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Part of
Romance Linguistics 2012: Selected papers from the 42nd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Cedar City, Utah, 20-22 April 2012
Edited by Jason Smith and Tabea Ihsane
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 7] 2015
► pp. 133–144

The adaptation of /h/ in Old French loanwords

A tale of love and ‘ate

Contact between Old French and three /h/-bearing varieties of Germanic (i.e. Frankish, Old East Scandinavian, Middle Dutch) transpired in present-day Normandy and Belgium from the early 8th to the late 14th century. During this period, an influx of Germanic loanwords entered Old French, restoring phonemic /h/. In this study, we assemble an exhaustive dataset of Old East Scandinavian and Middle Dutch loans containing /h/, track the different adaptation strategies into Old French and examine them in terms of current models of loanword phonology.
Published online: 28 August 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.7.09dal
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