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This assimilatory change was regular, i.e., every accented long o followed by an i in the following syllable automatically developed to long ö; hence tothi "teeth" became töthi, fodian "to feed" became födian. At first there is no doubt the alternation between o and ö was not felt as intrinsically significant.
Later on the quality of the ö vowel must have departed widely enough from that of o to enable ö to rise in consciousness as a neatly distinct vowel. As soon as this happened, the expression of plurality in föti, töthi, and analogous words became symbolic and fusional, not merely fusional. In musi "mice" the long u was colored by the following i to long ü.
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