Jonathan B. Himes. The Old English Epic of Waldere

Abstract

with silent . It is unlikely that the written form of these words had anything to do with this, as most speakers of English would have been illiterate. But the fact that there was a significant number of Romance words with non-silent may well have contributed to the interpretation of as unambiguously consonantal (if pronounced at all). To sum up, the present volume is highly recommended to anyone researching phenomena of weakening in English or investigating this topic from a phonetic or theoretical perspective. The papers address a range of phenomena and combine fine-grained analyses with detailed and large collections of data, providing reliable information on specific issues and starting points for further investigation.