - (ad hoc - 4) j -+ i
Table 3. 1 : Diachronic rules for converting * LNWG � OF.
The rules in Table 3.1 were used to derive OF forms for about 20 *LNWG words. The * LNWG and OF words, with their English translation, and the
sequence of rules deriving each OF word from the corresponding *LNWG word is given in Table 3.2. Initially, it was assumed that the derivations were more likely to be correct if the words chosen were from the Swadesh basic vocabulary list for the languages. However, it was pointed out by Dr Peter Christian of Goldsmith's College, London, who reviewed this work before its publication
in Raman and Patrick (1997c) that whether or not the words come from the
S wadesh list is irrelevant. What the Swadesh list guarantees is only that the words in it are less likely to be semantically different from their cognates. The method described here only needs a list of words in one language and their cognates in another, regardless of their semantic differentiation. For instance, if the word "dog" was part of Swadesh's basic vocabulary, the pair of words
dog and hund which are not cognates, would be listed for English and German.
However, since semantic agreement is irrelevant to this work, we could use the
pair hound and hund instead which are indeed cognates. Thus they would
have a common ancestor in a protolanguage from which we can trace their development.
The sequences of diachronic rules that are applied to the *LNWG words to transform them into OF words are given in the column labeled Path in Table 3.2. Colons separate the individual rules in each sequence. A colon by itself indicates that no diachronic rule was applied to derive the final form from the initial. Obviously, the order of application of rules is significant in the determination of the paths. The order set out in Voyles92 has been followed wherever possible. Where such an order was not specified, the rules are applied in the order they appeared in the work.
A Probabilistic Finite State Automaton (PFSA) derived from the above
data is given in Figure 3 . 1 . It can be interpreted as a graphical representation of the evolution of words in OF from *LNWG. The labels on the arcs indicate the rules that were applied in transiting from one state to another. Their frequencies are indicated in superscript font above the symbol, except when there is more than one symbol on an arc, in which case the frequencies are denoted by the superscript marker " ' " . Exclamation marks ( "!" ) indicate arcs
No. English *LNWG OF Path
1 father fad-der fed er A :a:
2 moon me no mona D :b:Y:N:
3 stone stainaz sten E:H1:L: H2:
4 staff stab stef G :c:
5 field akker ekker G :
6 lamb lamb lamb
7 night naxt naxt
8 apple appel appel
9 bone bain ben H3:H2:
10 tree baum barn H 1 :H2:
1 1 bed badja bed ll :d:L:L:
12 gap klufti kleft I2:I3:I4:L:
13 skin hudi hed I2:I3:I4:L:
14 power maxti maxt L:
15 day daga dei J:L:G :d:
16 guest j esti jest L:
17 word wordu word L:
18 brother bro9er brOd-er R:
19 man man man
20 grass §res gers Z:
Table 3.2: The sequences of diachronic rules to derive 20 words from *LNWG to OF.
on delimiter symbols to state 0 from the state they superscript.