From: stlatos
Message: 70113
Date: 2012-10-04
>What phonetic complexity differentiates alacer from alipe:s in terms of a-a remaining or a-a > a-e>i ? To approx. the most important part, why offendimentum = ~knot/band of priest's cap L; not * offendementum ? Words spelled like monumentum \ monimentum are due to -i- being pronounced SOMETHING like a central I/Y (no good symbol to use) before P.
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>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "stlatos" <sean@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Another bad etymology (but agreeing with Sean's opt. sdl. methodology) regards <elementum> as a form of <alimentum>.
> >
> > There's also elicio but elecebra (e:-e-e), and elegans or eligans (that probably (one ex. of) analogy). Opt. changes and doublets aren't forbidden by some Neogrammarian stranglehold.
>
> When vowel-harmony trumps simple weakening, as with <adagium> against <pro:digium>, <alacer> against <alipe:s>, <monumentum> against <regimentum>, etc., we are dealing with phonetic complexity, not "optional changes". Doublets like the less common <monimentum> due to analogy are easily understood. I reject the connection of <e:legans> with <lego:>, which makes no morphological sense. I think <e:legans> means 'lying out' (i.e. 'outstanding') and involves a different root, which is attested in Faliscan.
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> > > The most plausible view is that Roman schoolboys used *elemena 'the LMN's' as we use 'the ABC's', with all syllables but the last accented, since the letter-names were <el>, <em>, <en>.What principle says that "phonetically elegant" words are chosen to exist or survive? Where do all those that aren't "phonetically elegant" come from?
> >
> > There's no reason to think that the one meaning = ABC's was original (actually the opp.), and very unlikely that a random internal set (instead of the first 2-3, as usual) would ever have been so used for the whole.
>
> It is not a "random internal set", but the very heart of the alphabet, and these medial letter-names have comparable phonetic shapes, unlike the initial set <a>, <be>, <ce>. I am not saying that a nt. pl. like *abecea or *abecedea was never used, but *elemena (later <elementa>) was more phonetically elegant, hence more popular, and it won the day.
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