Re: Syncope

From: Richard Wordingham
Message: 31544
Date: 2004-03-25

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen <jer@...>
wrote:

> I don't see how a suffix can begin ablauting after ablaut is over
and
> there were no examples of the suffix that were ever hit by the
ablaut.
> Where would it get its allomorphs from? Would people begin spicing
up
> *-men- with a variant *-mn.- just because the roots had full-grade
and
> zero-grade alternants? That's one of the things I believe we can
quietly
> forget.

What if it were felt as a two-root compound? Ablaut spreads to new
words, e.g. the strong preterite _arrove_ of the French loanword
_arrive_ in English or the completely strong conjugation of English
_strive_ from Old French _estriver_.

Richard.