You signed in with another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session.You signed out in another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session.You switched accounts on another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session.Dismiss alert
Hroðgar of r/OldEnglish has aggregated results of various letter-combination searches on the Toronto OE corpus. Using these results we can discuss the patterns of occurrence of dental fricatives in Old English.
On the total occurrence of dental fricatives:
Position in Word
þ (% of total /θ/)
ð
Initially
75%
25%
Medially
15%
85%
Finally
31%
69%
Total
55%
45%
so þ dominates initially, ð elsewhere (especially medially)
even between different word classes, the ratios seem to be the same
On the occurrence of each individual grapheme:
Position in Word
þ (% of total <þ>)
ð (% of total <ð>)
Initially
83%
34%
Medially
5%
33%
Finally
12%
33%
þ mostly initially
ð evenly spread
Other observations:
geminates (doubled) tend to be ðð (71%). They're all medial or final.
consonant clusters tend to have ð
Food for Thought
This data was based on all Old English sources and it may be return different results depending on the year the text was written, the writer, and the area the text was written in. We can't say these are hard rules for Old English because the findings are based on all Old English texts regardless of writer, date, and region.
We propose a couple of points that we would love to have tested in the future:
• Did different time periods have different preferences?
• Did different areas have different preferences?
• Did different scribes have different preferences?
• What would we find if we did an analysis on individual words or word classes and the occurrence of either letter?
• What would we find if we did an analysis on how recopying texts effected the occurrence of either letter?
Hroðgar of r/OldEnglish has aggregated results of various letter-combination searches on the Toronto OE corpus. Using these results we can discuss the patterns of occurrence of dental fricatives in Old English.
On the total occurrence of dental fricatives:
On the occurrence of each individual grapheme:
Other observations:
Food for Thought
This data was based on all Old English sources and it may be return different results depending on the year the text was written, the writer, and the area the text was written in. We can't say these are hard rules for Old English because the findings are based on all Old English texts regardless of writer, date, and region.
We propose a couple of points that we would love to have tested in the future:
• Did different time periods have different preferences?
• Did different areas have different preferences?
• Did different scribes have different preferences?
• What would we find if we did an analysis on individual words or word classes and the occurrence of either letter?
• What would we find if we did an analysis on how recopying texts effected the occurrence of either letter?
Thanks to @fadiend for putting Hroðgar's data into a more readable format.
Hroðgar's original post
The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered: