Jens:
> Your Syncope *is* quantitative ablaut under a partly new name.
> Surely *-mn cannot be generated before the process that led to zero-
> grade had occurred.
Whoops, one more thing that I notice with your response.
Quantitative ablaut can certainly occur before Syncope but
we'd be speaking of *-m'n versus *-men and of "reduced"
syllables rather than "zeroed".
So again, Syncope and Ablaut are two different concepts with
two different timeframes. The timeframe of quantitative
ablaut, conceivably stretching a millenium, is much larger
than the more momentary timeframe of Syncope.
= gLeN