Brian:
> I am not yet competent to deal with the main argument, so I
> am content merely to follow it. I do, however, have some
> respect for the facts, even when they are incidental.
Alright, Brian, I apologize for misunderstanding where
you're coming from, but I'm serious when I say that
I-umlaut is very incidental to the topic now.
The _original_ topic was about how a word, a new word,
can adopt an old process like ablaut even long after this
ablaut process was created in the language. Jens seemed
to be insisting that IE words which show quantitative
ablaut (an alternation of *e/*o with null, for example)
must predate Syncope. Afterall, if the vowel disappears
in the word when the accent alternates, it MUST predate
Syncope (the systematic loss of unstressed vowels),
right?
Wrong.
I countered with an example like mouse/mice.
And yes, I know what you're saying and, yes dagnit, I
agree so stop assuming I'm not. But the point is that
the alternation of the vowel in this word has absolutely
nothing to do with IE quantitative ablaut. It is, as
you say, a phenomenon specific to a later stage within
Germanic and English.
My point was that, without knowing Germanic or IE, a person
will mistakingly lump this vowel alternation together with
all other vowel alternations and assume FALSELY that the
word alternated like this in IE: *mu:hs "a mouse" vs
*muhses "many meeses". The only alternation in IE would be
a length contrast, not a vowel change.
We can agree that this umlaut and Quantitative Ablaut
should not be confused, don't we? I hope so. They're two
related but different rules. So why is it that I'm attacked
for saying that Quantitative Ablaut of Reconstructed IE as
we know it is not to be confused with Quantitative Ablaut
in an earlier stage of MIE. The arguement is identical.
Processes evolve over time. Don't you agree?
Perhaps I should call MIE's Quantitative Ablaut
"Reductionary Ablaut" so people can absorb this better.
I don't know.
This is why I'm dismayed by the amazing amount of
misunderstanding here. This is simple stuff but it seems
that people on this forum are more concerned on attacking
my character, my supposed "inability to learn" (Jens), my
"loaded words" (you), etc than they are in actually
listening just for a second to what I'm _actually_ saying
rather than a faulty paraphrase. I'm not saying I have
all the facts but it would be unfair to say that I don't
have any facts straight. Give me credit.
= gLeN
pax