Re: [tied] Infixes and their look-alikes

Thanks for the long, detailed, and patient response Jens, which I
appreciate. Sorry to be tedious, but here's another simple question.
You say:
"The four-star prestage must also have had (the prestage of) the
prefix/infix. If we write it as /O/ (meaning consonantal prestage of
later o of this kind), the full word was *O-men-éye-ti (reservations for
the exact shape of the thematic vowel -e/o- and the primary marker -i)."

I thought you were suggesting this /O/ as a kind of prothesis before a
consonant cluster, to aid pronunciation. But here you are suggesting its
existence before the cluster is formed. That may be true (I still like the
idea) but we're still left with questions: under what conditions was it
used? Why is it unlike anything else in the phonology?

Do pardon me if I seem excessively stupid. You have rolled these ideas
around in your head for some time, and I am less practised at it, so when I
try it, they crash into other older ideas that haven't yet learnt to get out
of the way.

Peter