A very special word of Old English

Old English exemplifies a number of rounds of deletion of the high vowels, some of which have been traditionally described as the result of both syncope and apocope, or a combination of these, dependent on syllable weight. In this paper, high vowel deletion (or syncope) and high vowel apocope are both analysed as the result of templatic deletion of *i/u of pre-Old English: the two vowels were deleted if they failed to attach to a CVCV template (word < *wordu ‘words’ vs scipu < *skipu ‘ships’, firen < firenu ‘crimes’ vs nītenu < nītinu ‘animals’). The analysis is couched in CV phonology. One of the words that opens up a window onto this period of Old English is the neuter plural nom/acc hēafudu. The sequence of two high vowels separated by a C (*iCi, *iCu, *uCu, *uCi) seem to have constituted a special phonological environment in which syncopation was suspended. It also seems the dative plural -um could not have contained a high back vowel at the time when syncopation was banned in high V + C + high vowel sequences.