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| [Serious Announcer] | We join the Fools on the Steps. |
| [Silly Announcer] | Why, are they coming apart? Hee, hee,... |
| [Serious Announcer] | Shudup Fool! The steps be very crowded, so unfortunately, we sometimes miss parts of conversations, and it be nearing time to think about food... |
| [Battel] | Why be there so many chess players on the Steps today? |
| [Babbel] | Well, the Duke did allow a group of chess playing fanatics to gather each day in his lobby, and they would of course, brag about their greatest victories. But he did bar the group from the lobby because he just could no longer stand to listen to... |
| [Lady Lucrativa] | ...a band of chess nuts boasting by an open foyer! |
| [Battel] | Want a game of cards? |
| [Lady de KupKake] | The fastest four-handed game in the world is when it slips out.... |
| [Battel] | Where have YOU two been? |
| [Bottel] | We hath just joined the Fire Watch to protect the Cathedral.... |
| [Battel] | But you don't have any experience PUTTING OUT fires... |
| [Quibbel] | Well, if we can put not the fire out, we shall stay until it goes out! |
| [Lady Tanglwyt] | ...and so of course, since I thought nipples were Oriental children... |
| [Babbel] | I think I will have a "prince" sandwich... |
| [Bottel] | ...formerly known as baloney! |
| [Quibbel] | And just who got into trouble for freezing flavoured holy water and selling the product as "Popesicles" |
| [Bottel] | Now be not like that... |
| [Babbel] | ...theorized that the juxtaposition of the first diphthong in a compound like "Rauthulfr" with the second part of the compound would tend to detach the closing consonant of the first compound and attach it to the second, since the metrics of such compounds frequently requires closed-syllable-heavy stress on the second compound element and the only way the syllable can be closed is by assimilation of the final consonant; this assimilation would, then, result in the first vowel being elongated to a diphthong. What do you think? |
| [Battel] | What! Ahhhh, a leg of chicken will be fine! |
| [Lady Tanglwyt] | ...but you said the edth occur not until after the twelfth century... |
| [Lady De KupKake] | ...but it become not prevalent until the 14th... |
| [Lady Tanglwyt] | ...both nominative case endings, and as such are the same... |
| [Babbel] | I knew that, but most people use standardized orthography... |
| [Lady De KupKake] | Of course they be all nominative case endings. |
| [Quibbel] | ...and as such are the same... |
| [Lady Tanglwyt] | ...as opposed to the old practice of subsuming the ending... |
| [Babbel] | Without attempting to argue the finer points of this, it may be the case that such compounds are hyphenatable because there is a vowel remaining between the compounded elements... |
| [Battel] | I know not. Perhaps a pie... |
| [Babbel] | ...dissents on post-consonantal PIE ... |
| [Quibbel] | ...you prefer apple or berries? |
| [Babbel] | ... resonants like -r, but looking at the extant verse (particularly from Icelandic sources) it seems that the orthography from the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries supports contention for... |
| [Lady Tanglwyt] | ...but, at least in this instance, the first vowel is dropped... |
| [Quibbel] | Sorry, shall I pick it up? |
| [Lady De KupKake] | Does that not imply that the enclitic is syllabic? |
| [Babbel] | ...evidence is mostly late and highly contaminated... |
| [Battel] | ...get a fresh one... |
| [Babbel] | In ON, OS, OHG, and OE the Germanic liquid dentals (l,r), when coupled with a parasite vowel, seem to show evolution toward schwa, which is why you orthographically see forms like -ir, -er, -ur, etc... |
| [Lady Tanglwyt] | I be not entirely certain I follow your notation.... |
| [Lady Lucrativa] | By "z" do you mean the Gmc *gu (with "." superscripted over "g" and "^" subscripted beneath the "u") > OI u? |
| [Babbel] | The -ir morpheme has to have a parasitic vowel, since otherwise the inflection is indistinguishable from the stem... |
| [Quibbel] | ...just spit them out... |
| [Battel] | No! get a fresh one... |
| [Lady Tanglwyt] | ...while I agree with the general trend of your argument, the specific case be how we deal with the verse evidence: when scansion into one of the metric forms described by Snorri requires heavy-closed-syllable stress, be this purely a metrical phenomenon or does it reflect something about the general syllabification ... |
| [Battel] | No Syllabub, for me, just wine please! |
| [Lady Tanglwyt] | ...would have a rather long compound liquid diphthong... |
| [Babbel] | I know not if this addresses what you were saying since I really know not what you were talking about. |
| [Battel] | Why does that not surprise me?! |
| [Lady De KupKake] | ...rules for crasis, and its friends being a totally different kettle of fish in verse... |
| [Bottel] | Too cryptic an aside, I suppose. |
| [Babbel] | I am afraid that technically approaching your question be rather beyond my training, or rather, my linguistic understanding. What I have attempted is more of a structural analysis of the name, rather than a study of phonetic shifts. I suspect that a phonetic analysis be what be needed, but I have no idea how to... |
| [Lady Tanglwyt] | ...a small point perhaps... |
The Fool's Troupe Scribed by Robin the Ruthless in Battel
With Apologies to Raup+zlf+, er, um, Rau<eth>-úlf-r, no, that should be
(What we have here is actually a case of the text editor gone amok)
Rau<lowercase eth>+<lowercase u with acute accent>lf+r.
"Mirth Control: Proper use of a conundrum."
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