ABSTRACT
Change of a phonological rule into a morphological regularity through the loss of an originally present phonetic motivational factor. Thus, the plural formation by umlaut (foot: feet), which was originally conditioned by an -i-in the following syllable (ProtoGermanic *fotiz), became productive in German, after this conditioning factor had been lost and the umlaut came to be directly connected with the category of plural (e.g. Hand-Hände ‘handhands’); in English, umlaut was not morphologized; there remained only a few isolated cases (see above and, e.g. mouse: mice).
