Jens:
> But the paradigm types are parallel already. And they are
> parallel if you add a vowel, or two, or none.
Not exactly. The added vowel puts the accent on the same
penult syllable, whereby they become EXACTLY the same
pattern. Without Syncope, accentuation is not regular
or predictable. There's no apparent reason why some
nouns have accent on the first syllable and others on
the second.
A parallel situation occurs in English where accent isn't
predictable, but it was in Germanic.
= gLeN