marketer vs marketeer

[trochee]

_dkg_ asked me: this fairly irrelevant language question just popped into my head, and yer the only person i could think of who might have an interesting (and possibly valid!) take on it. here's the question, put vaguely: what's the difference between using an 'er' suffix as opposed to an 'eer' suffix?

Comments

[alice_ayers]

I don't know if this is something you're looking for or is just too obvious but words like privateer and marketeer always seems to have an inherent throwback quality to me, like calling a funny woman a comedienne.

[trochee]

it does seem like this is no longer a productive affix. _dkg_ isn't a codeer (or a computeer, although I like that latter word, see below) maybe because it's not a suffix you can add to make new compounds.

Is that your cat in the picture?

[alice_ayers]

yes, that's sophie! she's had a hard summer so it's all about her. her brother sam lives with me too.

my roomate takes photos so there are better photo shere

[trochee]

aww... you're all three cute! (I can't see fairymelusine in the pictures, or I'd probably say four.)

Expect a book in the mail in the next day or two!

[xaosenkosmos]

Phonotactics, in the thirty seconds i have free this morning: non-low round vowels before root-final nasals?

Transcriptions would be killer for the lazy armchair linguists(-in-training) =)

[trochee]

"nasals"? Maybe alveolars... for example, musketeer, pulpiteer both use non-nasals. Which words would you like transcribed?

You've given me a thought there: seems like the generalization is (usually) poly-syllabic, and always ending with an alveolar stop (t,d,n). In -er2 it's not so clear (draper, plumber). And there's a phonotactic plausibility to retaining the high-front vowel (/ir/) when following an (high front) alveolar (t,d,n).

There are still a few oddballs: muleteer, for example, seems to insert the t.

[xaosenkosmos]

-er vs -teer underlying phonemes, maybe?

Not having free time to play with things is teh suck.