Richard:
>>As I said repeatedly over and over, the "strengthening"
>>occurs in **PARADIGMATIC** alternations! Are compounds extensions of
>>declensional paradigms in your mind?
>
>Yes! We are talking allomorphs here.
Well, last time I checked there is no "compound case". Just
the regular accusative, genitive, ablative, etc. So as far
as I'm concerned, compound words and other derivatives of a
root have little to do with its own declensional paradigm,
no matter what you wish to believe for mere arguement's sake.
The word "doghouse" has nothing to do with the alternation
seen in "dog/dog's", for example.
>Compounds come in three overlapping groups - those you learn
>as a unit and never analyse, those you learn as a unit but later analyse,
>and those you form on the spur of the moment.
Yes, I agree so far. "Goodbye" would be a compound "you
learn as a unit and never analyse", "doghouse" would be
perhaps an example of the second and "giddy-goose" is a
compound I just coined in the heat of the moment.
>The form of a noun you use in the last type of compound is
>effectively another inflectional variation, certainly as much
>as a Latin locative or a vocative. So, if you strengthen a
>bare form for intelligibility, why wouldn't you do so in a
>compound created on the fly?
The question is when the compound in question was created.
An unstrengthened compound might have been created before the
loss of unstressed schwa, or it may have become automatic to
drop *-e- in such compounds as part of a new morphological rule
when creating derivatives during this "post-schwa" stage, or
it may be a new compound with an analogical loss of *-e- based
on surviving older compounds.
However, this is all irrelevant conjecture about some nebulous
theoretical compound whose parameters you've failed to establish,
so let me refocus the discussion...
All I am proposing here are two things, so please tell me where
in the following logical progression you have a problem.
First, zero-grading is the normal result of the loss of
unstressed schwas in Mid IE -- which is pretty much inarguable
since such a theoretical Pre-IE loss of vowel caused by stress
accent appears to be a common-sense conclusion reached by many
IEists.
Second, I theorize that this rule is not without exception
-- which again is not illogical since every rule has an
exception of some kind. A lack of genitives like **pd-os
shows that this exception does exist and that it happens in
paradigmatic alternations. Miguel's Armeno-centric genitive
doesn't make the grade as a true counterexample.
So if this all follows logically, what on earth are you fighting
against exactly, Richard? Are you trying to propose the opposite,
that *-e- was inserted artificially in genitive *pedos somehow?
(If so, by what rules?)
- gLeN
_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus