Jens:
> Reduction and zero are stages in the same process.
Yes and no. After syncope, zero was naturally incorporated
into a preexisting quantitative ablaut that already involved
a simple reduction of vocalic length. (This is why _stress_
makes the most sense for the accent of MIE because a
large-scale vowel reduction in an unaccented syllable is
unlikely in a tonal language.) Before this, short vowels
only alternated with their "reduced" but not zeroed
allophones. This evolution of ablaut kept on going and
going like the Energizer bunny on amphetamines.
In fact, Old English cu/cy "cow(s)" and Modern English
mouse/mice clearly demonstrate how far the rules of ablaut
had changed and even adapted to _new_ words, btw. So your
disagreement with my idea of more recent "postAblaut" words
like *wertmn appearing deceptively to follow ablaut is in
fact stubbornly contrary to what we find. It does happen.
We need to be aware. We can't assume that every stem and
root in IE extends to the far reaches of Nostratic just
by first glance.
> Its stages have not been the issue here. It matters in my
> old account of nominative segments like *´-mo:n from
> unaccented *´-men-s which is first reduced to (something
> like)*´-mon-s and only then lengthened to (something like)
> *´-mo:ns, when IE (something like) *´-mo:n.
"Something like" doesn't sound reassuring.
First, Szemerenyi Lengthening occurs in early Late IE during
Syncope. It is caused by the unexpected desyllabification
of nominative *-s' to *-s. The expected pattern is that,
being a monosyllabic suffix, it should resist Syncope
(ie: Suffix Resistance). The lost length is compensated
for by migrating to the preceding vowel. Unexpected clipping
occurs for nominative *-s, 3ps *-t, inanimate *-d and *-x
but Szemerenyi Lengthening only occurs with spirant suffixes.
Szemerenyi precedes Vowel Shift (ie: *a > *o) and certainly
precedes the irregular loss of *-s after *n-final stems.
This is because Szemerenyi, which doesn't APPEAR to occur
in thematic stems actually does apply in eLIE where
phonotactics would disallow the clustering. This explains
the large number of thematic stems despite Syncope. A stem
like postSyncope eLIE *mark&- "horse" (> *marko-) or any
stem with similar CVCCV structure shows how this works:
MIE *marka-sa (nominative)
eLIE *mark's'
Szemerenyi *mark&s' (to avoid **-rks)
Syncope *mark&s
IE *markos
So now that we've replaced a "something-like" theory
with a more organized list of rules in a clear chronological
order, we can get to work on *-mo:ns.
Derivational Thematization is also an important grammatical
rule in Late IE. Inanimate suffixes are infused with the schwa
to produce animatized variants. This explains easily how the
feminine in *-ex (< *-&x) derives from the inanimate collective
in *-x and suggests that the so-called feminine ending was
first used to denote a group of living things before being
applied strictly to femininity... and hence more confirmation
that the masculine-feminine-neuter system derives from an
earlier animate-inanimate system if the classic points about
Anatolian and agricola isn't evidence enough for you.
So *-mon- < *-m&n- is an animate variant of *-mn. This new
suffix had developped in the middle of the Late IE period.
The lengthening was later applied to the suffix by analogy,
eventually producing *-mo:n in the nominative. Yes, again,
the fact that a word operates under a certain process
doesn't mean that the word dates to then and that it isn't
caused by analogy, lest I need to bring up OEng /cy/ again.
In all, the following development is:
MIE *-m-an (inanimate suffix)
eLIE *-m'n
Syncope *-mn
Thematization *-mn (inanimate) => *-m&n-s (animate)
Schwa Diffusion *-mn / *-m&:ns
Vowel Shift *-mn / *-mons => *-mo:ns (analogy)
Nominative Loss *-mn / *-mo:n
Tada! Note also that *-mn (and subsquently the derivative
*-mon-) are not affected by Rhotacization of *-n in MIE
because of assimilation with preceding *m.
= gLeN