Jens:
> Your rules only work if you change the evidence accordingly.
> Why don't you put in a funny vowel /U/ right before the
> accent and say, "The accent lands just before /U/, whereupon
> /U/ is lost".
Sounds like a U-fix rule in the making, doesn't it.
> I put it to you that you are in fact doing something of the
> sort, only with a bigger smokescreen to get us fooled.
Since there is no distinction between the above strategy that
you would like to jest and the O-fix rule as you formulate it,
this is your most intriguing confession yet >:)
Smokescreen. Yes, indeed. If Buddha was correct and reality
really is an illusion, then I guess that my stating the
obvious and building my rules on these conclusions can only
be seen as deception in the end.
QAR doesn't "change the evidence". It doesn't change ANY
evidence. You know well by now that it is based on the most
widespread accent alternations and the way you contort
your words to disqualify it is another form of deception.
A mere *-a can regularize this accent yet you hypocritically
paint it as some kind of "smokescreen" when in reality it
would be impossible to use this same rule on, say, English
to even come close to regularizing its accent. Since it is
unlikely to regularize the accent as it does unless there
isn't an element of truth to this Syncope that we even have
proven exists in other positions, QAR is untouchably sound.
In IE, when accent alternations occur in a paradigm, QAR
explains it. When not, there is nothing to explain because
the paradigm is entirely regular and thus clearly secondary.
The exceptions to QAR are no more damaging to it than the
exceptions to Grimm's Law because the rule already does its
intended job -- to explain as much as possible in one blow.
Now, of the items with alternating accent that QAR cannot
explain, additional corollaries must be created to explain
them which leads to further discovery and further rules
or tweakings.
As one can see, you lack any material objection to my
methodology. What you have an issue with is QAR itself,
so you should stick to what objections you have with it
based on the evidence in general. Yes, from time to time,
I will say that a specific form that you force me to
explain does not apply because the etymon is too recent.
That's why roots like *kwon- are safer. No, we can't
analyse them which is why they are called roots but words
like *wertmn are immediately analysable and are likely
to be more recent because they are clearly not warped by
centuries of changes that obscure its etymology.
One wouldn't expect all derived words in English to be
of antiquity, like "antidisestablishmentarianism". We're
more likely to expect a simple form like "bird" to be
ancient. Due to your perverse reasoning, however, you'd
expect me to not only explain "antidisestablishmentarianism"
in terms of Old English grammar but if I logically can't
do this task with a rule that I've devised then you say
that my rule is invalid even when it explains the majority
of simple, underived forms. That's plain crazy.
> No, if the root was athematic at the outset it would have
> become *bhr-ént-i, not *bhér-o-nt-i.
Ugh, I made an error. It should be *ber-ena because as you
correctly point out, *a would disappear otherwise in the root,
yielding **bHrent. After updating my theories, sometimes
archaicisms creep into my analyses or when I switch
from one stage to another where rules operate a little
differently, it's easy to lose track.
> Again, your analyses are disqualifying the language you
> are trying to attain insight into.
No, rather you're purposely distorting QAR by picking
apart any errors that I might make elsewhere or the
fact that it isn't a TOE (Theory of Everything). I've
already stated what the rule ACTUALLY is and it shouldn't
be brought to task for not explaining everything. So your
rhetoric isn't constructive.
> Ah, do they now? I see that quite differently. They
> introduce too many knowns for your darling theories to
> survive.
You must tame your bloodthirst for my head on a stick.
What you just said here is ludicrous because you want
me to make a rule that will explain all derivations,
regardless of their proper chronology or whether those
derivations even existed during the events prescribed.
This is where the debate and your expectations become
insane.
> It's this way every time I point out blatantly contrasting
> evidence to you; then the forms either did not exist, or
> you cannot handle them for whatever reason. - I admit however
> that I act the same way when you base yourself on the singular
> of the perfect which to me just fails to show mobility where
> I would have expected.
Hmm.
Then perhaps you can resolve this self-contradiction on your
own time and not confront me with it in the future. As I
always continue saying, rules aren't meant to explain
everything. They're meant to explain as much as possible
and yes, there ARE going to be exceptions. You constantly
bring up the mere existence of these exceptions as some
proof that my rules must be a farce. How senseless. I
want my rules to be evaluated for what they are, not
what they aren't.
> Who are you to tell speakers of pre-PIE how they should
> have formed their causatives?
What does this emotive plea have to do with justifying
the use of the O-fix rule here? You continue to speak of
the "O" as a morpheme even though it hasn't been logically
established as such. The "o" appears to be inserted into
morphemes unexpectedly perhaps, but a morpheme? That's
too much to accept considering that it doesn't even act
like a normal IE morpheme, even if it were. So we should
throw the morpheme idea into your other bag of goodies
like double-long vowels, "accent stealing" and such and
chuck it into the large recycling bin where we put away
other non-necessities.
>> [...] so don't you think it is wiser to apply more
>> general rules FIRST before lumping the causative into
>> this?
>
> That's what I did, so the answer is yes, only I did it,
> you didn't.
This is still the matter of the debate. It seems Syncope
is our shared starting point but while I build my theories
sequentially by concluding things built on previous
conclusions, you appear to have a more scattered approach.
QAR for example is built on Syncope, and Acrostatic
Regularization is built on QAR. I fail to see a similar
linearity in your ideas. You have an O-fix rule
dangling over here, a double-long vowel hypothesis
over there, but these are just a bunch of theories that
spontaneously appear with little to do with each other
until you bring them together to maintain your convictions
of a pre-IE replete with freakshow characteristics.
>> Well, it would affect accent in compounds if it were
>> the second element of the word.
>
> Show us how. Accent in compounds is a wasps' nest, so we
> can do with some enlightenment.
Putting aside Acrostatic Regularization, does the second
element of a compound not normally contain accent?
> The root was demonstrably *H1es- with an initial laryngeal.
Absolutely in IE but not necessarily so in pre-IE.
= gLeN