> From: Miguel Carrasquer [mailto:mcv@...]
> The rule as I gave it was:
>...
We seem to be starting a second round. During the first round, you
formulated the rule, part of it being *-(i)ái > -ì (in nouns and adjectives
except -ijo-contraction under stress and later analogy in nouns). I asked
why we find *-ái > -ai~ (not -ì) in verbs then (sakai~, not +sakì); and why
would unstressed contraction -- while yielding a *long* vowel (unstressed
-ys still exists in dialects and is attested in Old Lithuanian) -- have
yielded not circuflex, but acute (unlike *-ja:-stems). You ignored the first
rebuttal and reported the same rule one more time with one minor correction
(probably to account for the second rebuttal): now didelì is accounted for
not as "-soft B -ijaì > -jaì (heavy stressed root) *-ijo- : dìdelis ->
didelì" , but as "-yoy > -iaí > -íe" (so it seems stress doesn't play the
role and dìdelis is classified as an *-jo- -- rather than *-ijo-stem now).
If your answer to the first rebuttal is "ái *can* yield íe", that doesn't
solve the problem since one feels the need of an exact rule: under what
conditions "uncontracted" -ái yields -íe (pronouns, adjectives, nouns (as
per your theory-- later analogically replaced)), and under what conditions
-- -ai~ (eg., verbs).
Sergei