From: dgkilday57
Message: 70120
Date: 2012-10-05
>Did you just P on the monument? Where?
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@> wrote:
> >
> > --- 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.
> >
> 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.
> > > > 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>.The "principle" is fashion, which moves hemlines up and down, makes neckties get wider and narrower, turns bounce houses into bouncy houses, exchanges "changing the battery" for "changing out the battery", etc. Individuals have no control over this thing, and it does not behave predictably. Elegant and inelegant expressions come from the same source, human vocal organs.
> > >
> > > 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.
> >
> What principle says that "phonetically elegant" words are chosen to exist or survive? Where do all those that aren't "phonetically elegant" come from?