Re: Syncope

--- 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.